SHOULD YOU HAVE KIDS?

The anwer is, "Yes! Yes! A thousand times YES!!!" Here are the reasons:

1) KIDS ARE CUTE: I mean REALLY cute. OK, so kittens and cute too and they're admittedly a lot easier to take care of, but consider this: a kitten stays cute for a few months. A kid stays cute for 13 years! If you had two kids spaced four years apart thats 17 years of non-stop extreme cuteness!

The picture above is from a sketchbook of drawings I did of my daughter when she was 12 yrs. old (she's older now, away at college) The reason I include these sketches is because I want to show you what it was like to be with her while we waited for our food in a fast food restaurant. This wasn't a special event, we were just waiting for our burgers to come up. Look how eager, idealistic and playful she is, how happy she is to be alive...just like your kid would be. I probably saw her act this way a half dozen times on the same day. It's interesting to think that something really terrible may have happened to me that day but this is what my mind chose to remember, just the simple pleasure of waiting for food with my kid.

Face it, you're biologically hot-wired to like what kids have to offer. Why deny yourself the intense pleasure that nature planned for you, a pleasure that feels so right when you finally commit to it?

2) KIDS ARE NATURALLY WELL-BEHAVED: it's true! The kids you see throwing tantrums in the mall aren't doing what your kids would do. They yell like that because their parents won't answer them unless they yell. You wouldn't do that would you?

I used to hate kids. In a way I still do. But you won't hate your own kids, I guarantee it. Your kid may be normal and unexciting in the eyes of strangers but for you, with the wonderful blinders that nature provides, they're endlessly fascinating. Endlessly! It's all you can do to take your eyes off them!

3) KIDS ARE CHEAP TO RAISE WHEN THEY'RE YOUNG...as long as they're healthy, which they usually are.

4) KIDS ARE PROFOUND: or at least they're good at provoking your own deep thoughts. If you haven't had kids you can't begin to understand why society is the way it is, why events in history happened the way they did.

5) IT'S SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE: the depopulation movement had the unintended consequence of removing a large number of intelligent, socially responsible people from the gene pool. The world of the future is going to need every person of character or intelligence it can get. My hunch is that they'll be plenty glad to get them.

The downside? Brace yourself, it's big. The downside is that you'll suffer the worst moments of anguish you'll ever experience as you worry about how to get the money to raise your kids safely and well. Good jobs may be hard to get. You may have to raise your kids in a bad neighborhood. It's very scarey. But consider this...

Human beings weren't made to be yuppies. We're the same species that fended off sabertooth tigers in the shadows of glaciers, that took up pitchforks against Vikings. Somewhere within us we have the guts to tough it out. It's in our DNA. It's what we're built for! I like the old saying,"A harbor is a safe place for ships but ships weren't made to rest in harbors."

What do you think?