Pro: Having kids feels right for me. It’s the most profound act of love that my beautiful partner and I could undertake.
Con: I need a partner to have kids. How do I find one? Do I have to leave my apartment? That sounds awful.
Pro: The city is opening back up—it’s time to date. Wanting kids will give me extra motivation to go out and woo. And I’ve heard that baby-making sex is mind-blowing!
Con: But, once I have kids, my wife and I will never get to enjoy each other, because my kid will cry nonstop for a thousand days.
Pro: Those cries will be nothing compared with the joy of watching my child develop language, reasoning, moral awareness, and an innocent delight in puppies and ice cream and the way the sun dances at dawn and brings warmth and life into an otherwise cold, indifferent universe.
Con: Overpopulation?
Pro: My smart, morally aware kid will fight against overpopulation.
Con: That sounds like a bullshit rationalization that an élitist liberal would use in an overwrought think piece.
Pro: My genius kid will eat overwrought think pieces for breakfast!
Con: Yeah, totally. She’ll read tons of think pieces when she’s three years old, in between bouts of sneezing in my face and screaming “Daddy, I hate you!” because I won’t let her ride me like a pack mule for more than two hours on nature hikes.
Pro: Hey, Mr. Sarcasm, weighted nature hikes are an incredible workout. And parenting a helpless child who demands my full attention would be a beautiful commitment to unselfish love.
Con: I am a selfish monster who would rather spend my evening peacefully eating chicken wings while watching the sci-fi cult classic “Moon,” starring Sam Rockwell, than caring for a needy, weird flesh-bundle who communicates by shrieking.
Pro: Fun fact—those shrieks are actually my conscience telling me it’s time to step up for others. That’s how we grow!
Con: “How we grow”? Puke. Once my kid grows up, imagine looking her in the eye and saying, “You’re basically my personal, experimental self-help project.”
Pro: But imagine my kid’s reaction to that statement! It would be so interesting and would make for a hell of a chapter in my memoir.
Con: So, if I have a kid, I have to write a memoir? Way to pile on the huge commitments, idiot.
Pro: My pleasure! Memoirs are super-fun to write when you’re in your sixties or seventies and you have a great adult kid who injects that creative, youthful energy into your life!
Con: Sure, my adult kid will “inject a lot of energy” into my life when she’s not riding on her stoner boyfriend’s extremely unsafe moped to her next improv rehearsal where she runs around on stage pretending to be a T. rex. Because she’s an unemployed actor still living on my dime!
Pro: That’s why kids need guidance. I can teach my kid to avoid all the boneheaded mistakes I’ve made in life, like not focussing my creative energy, spending time with people who made me miserable, and reducing my major decisions to confusing pro-con lists.
Con: Yes, let’s talk mistakes. What if I straight up don’t like my kid? Then I’ll have to teach my kid that having kids was my biggest mistake—which, although not out of the question, would probably strain our relationship.
Pro: Come on! That’ll never happen. I’ll bet a thousand bucks that my kid will be an amazing human, and we’ll have so much to talk about. I’m sure that she’ll take after me and be captivated by music, literature, philosophy, and all the beautiful frontiers of human knowledge.
Con: I’m sure that my kid will take after me and be easily distractible, quick to argue, excessively cynical, anxious around crowds, terrified of heights, and addicted to eating an entire box of chocolate keto cereal in one sitting while being self-congratulatory for “making the healthy choice.” How can I knowingly bring that much of a completely screwed-up jerk into this world?
Pro: I would love having a little jerk version of myself around. I could name her something awesome, like Fireball or The Grizz.
Con: Actually, that does sound awesome. The Grizz and I could ride around together in a motorcycle and sidecar. Hilarious.
Pro: It’s settled, then! Dating, marriage, kids, and a motorcycle.
Con: Whoa, easy there, Evel Knievel. I said “sounds awesome,” not “yes, I’ll do it.” Like, how would I even accomplish all of this stuff? Would I have to go outside? I don’t know. I’ll think about it.
