A few months ago my brother and his girlfriend did
everyone a favour and boosted the world supply of Joneses by one. Naturally
Baby Jones is an adorable bundle of gurgling loveliness and I'm rather chuffed
to have finally made guncle status. Naturally they are also chuffed and seem to
have taken to parenthood like Mariella Frostrup to presenting Sex Box - nobody
would have predicted it but they seem astonishingly comfortable with it all.
As a result people keep asking me "hasn't it made
you think you'd want one of your own?" It's a reasonable
question. Wesley and Lindsey are having a wail of a time (ba bum) raising
Baby Jones and he has clearly already added such immeasurable joy and
fulfillment to their lives that no one could doubt they've made the right choice.
But does that make me want one? Honestly? Abso-bleedin-lutely not.
The best thing about being gay used to be that you
could avoid these heteronormative questions about what you want to do with your
life (yesss, I finally got to use the word heteronormative in a sentence!) And I would
have got away with it too if it weren't for those pesky gay rights campaigners.
But now it's all "ooh are you two going to get married now?" and
"ooh when are you going to have a baby"? The answer: no time soon,
thank you very much. And stop saying "ooh", you sound like Deidre Rachid.
Don't get me wrong, I love kids. I love spending time
with them, I love the way they laugh at my fart jokes and understand that Top Gear
is boring. But I love a lot of things in life. Like sleep. And not having to
change nappies. I love giving the still adorable little sprogs back to their
parents and going home to watch X Factor before they start crying and demanding
to be allowed to set up a squirrel trap in the garden.
Let me put it another way: I love mayonnaise but if
you were to suggest to me that I should carry around a growing ball of
mayonnaise inside me for nine months and then, just as it was reaching the size
of a small dog, spend 24 hours pushing it out of my vagina, have it live off me
like a parasite for six months waking up at unpredictable hours to demand it
be allowed to suck on my breasts, then let it financially ruin me for the best
part of the next two decades only to have it resent me for not letting it go on
the car insurance, I would have you sectioned. I mean surely nobody likes
mayonnaise that much.
But when it comes to children, people everywhere - no
matter what their interests, class, belief system, financial situation, or
aversion levels to Peppa Pig - seem to have this quiet mania for... well... having
them. I've apparently hit that age where my female friends' biological clocks
are now turning into alarm clocks and all my couple-friends seem to be on the
verge of panic reproducing like there's about to be a major midwife shortage or
the French are going to put on a massive sperm blockade.
This troubles me. I mean they can't all coincidentally
really want children right now can they? An iPhone 5C maybe, but a child? They
can't all have simultaneously realised that what they really need right now is
to spend the next few years not getting enough sleep or holidays or eating in
proper restaurants. Can they?
Obviously I'm not saying no one should have children. That would clearly be problematic for the human race. Nor am I implying that there is anything wrong with having a baby if you want one. I just feel very strongly that nobody should feel under any pressure to do it just because, like leaving London when you reach a certain age, or reading Fifty Shades of Grey, everyone else is doing it. Everyone else likes Jeremy Clarkson but he's still a twat.
If you really want a child in your life, get your kegs off and go for it. But if you just don't want to risk regretting not having done it later in life, can I suggest you take a chill pill with your next birth control pill and maybe just wait a while. It's on the basis of that kind of decision-making principle that Cheryl Cole got that flowery bum tattoo. If you still feel like you want one in a few years but your eggs have passed their use-by date, there's always adoption or god parenting. And by then kids TV producers might have come up with a less offensive version of Peppa Pig.
I recognise that it's difficult to resist these societal pressures. And obviously it's even harder for heteros (my heart bleeds, really). People are sort of suspicious
of people who don't want children, like they don't like people, or the
furtherance of the human race. Like they're sortofabitsad. But a simple glance
at a statistic or two will make it plain that the world doesn't need any more
babies. And in my view there's nothing sad about having freedom and free time
(unless you spend it watching X Factor of course, as I obviously will). But resist you must. Because if you don't, before you know it you'll have no money, no friends, a giant ball of mayonnaise screaming at you to put Peppa Pig on, and a flowery bum tattoo. And since you'll all be busy doing all that I'll be even lonelier than I already am and there'll only be one thing for it: I'll have to start watching The Xtra Factor. I beg you, don't take any chances... use a condom.
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