Lord of the Flies

I was with a man who wanted me to have a baby — blegh!  I wanted nothing to do with them.  Today I referred to a kid as ‘it’.  I had good reason — I didn’t know if it was a girl or a boy — so I had to ask the dad, “What is it?”

My sister has two boys, so now I like kids, and feel sympathetic to little parasitical beasts all around.  But I’m glad I didn’t breed and still harbor a strong anti-procreational streak — what would planet earth do with my spawn?  I’m narcissistic, nihilistic, and a nervous nelly — I’m not a physical specimen and not good at math — AND — I know nothing of  building rocket ships.  Perhaps though for some reason beyond me, the earth did need my spawn for some large part of the picture that doesn’t necessarily suit me and my ego.  I say maybe it ‘did’ because it’s too late  now.  Having a kid now would be selfish and dangerous because I’m old.  I’ll be fifty.   Here’s a good reason why I shouldn’t — how I turned my nephew’s carefree day at the playground into the Lord of the Flies.

I want my nephews to be bully-proof alpha males.  I want them to be in the good guy tribe from The Lord of the Flies, unafraid to stand up for what’s right, and while using their brains to fight battles, like the finest general, they will have valiant physical prowess — oh yeah — and the older one will be a neurosurgeon and the little one will be an astrophysicist.  They will be extremely well-adjusted, have lots of fine friends and will be indebted to Auntie Sandor Sword-Chinned Bitch until the day she dies.  That’s why when we went to the park, I chased behind my then 3 year old nephew to make sure no kids tried blocking his way to any one of the slides.  I won’t get into specifics.  I’ll just say that my sister told me, “No, Sandee, you can’t do that!  They’re just kids.”

I watched the kids play as if watching war games.  My nephew got into it with an older kid.  The kid says during a break in their shoot ’em up game, “You don’t know anything about guns!”  And check this out, my nephew screams, “YOU don’t know anything about guns!”  He pointed vehemently, his whole body shook.  He got the last word — yeah!  When we got home I high-fived him about it, out of view from anyone who might judge me as an ass.

It was an exhausting day, trying to figure out where he’d fit in the tribe.  Back home I wanted to cry.  “Sandee — he was having a good time — calm down,” my sister says.  Yeah?  Doesn’t she know there’s politics in the playground?!  Next time I’ll tell you about the horror of a kid’s birthday party.