I don’t want kids, but I respect them a lot

This is my post for Carnival of Aces – The topic is Asexuality, Aromanticism and Parenthood.

I think I was about 12 when one of the girls in my school class made a comment about how she’d like to have kids someday. Then the others discussed it… and as soon as they brought it up, I just knew that there’s no way in hell I ever want to get pregnant or have kids. It just seems like torture… and I think it would probably kill me.

That was long before I’d heard of asexuality or aromaticism, or before I’d ever even really thought about the concepts of sex and romance much. I was kind of vaguely aware of their existence, but didn’t really pay attention to that sort of thing at the time.

So, I’m 34 now, and still don’t want kids. There seems to be this assumption that if someone doesn’t want kids, it’s because they don’t like kids. I can’t speak for other people, but in my case this is completely untrue. If anything, I think that on average, I respect kids more than I respect most adults. I think I need to, because on average, they get a lot less respect than adults do. This has resulted in me having a lot of opinions about parenting, which seems a bit odd for a person who doesn’t want kids, right? I mean, it’s easy for someone to say “well, you’ll change your mind about X if you actually had children and tried to do it that way!”… It bugs me that people think that only people who raise children are allowed to have opinions about parenting. Everyone was a child once, right? Everyone who has experience in being a child should be allowed to have an opinion about parenting.

My opinions about respecting kids span a lot of things, and I’m not going to get into that now, otherwise I’ll be writing a whole book. But, if you’re curious, you can check out some of these links to other people who have similar ideas:

• Respect vs Fear and Obedience
• Compulsory Schooling Does More Harm Than Good (also, my site: School Survival)
• Youth Rights

I’m aromantic and asexual, which basically means I’m not interested in dating or sex. I don’t think that is in any way related to me not wanting kids though. It’s more about me not wanting my body to go through that whole process, and also because it’s enough effort just for me to take care of myself, I really don’t want to deal with taking care of someone else as well. Some people have told me that they think I’d be a good parent… I think they’re referring to things like being a role model or something… I’m pretty sure they’re not referring to my inability to tolerate poop, puke, drool, or just about any other bodily fluid that might get near me by accident somehow and freak me out. The only way I’d be able to handle a baby is with rubber gloves and possibly a mask.

So… no kids for me, I’ll just be that annoying single person who judges everyone else’s parenting “style”.  😛