My parents Have Three Kids

      Many people have pets to lavish their affections on. They love to come home to dogs, cats, canaries, parrots, ponies, hamsters, rabbits, and fish. People seem to need to care for something other than themselves; To curl up on the couch with their cat, to play catch with their dog, to hear their canaries sing, to marvel their parrots mimicking others, ride and show off their ponies, to feed their hamsters, rabbits and fish and look upon them with wonder of their uniqueness.

      People seem to have some reflexive instinctual need to love and care for animals, to teach them various tricks for their amusement, to be loved back with obsessive unconditional devotion. Most people enjoy the control that they have over their pet’s lives, indeed it may be the only time they have any real sense of control over anything.

Perhaps it is because they do not feel adequate control over their own lives.

      Some people would ask, “Is it really so bad that people have pets to fill an abyss within them, to facilitate therapy for their emotional growth and fill that aching void within?”

You may say, “What is the harm, it’s a beautiful symbiotic relationship; the pet owners fill their needs and the pets are cared for and given loving homes.” Yes that is true. This can be mutually beneficial to both sides, as it has been for many prisoners and elderly people.

      So I say that in these scenarios, it is quite healthy, provided of course that the animals are not subject to any abuse or neglect.

      However, a lot of people are not satisfied to care for only pets. It is not enough for them to be loved back with obsessive unconditional devotion from a dog, cat, or any other animal, so they go to the next level and have children.

      Children can provide and fill every need that adults get from their pets, they can do this times a thousand-fold. You can curl up with them on the couch, you can teach them to play catch and retrieve, to sit, roll over, and heel. You can teach them to sing, and will parrot you and other people. They can be paraded about and shown as the finest pony.

      The finer the pedigree the louder a parent can crow bragging rights. Children can even learn to be somewhat self-reliant like cats. In fact you can pretty much tell what kind of animal person an adult is by the way the treat their children.

      Children are also something to behold with wonder of their uniqueness. They are just the most fascinating creatures. Yes, they are needy and troublesome; they have to be fed, clothed, bathed, wiped and dried. They are in fact, needing machines. It never stops. As babies; they are the gift that keeps on shitting.

     Nevertheless, the pleasure that they bring for many parents is that children will move heaven and earth, for better or worse to please their parents, but more accurately to be as much like their parents as possible. Ironically that is often the cause of many parents frustration. Their children listen more to what they see and hear their parents do, than what their parents tell them to do.

      Yes, children are filled with a myriad of potentialities, and lots of parents tell themselves that they are motivated to have children so that their children can become more than they were, to have a better life than them, to repair their own short-comings and the disappointment in their lives by proxy. Yes there are many reasons why people choose to have children instead of pets.

      My parents were not any different than most people and they also wanted children. My mother’s needed to fill her aching void, to escape a childhood of early emotional and physical deprivation, to escape the memory a loving father’s life cut short, of an alcoholic mother’s physical abuse, to escape the memory of turnstile foster homes, the loneliness and homogeny of the orphanage, the repulsive intrusions of adult male relatives who sexually abused her, the neglect and the loneliness that consumed her.

      My mother fantasized about the perfect family, kids and a man who was rugged, dashing, romantic, loving, and stable - forever and ever until the end of time. She thought she found all of those qualities in my father. 

She had many fantasies along with the deep well of love that she wanted share with others, and to fill the deep well of her need took the space of mindful planning. She also wanted to love, to give, to repair her past by proxy.

      It may sound that I am being a bit harsh. I am not. I am simply sharing what my mother and others have shared with me. I am simply sharing with you that my mother did what most people do and for the same reasons…at least in general when it comes to making a choice to have children.

      My dad also chose to have kids instead of pets. My father’s reasons were varied for having children. I think he really did not give it much thought. Some of his reasons were mostly the same as most adults, some quite different and even more superficial than many adults.

So there we were, one big happy family.

      Our dad did loved us, we were in fact the tax-exempt apples of his eye, his cherished dependents for which he could count on for not only tax breaks from the government, but also, we were living proof of his virility, proof that his stuff worked.

      An added feature he liked was that people could see some of our physical features mirrored with his. Even I was called Vincenzo’s chip off the ole block.

We also provided my dad with all sorts of amusement when he was home on leave, like a group of affectionate clever monkeys.

      We also provided our dad with a commonality with his friends, dog and pony stories to be exchange.

Yes, children can provide more than pets. Without malice, I simply state that my mother would have done better to wait at least ten or more years before having children. My father, bless his heart, is not really suited to have children. Despite the fact that he has the parenting skills of a reptile, he’s not half bad with dogs and cats, however.

      Again, I am not being hateful. Most people should either wait longer to have kids or not have them at all. It is not entirely their fault that their impatience compels them to have children sooner than they should, if ever. No, it is mostly the fault of their selfish DNA. Their DNA sets the initial programming and for those human primates that suffer from less than optimal child-rearing, coupled with the inexperience and naiveté’ of youth is the cause that does not allow them the minimal sentience that is required to make the best of plans. But never mind all of this, the five of us made up a family and, ready or not, we were loosed upon the cosmos.