The question of worth
I am a semantics junkie. It's a challenge to always say exactly what you mean. So many of the world's messes are made (in my opinion) by people not saying what they really mean, whether on purpose- to cause confusion or to mislead, or in ignorance-because so many people have not learned the true meaning of the words they use.
You can hang an entire debate on the meaning of one word.
A while ago, while walking to work, I saw a bumper sticker that said: "If it isn't a baby, then you're not pregnant" (Unsurprisingly, the car was also covered in Bush/Cheney stickers) I thought about this all day. It bugs me that the pro-choice people have not done something as simple as insisting on saying "It's not a baby- YET". That's what most pro-choice people mean when they say that a fetus isn't a baby. They mean it isn't a baby yet.
Though nothing will change the incredible stupidity of saying "If it isn't a baby, then you're not pregnant" which smells an awful lot like "I'm rubber and you're glue..."
It used to really annoy me when people without kids would ask me if I thought it was "worth it" to have had a kid. Worth what? Worth having my back go out every few months? Worth all the endless laundry? Worth never being at peace again in my entire life now that I am responsible for the life of another human being that I put on this earth to experience all the heart break and suffering that humans get to experience before they shuffle off this mortal coil?
What they really mean is: am I glad I had a kid? So why don't they just say what they mean? Do they think either of those questions will be easier or more politic to answer?
Both questions are impossible to answer. The required answer is already written in the air between us. Everyone knows how parents must answer that or risk getting drawn and quartered by the LEAGUE OF HAPPY PARENTS. What would someone do if I answered honestly? "No, having a kid is not worth it. There is not enough children's laughter in the world to take away the fear of a thousand nights spent watching your child's fever spike dangerously high, cleaning up the blood in their mouths just hoping it isn't coming from an internal organ, seeing them be rejected and judged by the world you put them in, and all the million times you hear your kid tell you how much they hate you. No, it's not worth all of that."
Or what would someone do if I said "There are days when I'm not glad I had a kid."? I try to be as honest as I can in this life of mine, but even I would be afraid to say that. It's the unthinkable. Which is why I hate that people even bother to ask it, knowing there is only one answer possible.
There are some things in life that aren't quantifiable. Having children is one of them. The experience of raising a child will never measure up to the hours you put in, the tears you shed, the money you spend, and the sleep you will lose. So don't even think it. Any parent who says dreamily "having kids is a lot of work, but it's worth it" is selling the company line. The part that makes it "worth it" is the love you feel for your kid. It's a thing by itself. We say it measures up because it's more important to us than all the work we put into our kids. But you can't measure love because the second you do you devalue it.
In some ways I dislike the whole discussion of whether having kids is "worth" the trouble because it implies that we have kids to get something out of it which implies that a child's worth is measured by what they give back to us. Which, if you're going to be truthful, will never measure up to what you give them. Seriously, it's not a child's job to give anything to their parents. I have already said what I think of the real reason people have children.
The question of what's worth doing isn't limited to the question of having a family. People also always want to know if starting your own business is worth it. You'd think this one is more easily answered since it doesn't involve the irrational intense love we feel for our offspring. Maybe if you asked Mrs. Field you would get a simple answer. Maybe for anyone who makes millions of dollars from their own business and gets to retire at the age of forty will answer with a resounding "YES!"
But for most people who run their own business, millions of dollars aren't floating down their chimney or clogging up their mail. Most people who start their own business work way harder than anyone who works for someone else, and generally makes a lot less money. If you try to add up all the hours, the expense, the stress of always looking failure in the face, the time and attention taken away from your kids, and the toll it can take on your other relationships, having your own business will never give back to you what you put into it. So why do it?
I think most things that are worth doing aren't worth doing for quantifiable reasons. Most people who start their own business do it because they have got the drive to create something that isn't already there. Just as having children is largely a biological imperative, starting a business is something that some people feel an urge to do. The entrepreneurial spirit is something some people are born with. They spend their whole lives imagining new ventures and there's an attraction to the adventure of realizing the potential of things. They are usually people who are willing to take risks, who are attracted to the freedom of being boss to themselves.
I will tell you the truth. There are days when I am not that glad to be a mom. There are days when I remember what it was like to not be responsible for a needy little energy-sucking human being and it makes me even more tired to remember how much more energy I used to have in those days. Would I send my boy back if I could? Hell no! Kids are totally not worth the effort you put into raising them if you insist on measuring worth in hours and effort. What you get out of having a child is absolutely impossible to measure. I may not like being a mom some days, but not having Max would be like dying.
Having my own business...is also not really worth it. I have never worked so hard in my life to not be able to pay my bills. Maybe if we start raking in the dough, maybe if we hit on something that makes Dustpan Alley a household name, maybe then I'll think differently. But really, what are the chances of that happening? It's more likely that we'll hang in there until we can pay the bills and hopefully a little extra. Maybe eventually we'll be able to afford a couple of employees so that we can have a day off, or maybe two. So why are we doing it? Partly because it's more proactive an existence than sitting around unemployed, which is what we were before we started our business, and partly it's because we have been imagining our own empire since the first year we were married; because we have the urge to do it. We have a powerful drive to create and to share those creations with others.
That's the truth as I know it. I am comfortable with it, even if no one else is.
You can hang an entire debate on the meaning of one word.
A while ago, while walking to work, I saw a bumper sticker that said: "If it isn't a baby, then you're not pregnant" (Unsurprisingly, the car was also covered in Bush/Cheney stickers) I thought about this all day. It bugs me that the pro-choice people have not done something as simple as insisting on saying "It's not a baby- YET". That's what most pro-choice people mean when they say that a fetus isn't a baby. They mean it isn't a baby yet.
Though nothing will change the incredible stupidity of saying "If it isn't a baby, then you're not pregnant" which smells an awful lot like "I'm rubber and you're glue..."
It used to really annoy me when people without kids would ask me if I thought it was "worth it" to have had a kid. Worth what? Worth having my back go out every few months? Worth all the endless laundry? Worth never being at peace again in my entire life now that I am responsible for the life of another human being that I put on this earth to experience all the heart break and suffering that humans get to experience before they shuffle off this mortal coil?
What they really mean is: am I glad I had a kid? So why don't they just say what they mean? Do they think either of those questions will be easier or more politic to answer?
Both questions are impossible to answer. The required answer is already written in the air between us. Everyone knows how parents must answer that or risk getting drawn and quartered by the LEAGUE OF HAPPY PARENTS. What would someone do if I answered honestly? "No, having a kid is not worth it. There is not enough children's laughter in the world to take away the fear of a thousand nights spent watching your child's fever spike dangerously high, cleaning up the blood in their mouths just hoping it isn't coming from an internal organ, seeing them be rejected and judged by the world you put them in, and all the million times you hear your kid tell you how much they hate you. No, it's not worth all of that."
Or what would someone do if I said "There are days when I'm not glad I had a kid."? I try to be as honest as I can in this life of mine, but even I would be afraid to say that. It's the unthinkable. Which is why I hate that people even bother to ask it, knowing there is only one answer possible.
There are some things in life that aren't quantifiable. Having children is one of them. The experience of raising a child will never measure up to the hours you put in, the tears you shed, the money you spend, and the sleep you will lose. So don't even think it. Any parent who says dreamily "having kids is a lot of work, but it's worth it" is selling the company line. The part that makes it "worth it" is the love you feel for your kid. It's a thing by itself. We say it measures up because it's more important to us than all the work we put into our kids. But you can't measure love because the second you do you devalue it.
In some ways I dislike the whole discussion of whether having kids is "worth" the trouble because it implies that we have kids to get something out of it which implies that a child's worth is measured by what they give back to us. Which, if you're going to be truthful, will never measure up to what you give them. Seriously, it's not a child's job to give anything to their parents. I have already said what I think of the real reason people have children.
The question of what's worth doing isn't limited to the question of having a family. People also always want to know if starting your own business is worth it. You'd think this one is more easily answered since it doesn't involve the irrational intense love we feel for our offspring. Maybe if you asked Mrs. Field you would get a simple answer. Maybe for anyone who makes millions of dollars from their own business and gets to retire at the age of forty will answer with a resounding "YES!"
But for most people who run their own business, millions of dollars aren't floating down their chimney or clogging up their mail. Most people who start their own business work way harder than anyone who works for someone else, and generally makes a lot less money. If you try to add up all the hours, the expense, the stress of always looking failure in the face, the time and attention taken away from your kids, and the toll it can take on your other relationships, having your own business will never give back to you what you put into it. So why do it?
I think most things that are worth doing aren't worth doing for quantifiable reasons. Most people who start their own business do it because they have got the drive to create something that isn't already there. Just as having children is largely a biological imperative, starting a business is something that some people feel an urge to do. The entrepreneurial spirit is something some people are born with. They spend their whole lives imagining new ventures and there's an attraction to the adventure of realizing the potential of things. They are usually people who are willing to take risks, who are attracted to the freedom of being boss to themselves.
I will tell you the truth. There are days when I am not that glad to be a mom. There are days when I remember what it was like to not be responsible for a needy little energy-sucking human being and it makes me even more tired to remember how much more energy I used to have in those days. Would I send my boy back if I could? Hell no! Kids are totally not worth the effort you put into raising them if you insist on measuring worth in hours and effort. What you get out of having a child is absolutely impossible to measure. I may not like being a mom some days, but not having Max would be like dying.
Having my own business...is also not really worth it. I have never worked so hard in my life to not be able to pay my bills. Maybe if we start raking in the dough, maybe if we hit on something that makes Dustpan Alley a household name, maybe then I'll think differently. But really, what are the chances of that happening? It's more likely that we'll hang in there until we can pay the bills and hopefully a little extra. Maybe eventually we'll be able to afford a couple of employees so that we can have a day off, or maybe two. So why are we doing it? Partly because it's more proactive an existence than sitting around unemployed, which is what we were before we started our business, and partly it's because we have been imagining our own empire since the first year we were married; because we have the urge to do it. We have a powerful drive to create and to share those creations with others.
That's the truth as I know it. I am comfortable with it, even if no one else is.
