Happy Mother's Day. If you aren't one, you had one, and even if you hated her guts, you can't deny you got birthed. It's not for me to say whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. All I know is, I exist, thanks to my mother.
Which could be why I opted to remain childless. I saw the physical and psychological damage four self-centered kids could do.
Later, after we all left home, she got busy joining book clubs, leading knitting groups, volunteering at the library, and growing green beans. For such a shrimp, she had strength in abundance. In nursing school, they called her Mighty Mouse. I used to be proud of her muscles, like, my mom, the superhero.
Now she's gone, and I'm old, tracking in her footsteps, seeing her face in the mirror. I realize how lucky I was to be born in that time and place. To suddenly appear in that place, in that time, with that skin color—man, how lucky could a fetus get? It could have been so much worse. I grimace to see people acting all entitled, as if they somehow had any control over being born in a particular place and time. Stupid sods.
Speaking of stupid sods, you know what I'm going to say, so I'm not going to say it. Instead, I'm going to go out on a probably somewhat distasteful limb here and wave at you from the short branches as I state my support for a new policy, sort of my version of a modern-day modest proposal. I call it Mandatory Abortions.
Yes, it is what it sounds like. No more babies. Not for you, not for me, not for anyone. I've come to the conclusion that humans are too stupid to reproduce, and it's time to shut the whole thing down.
I once tried to give a speech in front of a large audience, a long time ago, like, in the early 1990s, when I was in college (the second time around). It would have been a funny speech. It made me laugh, anyway. Unfortunately, I arrogantly assumed I didn't need any notes. Thus, I forgot my speech partway through the delivery. I don't remember much of the speech, but I do remember the feeling of utter, abject, stomach-dropping horror at the realization that my memory had failed me and my words were gone. I still get cold sweats when I think about it, proving the adage that fear of public speaking is possibly the worst of all human fears.
The opening line of the speech, though, was something about babies being a plague upon the land.
Besides a surfeit of babies, I could point to a few other plagues upon the land, but I don't want to get too nuanced. My brain is pretty much locked in an either/or mode these days. I'm either alive or I'm dead. People are either good or they're bad. I'm half-blind and not seeing shades of gray very well, and shades of gray aren't safe anymore anyway, or so I have heard, not that I would know. One of the plagues, I can't help but notice, is men. I read something from a historian about the origins of Mother's Day. I had no idea that the day was originally proposed as a response to the stupidity of men killing each other off in the Civil War. Unfortunately, that was before women's suffrage, so . . . back to the kitchen.
For some of us, it's the kitchen, for some of us, it's the burqa. It never seems to end. My mother didn't get to create her own life until after us kids grew up and went away. I witnessed her anger and frustration—I was partly to blame for it. As a young adult, I was observant, and far too selfish, to fall into the trap of birthing babies. And how lucky I was to be able to cavort through my child-bearing years under the kindly umbrella of Roe v. Wade!
In case you find my not-so-modest proposal appalling, remember, I'm old, this is my blog, I'm a smartass, and I can say what I want to. I've done my part to end my line of DNA. If it is any comfort to you, nobody will follow me on the family tree. The bud stops here.
