But something happened last week in New York, where they made a new law saying you can murder your baby, that I just felt I needed to say something about, and frankly, nobody reads long Facebook posts.
So here I am. Hello, old friends.
Ok, so I don't need to get into the details of the law; you all know what I am talking about.
But I feel like I need to say something that I have not seen hardly spoken of at all.
Everybody seems so shocked by this law, but you all know why laws like this can get passed, right?
IT'S BECAUSE WE LIVE IN A CULTURE THAT HATES KIDS.
People who love kids don't say it's ok to shove a knife through their brain or chest and then vacuum them up.
But people who DO hate kids say that's ok.
And it's pretty easy to see that people hate kids when they say vile-ness like this is ok, but I see this hating all around in smaller, more "pleasant" ways pretty often, too.
As a mother of two small kids, I pretty much can't go in public with my children and not hear phrases like this:
"Wow! Your hands are full!"
"Oh aren't you lucky! A boy and a girl! Now you can be done having kids!"
"You're sure in a rough season of life!"
"You think this is hard! Just wait until they are teenagers!!"
"Not sleeping much, are ya?"
"This too shall pass."
"Don't you know where kids come from?!"
I think they mean well, trying to "sympathize" with me in a typically, what they consider to be, humorous way.
But I don't need sympathy for the greatest blessings in my life.
I don't need your empathy because I get to spend everyday being with and investing in the lives of the children that have brought more light to my life than any other human being on the planet right now. I am not sad that I am currently living the days that I will look back on for the rest of my life as "the glory days; the stuff of dreams," as my husband and I say to each other every single time we see our almost-three year old run around the yard giggling.
And it's not just strangers and passers-by.
I basically can't be in a group of people who also have small kids without hearing something like this, "Ugh! This kid is driving me crazy!" or "It's just chaos all the time!" or "I haven't showered in days" or "I just can't wait for my body to be my own again" or "Remember the days when you used to be able to get something done without being interrupted?" or "I know someone who has SEVEN kids! SEVEN KIDS! No thank you, two is plenty for me!"
Listen, I understand that children throw toys all over the living room when they are playing. I haven't forgotten that I used to be able to work for hours at a time on a project. I'm not an idiot who doesn't realize it takes longer to put kids into their carseats than it used to take just me getting into the car and leaving the driveway.
I know it.
And I am also the allergy-kid mom who is constantly watching for hives. I am also the mom who has babies that get up 3-5 times a night until they are older than a year. I am the mom who has kids that do not nap. I am the mom who has kids that run places; they do not walk through the house, they run through the house.
So I realize sometimes I am tired and my house is a mess and it can be loud.
But don't you realize that when you say these things--whether you are the stranger in the grocery store or the parent to young children-- what it means is that you either think I do, or you personally, long for the life you had before kids. Life sure was easier without children and easier is better; that's what you are saying. You are saying that they have made your life or my life worse than before.
And the thing is, if your are a parent to young kids, you probably don't even mean that. You probably love your kids.
BUT THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE SAYING.
And if you are the stranger in the grocery store asking me whether I know where kids come from or not, you are insinuating that I am miserable...because kids make their parents miserable--OBVIOUSLY--which is why you just said that to me.
The thing is, most of this kind of language is so embedded in modern culture and modern mom-culture, that the people saying it don't even realize they are saying child-hating phrases, and the people listening don't even realize that they are agreeing with them when they respond, "Oh I know; tell me about it!" with a sigh and a roll of the eyes.
Because that's what we say when people make comments like that.
We agree with them. We affirm that yes, my kids are driving me crazy too, even if they really are not, come to think of it. Because we do not want to be impolite. We do not want to say "Actually, yeah, I DO know where they come from...and this was intentional....and we will do that again, and probably again, and maybe again, to hopefully have another kid....and another...and another." We do not say, "Sorry your kids are driving you crazy; mine don't drive me crazy."
Americans don't say truth like that. At least not to the stranger in the grocery store. And probably not to the friend in our mom group, either. We are too polite. So we let that kind of language slide. We affirm this kid-hating language both to the speaker and to every other person in the room who heard us.
I know this happens because I WAS the other person in the room and at the grocery store who heard those conversations before I had kids. And for those of you who are Believers in Jesus, don't think it's not you, too. I was in BIBLE STUDIES even where every parent in the room would talk about child-rearing as nothing but fatigue and heartache and look at me with a wag of their finger and "just-you-waits" which made me think for many years, "Well, that sounds like hell; I think I will stay happy and child-less my whole life."
And that's how you build a culture that hates kids, Wolfies.
You start saying things to total strangers in the grocery store and mom-friends and people in your Bible study and at your job and at the park and on the airplane and in the drive-through that insinuates that kids make your life worse than before.
And cultures that hate kids start passing laws like they did in New York.
So.
You want to make people think it's a bad idea to kill babies?
Then start talking like it's a good idea to have babies.
