So there I was, absolutely knackered after a 9 hour overnight flight in which I probably managed around 15minutes of sleep, sitting in the reception/security area of a customer site in Giv’atayim, Israel – and a nervous 20-something guy walks in and sits down beside me.
After a minute or so he turned to me and enquired:
“אתה פה למבחן?”
Obviously I can’t speak Hebrew. In fact I can’t really converse in anything other than plain English.. even txt speech is beyond me and I struggle with people from Aberdeen or Tyneside. So I shrugged and said “sorry, English?”
Like most Israelis, my new friend possessed a pretty decent grasp of the english language so he asked again:
“Are you here for the test?”
This threw me a little because I was kind of there for a test (well, in truth a go-live event but those usually end up blowing up like tests anyway) so I wasn’t really sure. The fella saw my indecision and rephrased the question: “are you here for a job?”
So I told him I wasn’t, and he started telling me all about his current job where his supervisors suck etc. In fact he told me a fair chunk of his life story in about 10 minutes. Then it came to “are you married?” to which I replied “no but I have been with my partner for about 10 years or so”.
This confused the hell out of him. I could see his mind working on it.. “living together for ten years but not married.. I don’t understand..”
The he asked me the question I like being asked.. “Do you have any kids?” I replied “no, no kids” and again, the look of confusion. So i clarified “I do not plan to have any kids ever..”
I kid you not.. I thought the poor guy was going to keel over there and then. His jaw dropped and his brow was so furrowed, it practically turned into another pair of eyelids.
He said (and I quote) “I have never heard that before – it’s so interesting to meet people from different cultures,I want to get married and live in the country and..”
At that point his sponsor arrived and they conversed briefly before he turned to me and said he wasn’t going to do the test today because he wasnt feeling good about it. so he would take it another day.
He parted with “..and I want 5 kids”, shook my hand, and left.
OK, so that was a tl;dr cool story (bro) that actually brings me what I wanted to talk about in the first instance.
Kids.
See here’s the thing.. and this is going to be a very unupopular opinion..,. but having kids is just plain selfish.
/ducks
Alright, put the knives away and hear me out.
Sometime last year I watched a fascinating documentary with Sir David Attenborough presenting his views, backed by some facts, about the population of this planet. Some of his projections were pretty scary, showing how we’re likely to run into global food and water shortages this century. We’ll simply hit a point at which there just aren’t enough resources to sustain the human population.
I accept that some level of procreation still needs to exist – otherwise we end up with an aging population without a younger generation to support them (and the pensions), but perhaps we need to take a leaf out of the Chinese’s government’s book. I used to think the one-child policy was a bit draconian, but now I believe it makes perfect sense. I mean isn’t one child enough? Why would you want more? What’s the point? Are you giving any thought to what the future will be like for the kid once it’s older – hell never mind the future, what about now? Global recessions, high unemployment, astronomical fuel prices – food and water prices already heading skyward.. is this the kind of world you want to raise a child in?
In fact, i’d probably take it further. I’d go as far as to suggest that in order to have children, you need a license. And yes, that license would be prohibitively expensive. Would that result in having kids being a privilege only for the rich? Yes probably, but if you can’t afford to have and raise kids without scrounging from the rest of us taxpayers, then you simply shouldn’t be able to have any. plain and simple.
Oh and I have to fit one final rant in – why the hell, should parents with young kids be given preferrential treatment in airports? So just because that couple decided to bring yet another consumer of global resources into the world, they should get on the flight first? WTF?