Had I catalogued the downsides of parenthood, "son might turn out to be a killer" would never have turned up on the list. Rather, it might have looked something like this:
1. Hassle.
2. Less time just the two of us. (Try no time just the two of us.)
3. Other people. (PTA meetings. Ballet teachers. The kid's insufferable friends and their insufferable parents.)
4. Turning into a cow. (I was slight, and preferred to stay that way. My sister-in-law had developed bulging varicose veins in her legs during pregnancy that never retreated, and the prospect of calves branched in blue tree roots mortified me more than I could say. So I didn't say. I am vain, or once was, and one of my vanities was to feign that I was not.)
5. Unnatural altruism: being forced to make decisions in accordance with what was best for someone else. (I'm a pig.)
6. Curtailment of my traveling. (Note curtailment. Not conclusion.)
7. Dementing boredom. (I found small children brutally dull. I did, even at the outset, admit this to myself.)
8. Worthless social life. (I had never had a decent conversation with a friend's five-year-old in the room.)
9. Social demotion. (I was a respected entrepreneur. Once I had a toddler in tow, every man I knew--every woman, too, which is depressing--would take me less seriously.)
10. Paying the piper. (Parenthood repays a debt. But who wants to pay a debt she can escape? Apparently, the childless get away with something sneaky. Besides, what good is repaying a debt to the wrong party? Only the most warped mother would feel rewarded for her trouble by the fact that at last her daughter's life is hideous, too.)
Tag: children motherhood parenting kids
Dr. Rhinestein did not test for malice, for spiteful indifference, or for congenital meanness. If they could, I wonder how many fish we might throw back.
Lionel ShriverYou can blame your mother, and she can blame hers. Leastways sooner or later it's the fault of somebody who's dead.
Lionel ShriverSometimes things end worse for one side than the other. These 'injured parties' always seem to see themselves as victims of a moral outrage. They never feel simply rejected, but also abused. I've known many women who were great believers in the curative powers of indignation.
Lionel ShriverTag: endings breaking-up indignation
I never, ever took you for granted. We met too late for that; I was nearly thirty-three by then, and my past without you was too stark and insistent for me to find the miracle of companionship ordinary.
Lionel ShriverThough it may be more romantic to picture the bereaved as gaunt, I imagine you can grieve as efficiently with chocolates as with tap water.
Lionel ShriverFor women, marriages foreclosed often resulted in an
accumulation of booty; for men, these failed projects of implausible optimism were more likely to manifest themselves in material lack. It was hard to resist the metaphorical impression that women got to keep the past itself, whereas men were simply robbed of it.
After all, she had announced at our introduction in September that she "simply loves children," Miss Fabricant, with a blunt snub of a nose like a Charlotte potato and hips like Idahos, the infeasible assertion seems to decode, "I want to get married.
Lionel ShriverAnd there's a freedom in apathy, a wild, dizzying liberation on which you can almost get drunk.
Lionel ShriverWhy would affluence make him mad?"
"Maybe he's mad that this is as good as it gets. Your big house. His good school. I think it's very difficult for kids these days, in a way. The country's very prosperity has become a burden, a dead end. Everything works, doesn't it? At least if you're white and middle class. So it must often seem to young people that they're not needed. In a sense, it's as if there's nothing more to do.
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