Richard's Thoughts on Children

I have always held children with the slightest bit of contempt. I loved Jurassic Parks I & II because it allowed me to hate on children with everybody else in the room nodding in agreement.

Whenever the topic of children come up, I am almost obnoxiously adamant that I would not want any children of my own. I would adopt, but I'd prefer not having my own flesh and blood.

I just watched an episode of Lie to Me where a father shoots a man because his 16 year old daughter decided to sleep with a 22 year old college student AND film it. By doing this, she risked the future of a 22 year old black man, she caused the death of a prosecutor, and her father is not going to spend a lot of time in jail. This episode kind of helped me realize why I disliked children so much.

It is because children have no idea what they are capable of. They have so much power yet all they do is complain that they have no freedom. They have so many blessings but all they do is abuse those blessings and desire more. A child could melt the hearts of men with their adorableness. A child could get away with doing stupidly retarded things. A child could make their parents kill for them.

Now, all haterade aside, just while writing all this down, I also came to another much more important realization. I realized that it is our jobs as adults to nurture the powers that children possess and direct it to good. Ultimately, it really isn't the children's fault that they abuse their powers and junk. Children are stupid. It's just a fact that humanity has known forever. It is our job to get these children who do not know better and just sit through their idiocy and be patient. Patience is one of the few abilities that adults have that children lack. We have to apply the crap out of it.

This is why it sucks when adults do not do their jobs. They either neglect the children or they abuse the authority they have over children. It's a very sad sight. The two most horrific things in the world to me, incidentally, are child soldiers and child prostitutes. Killing and having sex does not make you an adult, however, they are things that only adults should do. The innocence of children should not be so quickly dashed away.

Believe it or not, I was going to make this post a rant on my hatred for children but apparently, I matured in the last five minutes. I still despise children, but I do recognize my responsibility to nurture and contribute to the growth of children around me. I still do not want children of my own, but I will not disrespect people who have children. :-D

Now, I said that I was fully willing to adopt children and most likely, I will. Given that they let me. While I dislike children and I don't want to make a brat of my own, if a child is already in the world, and through my parentage I could make the world a better place for that child, then I would love to have a child I could call my own. I think it is one of, if not, the best illustration of God's fathership over us. To show that to another human being (yes, I think children are still human beings) would be a beautiful thing.

There is also another abortion argument for having adopted children but I'm kind of "meh" on that one. It goes a little something like this:

• If we don't want women to get aborted babies, then what are we going to do with the babies that are born? The mother doesn't want it. We ought to be there. Anti-baby-killing (yes, this means anti-abortion, but let's not play the euphemism game here, :-D) and adoption goes hand in hand. It would be irresponsible for Christians to be so adamantly against baby-killing (abortion) yet passive on adoption.

I agree with this statement very much, but it's not the argument that got me. The one that completely changed my view on adoption was the image of a father, or Holy Father, adoption one that is not his own.

Anywho, these are Richard's Thoughts on Children. So go adopt a child. And stop baby-killing.