I recently decided that I will not be having kids. That decision might change, but right now, I am solidly convinced that I definitely do not want kids. This decision comes with an interesting consequence: It is the end of my family line.
When biologists talk about extinction, they're not talking about an individual organism or families. The individual and the family of that organism aren't all that important in the grand scheme of the species. When something goes extinct, it has to be an entire branch of the tree of life.
I think the biologists are wrong. With every branch of their phylogenetic tree (aka. the tree of life), there are tiny capillaries that further refine and blur what that species is. My living family members are one of these imaginary capillaries coming off the human branch of this tree.
My decision to not have kids comes with an interesting consequence. The decision ends my family line, entirely.
None of the kids in my generation are procreating. We have just stopped. I am the one, only, and last male on both my mom and dad's side of the family who might procreate. There are no males on my dad's side in my generation and my one male cousin on the other side isn't interested, either.
I have one cousin who had a kid, but befell harsh judgment for having a kid at the age of 14. Hindsight, was this such a bad decision? She's the only person in the family in my generation to have a kid. Biologically speaking, she's the only successful one in the entire family. The rest of us are terminal points on the tree.
And what a bummer this is. We are all educated, upstanding citizens. And we are going extinct.
The choice of extinction for the family line is an interesting one. My master's degree taught me to plan more tightly, to not take on more than I can handle, and to foresee the future in a more accurate and complete way. And that power of foresight is what has led me directly to the choice to not procreate.
When I adopted my first cat about eight years ago, I was driven to do so by the norms of society and the need to have a pet. I even got a second one to keep him company, which doubled my feelings of hatred for the idea of reproduction. What this little cat, who has turned into a wonderful, but unwelcome friend, has taught me is that I will make a terrible father.
Yeah, a terrible father. Not only do I have two of the best cats I've ever met -- they're smart, energetic, personable, and aren't total assholes. Yet I can't stand them. The chain of having to take care of them, the damage they do to my living space, and the inability to bring anything into my house without it getting fucked up is exactly what has shown me that I shouldn't have kids.
I can't handle the constant maintenance cats bring to my life. Cat hair on everything, nothing remains untouched, and bodily messes are unending. It's not that I don't love puke, shit, and piss. And it's not that I don't love cat hair on everything, having everything knocked on the floor, and being totally excluded from having anything nice. It's really just that I'm not cut out for the commitment. The thought of having to take care of these things for another 10 years makes my skin crawl.
My cats didn't cause my decision, per se. Women were the primary cause. But the cats showed me that I'm not interested in the constant maintenance involved in keeping dependent beings alive. They're more like canaries in the coal mine -- indicators of trouble to come. I can't stand the thought of another ten years of piss, shit, puke, and fur-impregnated-everything, so the thought of the lifetime commitment of children becomes deeply repugnant.
Something went wrong in my family. An entire generation has chosen to not reproduce, which has led to the extinction of our capillary of the family tree. My decision to not have kids comes with an especially odd consequence. The Y-chromosome remains unchanged across generations and is passed from father to father -- I am the last Y-chromosome-carrying individual on both sides of the family -- and I have chosen to not even try to pass it along. Basically an organism in itself, this Y-lineage is now gone.
And it's because of cats. Well, and women. But cats. Cats have taught me that I'm so disinterested in keeping things that require so much maintenance and care that I am willing to just live out my days and not bother with the bullshit of reproduction. How strange. And liberating. I guess I just don't find this consciousness experiment compelling enough to bother helping it to continue. It just isn't worth it.
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