I decided a while back that there is no unselfish reason to have kids. We’re in no danger of a population shortage, most of us have a buffet of common diseases in our family histories, and even the most altruistic sounding reasons like raising the future generation is making the assumption that your values and beliefs you wish to pass on are the “correct” ones. Of course I think this myself, but I also have to admit that somewhere there is an alternate universe populated by my polar opposites, and they are all perfectly happy.

This isn’t actually a reason for me against having kids but justifies having them anyway even if I don’t meet the ideal, perfect reasons (whatever those are).

“Why do you want to have kids?”

Because I see it as part of a fulfilled life, kind of like having pets.

“You think of kids as pets?? Might as well just get more cats if that’s how you are.”

No, I mean like.. advanced pets. Ones that grow up into actual people.

“…”

Should have stopped while I was ahead…

But seriously, the answer would be something along those lines, and also I think we’ll make good enough parents that it’ll be mutually beneficial. Just like the cats.

But seriously on the cats as well. When they were babies themselves, I worried if they were happy with us. They could have so easily ended up with any number of people, were we the right ones? Years later, waking up every morning with a calico between my legs, I no longer worry.

I had to think through the possibility (and selfishness) of having kids and passing on my crazy so much that I’ve almost wanted someone to challenge me on it. It was a reality shock to read a couple years back that not ten years before I’d just be told, “You’re bi-polar, you don’t get to have kids.” And yet, ten years before no one would have cared because I wasn’t yet diagnosed.

I’ve forgotten most of what I’d come back with because it all condenses nicely into a quote from An Unqiuet Mind where the author justified her own desire for children with, “My life didn’t not have meaning because I’m bi-polar.”

I even like to joke that ‘crazy is a good thing to have in your past’ – I wouldn’t want to live through it again but it makes things interesting, in retrospect. UC however… I’m certainly not going to say that my life doesn’t have meaning with this disease, but neither would I wish it on anyone no matter how many life experience points a chronic illness supposedly comes with.

From what I’ve read, luckily the chances of inheriting IBD slightly is only higher than getting it through plain bad luck, as long as only one parent has it.

However on my UC forum today someone was asking about not using birth control (Catholic) and the possibility of getting pregnant. One person’s response about both the meds and the chance of passing on the disease, “not a chance i would want to take/do to another human being.”

I’m trying not to put too much stock in the opinion of someone who doesn’t use capitalization and uses unresearched generic phrases like “the meds could hurt the baby” but now I don’t feel so great about the whole thing…