No to Procreation

Something I wrote the previous term:

No to Procreation

It all began with a conversation with Ricki So about his mental health that led to issues of having of children. How it went from psychology to family plans, I don’t remember, but I remember him saying that he wanted lots of them rugrats. I, on the other hand, said I wanted to adopt. I will now present to you the reasons behind that statement and the things I have discovered as I continued into my accounting class.

We talked about the income statement that contained information regarding the business entity’s revenues and expenses. And somewhere between processing the real estate transaction and the baby plans, the neurons in my head seem to have found a connection. I suddenly wondered, “How much would a baby cost?” Other than keeping up with your wife’s capricious eight months and her erratic urges for food here and there, there’s not much expense during the prenatal development of the child. I think the credit balance increase will start from labour.

At that moment I had only three labour options available in my head. There’s the bloody unpleasant midwife experience, the city hospital option and the high-standard hospital in the likes of Asian Hospital, Makati Medical Centre and Saint Luke’s. Maybe it was the bias or the presuppositions I had about it, but the thought of Asian Hospital suddenly put into picture a huge six-digit value flashing in my head. No deal.

Despite the already huge sum in the way I persisted into computing or assessing the after labour needs. There’s the diapers expense, doctor’s expense, clothes expense, food expense, not to mention the sleep less nights, unless, of course, you’d want to shut your shrieking child with valium (pardon my sadistic suggestion). What about growing-up? There’s the toys expense, educational expense, more doctor’s expenses, and crediting goes on and on.

At the end of the class I had a new answer in mind: NO CHILDREN, NADA. I don’t want my future wife, whoever she is, to give birth to a liability monster. I now consider children as bringer of accounts payables, the thirty-something pound creature that tips the balance scale to the right column. I’d have a nervous breakdown at the first sight of it.

Not until I have enough capital, thoughts of babies would only bring bankruptcy nightmares and anxiety attacks. I bet that an economic feasibility study would clearly conclude that not only is it impractical, it would also show that we actually need to stop our production of consumers and increase the scarce resources. To those who don’t attend Ms. Windy’s class, what I meant was this: babies need a proper environment and right now, we don’t have one nor can we afford one.

We have a lot to fix in our now distorted reality. Idealism aside, and practicality and obligation at front, we have surroundings to clean, moral values to uphold and an economy to stabilize. So if you really like to have a baby and actually love the baby you plan for, even if it does not exist yet, you would make the extra preparations.


COMMENT:
I wrote this the previous term, when I was infected by Ms. Windy’s accounting fever. I used accounting principles to defend my stand against baby production. I presented arguments in a business perspective and now, I would like to add to that using the environmental issues at hand.

At the end of my piece, I was open to the possibilities of having babies under the condition that we should prepare for it. If I were to re-write the piece again, I would no longer have that door open. I would like to say, this time around, I don’t like procreation, period.

First of all, the country, let alone, the world, is already densely populated. We have carelessly and massively brought to life babies in the past decade and now we should take responsibility for it. The natural resources have gone scarce and this is reflected by the fact the scientists now are looking for ways to massively produce food fast. We have gone into genetic research to artificially speed up the process of plant growth.

Thinking locally, let us observe the density of cars and people that commute especially during rush hours. Roads and transportation vehicles are jam packed like hell. I have experienced riding the MRT on a Monday morning and I couldn’t even begin describe the ordeal. Every time the train doors would open, people would be spewed out of it. The whole train is like some animal’s bulging intestine ready to burst any minute. I’m surprised that the train is still able to go the distance lagging full-loaded carts.

There are parts in Africa where people suffer from drought and famine and their country is not even fully populated. And here we are happy-happy-joy-joy Filipinos acting like rabbits thinking the more, the merrier. It’s not going to be merry when we begin to experience energy crisis, which we will, by the way. Because aside from food and water shortage, according to PAGCOR, in 2 to 5 years, the Philippines will have shortage in electricity like it did during the early 90’s. Brown-outs in 2012? Whopee…

When the going gets tough, we will all pay the price and there is nothing more convenient like getting punished for someone else’s imprudence. I can’t make my hatred any clearer to all those baby-making, population-adding, life-threatening, natural resource-sucking couples.

You want a baby, sure, adopt. Stop producing life and start nurturing the lives that already exist.

GE117