Not everyone should have children

You can end any toxic relationship, except when it involves your parents.

You can divorce your partner. Break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Block your annoying, toxic friend. Quit your demanding job. Walk away from your horrible boss.

But you can never really quit your parents.

It’s hard.

It’s harder when you live in India, where society expects, and indirectly forces, you to take care of them.

We live in a society that considers older people more truthful. It strongly believes that righteousness and justice always belong to the elderly.

The relatively young population is considered inexperienced, arrogant, careless, and irresponsible.

That, combined with a lack of good and affordable senior care, creates one of the most toxic living environments for adults in India.

Adults who were neglected as children, who had their confidence killed, and who were subjected to emotional and verbal abuse are forced to coexist with the people who caused it all.

How cruel is that?

Nothing is more painful than having to explain your hurt to the person who caused it. Each attempt to make them understand reopens the wound, intensifying the pain with every conversation.

But society doesn’t care about any of this.

It doesn’t care about how your childhood has affected you mentally and emotionally. It doesn’t care about your depression or the time you spent in therapy. In fact, they think therapy is a lie.

They don’t care about your panic attacks or high blood pressure.

They blame your lifestyle.

Like every other crime, society always tries to turn it on the victim.

To society, you don’t matter. All it wants from you is to take care of your parents and keep them happy.

People say things like:

“Maybe you were a mischievous kid.”

“They did all of this for your own good.”

“It happens to everyone.”

“Nobody has a happy, flowery childhood.”

“Your parents know better.”

It almost sounds like a customer service rep reading from a training script. Someone told them. And now, they’re telling us.

If we agree and move on, we’ll tell the same thing to the next generation.

To the society that thinks abandoning one’s parents is bad, let me make something clear:

What if someone doesn’t want to abandon their parents, but wants to run far away from them to protect themselves from further emotional trauma?

What coverage or help does society have for those who have been the real victims?

Nothing.

All it has is advice.

And advice doesn’t do shit.

Except for one piece of advice:

Not everyone should have children.

Don’t bring children into this world to blame them for your incompetence, to take out the hatred you have for your partner, or to make them fulfill your dreams because your dumb ass of a brain couldn’t crack JEE or IAS.

And if you think this doesn’t apply to you, ask yourself:

Do people hate you?

Do you keep wondering why you don’t have friends?

Do you always have issues with everyone around you, including your siblings, relatives, neighbors, the milkman, and the shopkeeper?

Do you think the whole world misunderstands you often?

Do you always feel like you’re unique and nobody sees that?

Well, let me break it to you.

You’re not unique.

You’re not an intellectual.

You’re not misunderstood.

You’re just an asshole.

There’s a saying:

“If you meet three assholes before noon, you’re the asshole.”

If reading this makes you furious, then this essay is your sign not to have children.