(Untitled)

[brigid]

my neighbor is schizophrenic

Comments

[badriyaz]

Sorry about the neighbor. The woman down the street who yells at me is unnerving enough, I can't imagine being able to hear her all the time :-/

I think I've always lacked whatever internal thing it is that makes most women want children. I was completely disinterested in babies or baby dolls when I was a kid--it was all animals, superheroines and Indians for me. I think my parents are a little sad about this but are mostly fine with it. My brother's given them two grandkids anyway.

In my experience you do lose some contact with people when they have kids, but really, they are the same people they were before, just with some added responsibilities. As long as you don't mind being around kids (which I don't--I like them, I just don't want any of my own) and are willing/happy to be interested in them, it's entirely possible to keep the friendships strong.

[brigid]

i just worry about the guy as his dad is quite old and i don't know if he'd know what to do if his father was ill or something.

for me, yeah i was all about he man and voltron as a kid. i also had am impressive toy horse collection.

at this point, having moved cross country, i imagine we will lose touch with everyone to some extent, though sometimes i think i really want to move back to boston some day, but i imagine it will be such a different landscape by that point that i won't even recognize it. and i don't at all judge or mind that my friends with children are more distant, i mean, if i were to have children, i imagine they would become my top priority as well.

[gobetween]

That poor man and his family. Life is terrifically cruel sometimes.

You know, I hadn't ever thought about the baby doll thing before. I had a beautiful doll growing up that was usually just hidden under stuffed animals and Barbies. She kind of freaked me out. I did, however, adore my sister's baby doll when I was really small, sneaking in to her room when she was at school to find Baby and drag her around with me all day (my sister was not amused). I similarly adore my oldest nephew, but my sister doesn't have to worry about me trying to steal him :)

[brigid]

oh it's awful. i have an aunt (or second cousin, i can never keep these things straight since my family is pretty fractured) who has paranoid schizophrenia and she is a ward of the state. my dad was going to be her legal guardian but then he had an episode heart failure and was essentially told by his doctors that the whole thing would be way too stressful for him to do (she lives in a mental institution in CT, so aside from the emotional strain the position would hold, the physical stress of making that drive a couple times a week would be too much) and strongly advised him against it...which was really really hard for him to do because he loves her, but his health is honestly quite bad at this point...but it was also really awkward because she was adamant that it be -him- even though she has a husband and a twin sister, who are all much closer both emotionally and in proximity. it's really hard because i know he feels like he's let her down, but in all honesty i don't think he could've done the job right, or for long, anyway

[4hour_ramona]

i've never felt the baby urge - and sometimes i've wondered if there is something wrong with me because of that. like, maybe part of my girlness is missing, because it's a biological imperative, it's what we do. except not for me.
and sometimes i'm really glad that i don't have that urge/need/want - it's very freeing.

[amadea]

Yup, this.

[brigid]

it's weird, because in a lot of ways i tend to fight my girliness, just stupid social things like not wearing makeup or keeping my hair short, but that feels so much more natural for me than dressing up or having long hair or wearing makeup (unless it's like, way over the top) but it's all subconscious, i think i became more aware of how "non" feminine i was when I moved to LA where obviously everyone is WAAAAAAAY more image conscious than in boston...but i wonder if those behaviors are related somehow. but it's not like it's a statement or intentional, i just don't feel comfortable in my skin otherwise.

not that being a tomboy and wanting kids are mutually exclusive or tied together, but sometimes i wonder if there is some connection with my lifelong behavior and my long term goals (or lack of specific ones)

[atalanta]

I always wanted kids _someday_, since I was tiny, but never actually had the immediate desire to have them _now_. (Even though I now have two!) I never got the acute urge to produce babies, and in fact always wanted to put it off a bit more, but eventually had to just do it or lose the chance. It feels like a different kind of wanting from what a lot of women report experiencing, I guess. I just knew it would be a mistake for me not to have kids and that it was important for them to be a part of my life.

Never liked baby dolls much. I liked dolls mostly for making their outfits and dressing them up. I like real babies though.

[brigid]

see, there is a part of me that would love to be pregnant and experience childbirth because (to me) those seem like intense and amazing things to experience. but i just don't know, i wonder if not having siblings or a large family played into it, or genetics, or what but that switch was never flipped. i remember once, eons ago, meeting ralph's kid (who was teensy at the time) and thinking she was sort of a catalyst-baby because she was so awesome and so social that i figured a bunch of people who were on the fence about kids would have their switches flipped by her adorable antics

[atalanta]

Yeah I do know a lot of people without kids who seem to really dislike kids & breeding in general. There is an odd faction thing going on around here, child-free activist types vs. parents. But there's no reason there has to be anything negative about not wanting kids, IMO. It's a good thing to know, isn't it? For goodness' sake don't have kids if you don't want them! They are complicating enough if you DO want them!

[brigid]

i just don't get the child-loathing. i mean, it seems sort of maladaptive on a really basic level. unless we start raising robots or something

[rpkrajewski]

Weird, and unfortunate. Patton Oswalt mentions his old apartment building in LA with people with similar problems in an old routine of his.