As I approach middle-age (no protests, please: 35 x 2 = 70 years, at which point I will be retired), I'm more and more disheartened by how many of my friends rank (having a) family over art, politics, and venturing beyond their homes. (You folks who don't find these things mutually exclusive, good on ya!). I don't doubt that I've "settled" in here with my own version of the American Dream, and I still might someday visit the Land of Monogamous Coupledom. But it's not the relationship or the kids per se that bothers me the most: it's the all-consuming attention to these things as if they make one a "grown up." I flirted with the idea of wrapping my dissertation in a bonnet, putting it in a bassinet and sending it around at Christmas. "Ben and New Breed, Old Blood Wish You Happy Holidays!" I still might do that. But the literary-creation-as-birthing metaphor is troublesome for other reasons.
If it's my "choice" not to do these things, why should I think about it all the time? By think, I do not mean "wonder if I should propagate after all." I mean, how am I to continue "developing" as a person when there's little to nothing that I do that actually counts as development, other than my career (which, let's face it, becomes boring to talk about after fifteen minutes). Deep down, I must really believe that some day it will no longer be cool to mention marriage+kids at a party. I've decided to start saying to my breeding friends, "Good thing you had a baby now while it's still cool." This works a little bit better than Marla's "heternormativity is doomed," although I like her quote much better, personally.
I'm left with the tired old debate in queer theory over "choice." I'd like to say that not having a family is not a choice, it's who I am. I could try it, but it would seem violently wrong. There are two problems with this. First, I face no political danger and this makes my anxieties unlike those of GLBT's. Second, saying this means conceding that breeders didn't choose to breed either. So how can I criticize them?
Besides overpopulation and First World privilege, most of them are simply going to have to stop it--or else. They will have to fight against their "nature" or we're all doomed, not just heteronormativity. My hope is that breeding will simply cease to be cool. Breeding will be like littering.
Aha! As I typed this, I realized I had unconsciously equated having "a litter" with "littering."
Okay, now I'm not depressed. I'm fucking happy as all hell and am going to use "litter" much, much more. As in, "Pitch in! Put Your Gametes in the Trash," "Litter is Unsightly. It Attracts Vermin and Causes Disease," or
