Posted on 05/05/2013 8:29:56 PM PDT by Morgana
A recent post on HuffPo has gone viral, being reposted mostly by people who can’t believe what they just read. A man, if you can call him that, writing under the pen name Albert Garland wants you to know: “My Wife Is Expecting Twins and I Am Not Happy About It.”
This article is an excellent example of what we mean when we say “first world problems.” Even as it starts, I know I am about to read something steeped in a viewpoint warped and twisted by selfishness. It begins thusly:
I’ve been doing some spying lately, casually asking friends and acquaintances about their experiences with having twins.
A buddy from college said of the first year: “Think of the worst thing you can imagine. That’s what it was like.”
We’re two sentences in, and I’m already gaping at my monitor. When I think of “the worst thing” I can imagine, my mind immediately leaps to children with leukemia, extreme poverty, famine, murdered children. That type of thing. What decidedly does not leap to mind is, “Parenting two infants.”
I’m already thinking about my mother. She found herself, a divorced single mother of two with a GED and a job in food service, pregnant with twins at age 27. And then parenting us all alone. But I’ll get to that.
We’re just getting started with this mind-blowing article.
A former colleague was more blunt: “Twins were always my worst nightmare.”
And now it’s my and my wife’s nightmare; we’re expecting twins this August.
Horror of horrors.
Not only did these disgusting people get pregnant on purpose, they did IVF on purpose. That’s right: they paid a doctor $10,000 to put those two embryos in this awful man’s wife.
In the parsimonious manner of postmodern family planners, they decided to have one more child for their toddler son. A girl, of course, since they had a boy already. (What made them think they could select the gender? An inflated sense of the power of their own wishes, perhaps?) The old-fashioned way didn’t work (they’re in their late 30s), and IUI (intra-uterine insemination) didn’t work. So the next step was the $10,000-a-pop crap-shoot of IVF, in-vitro fertilization.
It worked. But, dadgum it, wouldn’t you just know it, she came up pregnant with twins. Twin boys. Can you even imagine such suffering?
Here is the part of the article that makes you realize that if you’re reading the thoughts of a normal man, we need to seriously reevaluate our definition of “normal.”
As horrible as this might sound, we found ourselves wishing these twins away.
We considered a reduction for about 30 seconds. (That’s essentially an abortion of one twin, not both.) If you thought that IVF involved playing God, a reduction felt beyond brazen — Machiavellian, even. Give us a reason, we thought, as we had the twins tested for genetic anomalies. None came.
I have no comment. There’s nothing I can say.
The loving father goes on to talk about how horrible his son made his life.
When our first son was born, I was naïve. I remember thinking it was going to be nice to be home for a while and have some time off. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Those first six weeks were brutal. Then the colic arrived. Two months later, we were shattered, frazzled, damaged. … Three years later, we still struggle mightily with a boy who’s fiercely strong-willed and seems to inherently know that crying pushes our buttons.
Does anybody else want to put this guy through, I don’t know, Army Basic Training or something? Yes, I have no doubt parenting a baby with colic is hard. But “damaged?” Seriously? And three years later you “struggle” with your three-year-old son? Maybe it’s because you’re terrible parents. Just a thought.
So tell me how this isn’t going to suck. (Did I mention we live in a one-bedroom apartment?) Sure, in 10 years I could have close to a starting five of super-athletic, NBA-hopeful alpha males living under my roof smelling up the joint. But right now it’s hard for us to see twins as good news.
First: maybe you should live somewhere where you can afford more than one bedroom. Second: way to embrace the eugenics mentality of only valuing the lives of your children if and when they’re useful to you. If none of them become NBA-hopefuls, will you still love them?
In fact, he doesn’t mention once in this article that he loves any of his children.
This is how it ends:
With four months left to go, I’m not sure what stage we’re in at the moment — but it’s not acceptance. My wife and I even both privately admitted that we don’t like the new children, which is of course insane…
They say the most important thing is the kids’ health — but what about ours?
What about yours? Who cares? With all the time and energy you spend thinking about yourself, you don’t need any help from the rest of us.
I have a dual viewpoint of this article. I’m not only, as they say, struggling with infertility, but I was nearly nine years old when my mother became unexpectedly pregnant with twins. Her boyfriend, their biological father, found out she was pregnant and took off, forever.
I remember a magnet on our refrigerator when I was growing up. It said: “A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.” It stayed there for years. Later, Mom told me she put it there for a reason, to remind herself when it was hard.
And of course it was hard. They didn’t sleep. Ever. For the first ten months, my mother slept in two-hour spurts. Now in her early 50s, she goes to bed at nine o’clock every night, and jokes that she’s still catching up.
She struggled. We all did. But my mother, who most certainly did not pay $10,000 for those twins, who was shocked and scared by her unplanned pregnancy, nevertheless handled single motherhood of two children plus twins with grace, fortitude, and love – some words “Albert Garland” might consider looking up.
Around the world, people much poorer than the Garlands view large families in the Biblical way: as a blessing. Right now, somewhere, in a country where a one-bedroom American apartment would look like a palace, a man is wearing rags and watching with pride as his babies play on the floor of a shack.
“Albert Garland” is a wake up call. His revolting words hold up a mirror to a culture that has become selfish, soft, and sad. We have forgotten what real suffering is, because we tend to not experience it. We have become so privileged we can no longer tell the difference between joy and pain.
I’ll be praying for all the Garlands — especially their children.
I agree I would have been on cloud 9 if I was granted twins
There are too many men nowadays who, if they are not either watching the next big game, out on the golf course, in the bar ogling chicks, or sitting on their butts computer gaming, just think EVERYTHING and everyone in life is a huge hassle and not worth their time.
I’m tired of men like this. They are at least half at fault for the ruin of our nation. The other half are the selfish women in this country who associate with them.
What a sicko that “man” is.
My wife and I tried having a baby for 12 years with no luck. We had given up. Then one day (I was 42 she was 46) lo and behold she became pregnant with twins.
I now have 2 14 year old boys and they have been the joy of my life. Any one who is a parent knows they can be trying but I wouldn’t trade a minute of it.
These people are imbeciles. Self absorbed, selfish hedonists without an ounce of concern for anything other then there own little pathetic existence.
Shameful.
I am afraid we have a generation of selfish, narcissistic parents out there who feel its all about them. They have no faith, or understanding what life is truly all about.
They need to grow up, get back to church and stop whining.
“They need to grow up, get back to church”
I wonder if they ever went to church in the first place.
Interesting to go to the blog and read the comments to the author. Some are just priceless!
The parents of these fraternal twins had a completely different attitude and also these two turned out pretty well(not perfectly but who does?):
http://timenewsfeed.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/153120659.jpg?w=260
NO...he is the epitome of a NARCISSIST....it’s ALL about HIM! I do pity his children.
I see you dropped the liberal from my post. Anyway, you are quite wrong. Liberal feminists have played a major role in turning most men into boys.
I was never able to carry to term.
They can give them to me.
My arms and my heart have room for both.
( dog kids have never really fully filled that void)
OF COURSE twins seem horrible to them.
Their son probably horrifies them by wanting to play with toy guns and soldiers.
How awful!
/s
Hopefully these babies can overcome their bad genetics...
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