At a recent reading of The Age of the Child, I began the event by asking, “Who here has children?”

Two-thirds of the audience raised a hand.

“Why?” I said.

After a moment of “What did she just say?” silence, one woman raised her hand again.

She had a child, she said, because at 19 she fell in lust with a beautiful man.

Curiosity satisfied, and without judgment.

I didn’t ask “why” to be rebellious, contrary, or argumentative. I really do want to know why anyone has children. And not in a passive-aggressive judgmental kind of way, either, but in a genuinely interested way. Was it an “oopsie”? Inertia? A life plan formed as a consequence of socialization? Pressure from family? Pressure from a partner?

A deep, passionate desire?

If a deep, passionate desire, I’d then like to ask, “Even knowing that a child can negatively impact your finances, cut into your available time, disturb your romantic relationship, interrupt your career goals, kill your sleep, and raise your stress levels, and knowing the baby could possibly be born with a lifelong disease or disability that would mean a monumental commitment of time, money, and emotion on your part, you choose to do this? Interesting! Seriously, genuinely, and without malice — why?”

Is that not a more logical question than, “You just kind of want life to go on as normal without a huge upheaval? Why?”

Instead, though, “Why do you want kids?” or “Why did you decide to have a child?” gets the neck-crunch & eyebrow furrow reply. Or a shrug and, “I just wanted them.”

Yes, but why?

We aren’t supposed to ask.

Not even when it’s pretty obvious the parents are bringing a child into a dangerous or otherwise inhospitable situation.

Take The Walking Dead, for example, whose characters decide to have babies (“for hope! for the future!”) in a country overrun by a lethal virus in walking human form.

It’s assumed that we, the viewers, will clutch our heart area and tear up at all the promise a pregnancy offers (it’s the same “promise,” the same “potential,” pro-creation activists cling to, forgetting that the warm mass of “potential” simply ends up being a regular person just like us, destined for an average life, facing all the same dangers that already exist).

We aren’t, upon seeing Maggie-of-Walkerville caress her pregnant belly, supposed to say, “But, um, she’s bringing a new person into this hell she, herself would escape if she could, so why woul — ?”

“BECAUSE. BABIES ARE THE EMBODIMENT OF HOPE AND A BETTER FUTURE! HOW DARE YOU ASK WHY? BABIES ARE MIRACLES!”

“But,” we try again for the sake of that poor future person, “they have zombies that eat faces. They literally tear off cheek flesh with their floppy jaws. And then there’s the human component that’s created a nearly endless war. And she wants a baby to have this as its introduction to lif— ?”

AMC

“BABIES ARE THE FUTURE! THOSE CHARACTERS NEED A BABY IN ORDER TO FEEL LIKE LIFE HAS MEANING! SO WHAT IF THE BABY GETS TORN APART AT ONE MONTH, TEN MONTHS, OR TWELVE YEARS OLD? LIFE IS TOUGH! AT LEAST THEY GOT TO LIVE!”

And then there’s the final episode of GIRLS.

We probably aren’t supposed to say, “Someone please remove that helpless infant from the arms of that whiny, selfish, self-involved, irresponsible character immediately.”

Instead, we — I think? — are supposed to believe all of Hannah’s undesirable traits will suddenly vanish as the Miracle of Parenthood washes over her.

GIRLS | HBO

Not likely.

Examples | of | People | Not | Automatically | Imbued | with | Basic Human Decency | Upon | a | Child’s | Birth

Oh, you might say. But that last example, under the “Birth” link — she was just fourteen years old. She was probably confused, scared…

She, the 14-year-old, also seemed to think, as many in our society do, that babies are little more than representations or symbols — of adulthood, of a marriage taking the next step, of repair glue for a relationship, of economic growth, of hope, of purpose. In that teenage girl’s case, of burden.

It’s for this reason, I believe, that “Why do you want children/Why did you have a child?” isn’t a question people are accustomed to answering seriously. For some reason, whatever a child symbolizes has become more important than the child, itself.

“What do you mean, ‘why’ do I want a child?” they say. “Because.”

But because the decision to have a child 100% affects the life of another person — because procreation is, by definition, not a choice that is all about the parent and the parent’s life and the parent’s needs/whims/desires/impulses (nor is it, as established, comparable to deciding whether to eat a piece of chocolate)— it’s THE question we should be asking. Studying. Analyzing. Encouraging people to consider before even thinking about having sex without birth control.

We don’t ask it, though. We just sort of shrug and say “Whatever. Not my problem. Good luck, kid.”