…
WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST KIDS?
They kill your desire, they cost a fortune, they disappoint you …
IS THE BOOK A JOKE?
Partly. But we are obsessed by children. I think maybe we have lost the meaning in our lives, so we focus on kids. Also, people who don’t want children are discriminated against—that should change.
WHAT DO YOUR 12- AND 14-YEAR-OLD THINK?
I’ve explained the book’s not about them. They don’t care what I write. They prefer to read Harry Potter.
…
she HAS kids!! and she wrote an entire book about why you should never, ever have children!!! i think that is so funny. and so sad too, but really funny. who would do that?!
also, in searching for this little piece, i found another article which recapped the 40 reasons laid out in the book:1. The “desire for children”: A silly idea
2. Labour (child birth) is torture
3. You avoid becoming a walking pacifier
4. You keep having fun
5. Rat race plus rugrats: No thanks!
6. You keep your friends
7. You won’t have to use that idiot language when talking to kids
8. Open the nursery, close the bedroom
9. Kids are the death of desire
10. Kids are the death knell of the couple
11. To be or to do: Don’t decide
12. “The child is a sort of vicious, innately cruel dwarf” (quote from Michel Houellebecq)
13. Kids are conformists
14. Kids are unbiased allies of capitalism
16. A brain teaser: How to keep kids busy
17. The parent’s worst nightmares
18. Don’t be fooled by the “ideal child” illusion
19. Your kid will always disappoint you
20. The horror of becoming a merdeuf (mere de famille)
21. Parent above all? No, thank you
22. Keep the experts at bay
23. The family: A horror
24. Don’t revert to childhood
25. It takes real courage to keep saying, “Me first”
26. Kids signal the end of your youthful dreams
27. You can’t stop yourself from wanting your kids to be happy
28. You can’t get away from your kids
29. Get used to it: School is boot camp
30. “Raise” a child… but toward what?
31. Avoid benevolent neutrality like the plague
32. Parenthood is a sad, sweet song
33. Motherhood is a trap for women
34. Motherhood or success: Pick one
35. When the child appears, the father disappears
36. Today’s child is the perfect child: Welcome to the best of all possible worlds
37. Danger, child ahead
38. Why wear yourself out for a future that doesn’t include you?
39. There are too many children in the world
40. Reject the ten absurd commandments of the “good” parent, such as your children are more important than you, than your work, than you as a couple, than any other child, than all the adults living or dead in the world you live in
…
i bet she’s a real hit with the PTA.
