Hey, Bill Maher, I’m That Other Guy Who Loves Being A Dad
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(OPINION) I try hard not to sound like the proverbial old man yelling at clouds. There’s no one more irrelevant — and annoying — than some white-haired geezer trying to tell all you darned youngsters what’s wrong with the no-account world today.
With that said, I have to admit I do feel out of sync with just about everything going on in our world today.
This might be partly the result of my age.
But then, I’ve felt out of sync with everything going on for just about my whole life. Even when I was young and had a full head of dark hair, I used to say (rhetorically, to no one in particular, because nobody listened to me then any more than now): “You want to be happy? You want to be fulfilled? Figure out what the crowd is doing and then do exactly the opposite.”
That remains stellar advice, for the most part.
The other night I got an out-of-sync feeling while watching “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO. I’m a big fan of “Real Time,” which might surprise you, since Maher is an outspoken atheist and a happy hedonist.
But he’s also my age, and he speaks on other topics and in a frame of reference I relate to. He’s smart. He’s funny. He has interesting guests. He’s usually insightful, except when he isn’t, such as when he seizes on the lowest-hanging fruit to sophomorically mock all religion.
In the Aug. 23 episode of “Real Time,” Maher did one of his popular “New Rules” bits about the huge increase in U.S. adults who are childless and plan to stay that way.
Among other stats, he noted that the share of American adults under 50 without kids who say they are unlikely to ever have them is 47%, a number that came from a recent Pew study that’s been widely reported in the news.
Maher is childless and single, and has joked forever about his disdain for kids and marriage alike.
“You’re welcome,” he said to a cheering studio audience after reading the 47% statistic, which marks a drastic increase in childlessness from earlier decades.
Maher’s commentary was partly aimed at Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, who, as CNN put it recently, “told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in 2021 that the country was being run by ‘a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.’”
Vance’s remark was off base for any number of reasons, obviously.
But although incorrect and insulting to boot, it did accidentally bump into a larger truth.
That is, for men and women alike, choosing to remain childless used to be a decision frowned upon by the larger culture. Now, childlessness is rapidly becoming our culture. We’re not talking here about people who desperately want kids and can’t have them. We’re talking about people who could have kids but don’t want to.
Childless adults told Pew researchers that not having kids has made it easier for them to afford the things they like, have time for hobbies and interests, enjoy an active social life, save for the future and be successful in their careers.
Look, I get it. Yet I don’t get it.
I’ve been happily married twice, and neither of my wives were all that enthusiastic about bearing children. My first wife and I had one kid. My wife was a wonderful, loving parent — among the best ever — but held little interest in having another baby. My second wife has no children by choice, and I’m fine with that.
Indeed, old geezer though I may be, I’m not looking to scold Bill Maher or anybody else, whether or not they have cats.
Raising kids is fraught. They’re time consuming. They’re expensive. They make your heart ache, because real life is messy, dangerous and unpredictable. Your offspring — and someday their offspring — can hurt themselves or you in a thousand ways.
They can also take your heart to heights you never could have reached without them. For me, despite the drawbacks and worries, parenthood has been a beautiful, beautiful experience. I wouldn’t have traded it for any promotion, vacation or social advancement. It’s been more than a life-changer; it’s been a life-maker. I helped make my son, and for 41 years he’s continued to help remake me.
Now he’s given me five grandkids, and I’m as crazy about them as I was about him.
On “Real Time,” Maher said, “Having kids isn’t a triumph. It’s just a choice. It’s morally neutral.”
That’s probably true.
But, as I said, I find myself out of sync again. Having kids might be only a choice, but it’s a choice I can’t imagine having forgone. I knew that not everyone felt the same way. I just assumed that way more people thought my way than didn’t. Apparently I was mistaken.
Paul Prather has been a rural Pentecostal pastor in Kentucky for more than 40 years. Also a journalist, he was The Lexington Herald-Leader’s staff religion writer in the 1990s, before leaving to devote his full time to the ministry. He now writes a regular column about faith and religion for the Herald-Leader, where this column first appeared. Prather’s written four books. You can email him at pratpd@yahoo.com.