Who wants to raise a child in a world like this?
SINGLES by Karenina Yaptinchay
Manila Standard, P. 24B, 19 October 2000

There will always be reasons why people should or should not get married. In the same way that there will be reasons why we should or should not have children. I believe that people are entitled to have children only if they vow religiously to at least try to give them a beautiful life despite the ugliness that surrounds us.

Of some married people whose lives I had been quietly analyzing the past few days, 50 percent, as I have found out, got married because it was the "right time" for them to start their own families. "Right time" to them means they can already afford to live on their own together. They have at least found that one person whom they can love and live with for the rest of their lives. (At least that's what they thought when they got married.)

The other half said they the situation called for it. There were just circumstances in their lives that called for a marriage so the main consideration for the decision was more of necessity. Most of them did it to give a child a family. This is more like the exception, I think. A national statistics survey can prove it.

I once told my friends I wanted to get married because I needed to take a break from the monotony of single life. Some might think that single life is hardly monotonous. After all, being single means you can afford to do anything that you want, without a sense of responsibility over anyone but yourself. But sometimes, "monotony" is pretty much in your face especially when you begin to notice that you are on your own seven days of the week.

Monotony is boring. Sometimes, I get too bored with my daily routine, thinking of nobody else but myself. I want someone who can help me pay the rent and make me laugh whenever I feel down. I want someone to go home to when I am too tired from work. I want someone who could share with me my joys and pains. And with a little stroke of luck, maybe I can find someone to pay for all my bills while I just spend my time painting still life and writing a bestseller. I want to be a housewife. I know, however, that if something knocks my head — ooops, is that reality? — I'll wake up and realize that married life is just as monotonous, and just as, if not more, difficult.

I know I sound too shallow and selfish, even materialistic. But I can’t help it. After all, being single is all about me. I do not know what a future husband would need me for. And since I haven’t found him yet, I also do not know what I would need him for.

Of course, my married friends were all too quick to warn me that getting married was not that simple "Marriage is hard work," all of them would say. I know, I know. I just needed to say something that can trigger a very passionate and emotional conversation about marriage as well as release some of my anxieties as a single person.

When done telling me a litany of all the sacrifices they have undertaken just to make their marriages work, my friends at last agree on something: a child makes up for all the hard work.

While growing up, I was taught in school that people get married to have children, to reproduce, to propagate, to multiply. In a sense, I still believe that. Somehow, this argument validates the reason why some couples get married because of unexpected pregnancies. But why else would anybody want to get married? Love? Companionship? Maybe. It's all up to you, really.

But I also believe that getting married and having children also comes with the responsibility of rearing them in an environment of love and understanding. So, to me, if a couple cannot pledge this to God during marriage, might as well not get married or have children at all.

When you are female, in your 30s, and single, you can’t help but occasionally think of having children because the biological clock keeps ticking closer and closer to the deadline. I admit sometimes I tell my friends I want to find myself a husband, so I can have a baby before it is too late for me to have one. One of them said that what I needed is a sperm donor, not a husband. Eeeeeuuuuuuw! Thanks, but no thanks.

Honestly and seriously, the only reason I could think of to get married is for me to have children. Many of you might say that even that is a wrong reason to get married. Maybe so, but I really can’t think of a better or another reason to marry at this point in my life. I believe that children are born so that they too can enjoy the wonderful life and share the happiness and joys that we feel, not pay for the sins of the parents. But whether or not there is a wonderful life out there is another issue.

I remember the strong message I picked up in the movie "Prelude to a Kiss" shown back in 1992, which was based on a play written by Craig Lucas. The underrated movie is about Rita (Meg Ryan), an insomniac who is afraid of life, and Peter (Alec Baldwin). Peter wanted to have children but Rita did not want any for she was too scared too raise a child in a world full of hate, anxieties, and dilemma. For some reason, a very old man wandered off to their wedding and kissed Rita to send his well wishes. The kiss then transferred Rita's soul into the old man and the old man's into Rita. Peter noticed in their honeymoon that Rita turned into a brighter and happier bride who doesn’t dread the future and wanted to have children, so unlike the Rita Peter fell in love with. The old man who had a chance to be young again in Rita's body showed her, in so many ways, that life is too good and precious to be wasted. In the end, everything turned back into normal and the couple found themselves in each other's arms. But this time, Rita was not too worried anymore about bringing a child into this world.

With what has been happening to our country and the rest of the world lately, can we still believe that life in this planet can be wonderful? I asked myself several times how I could explain to my future child that I could not buy him/her toys because the peso was plunging deep into the muck. How can I tell my child that stealing is wrong when he/she sees that everybody gets away with it? How in God's name can I tell my child that our country's leaders are supposed to be good examples for everyone to follow? Haven’t we heard enough demented individuals who curse their parents for bringing them into this world?

The truth is the harder and harder life becomes for all of us, the harder and harder it becomes to have and raise a child. Unless things change and unless this government can prove that there is a chance of a better life for everybody in the near future, I don’t think I would want to have a child just yet. Therefore, I do not want to get married yet. Maybe my outlook would change if I meet the right person.

There will always be reasons why people should or should not get married. In the same way that there will be reasons why we should or should not have children. I believe that people are entitled to have children only if they vow religiously to at least try to give them a beautiful life despite the ugliness that surrounds us.

Or is life is what we make of it? It can really suck if we want it to but it can also be beautiful if we strive to make it so. Remember Roberto Benini's "Life is Beautiful"? In the midst of the holocaust, Benini's character managed to turn the concentration camp into a playground for his son. Life will be beautiful to children only if their parents make it beautiful for them.

If I cannot find a husband I could love and could love me for the rest of my life and with whom I can share the responsibility of showing my child how beautiful life can be, I will gladly remain single and childless. I know it sounds too uncompromising but my child, who has yet to live, deserves a loving family and a life worth living.

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