In my time on earth, I’ve wanted many things. I wanted to start for the Lakers. I wanted to be Ernest Hemingway. I briefly wanted to be president, assuming I could win on the novelty of running as a nine-year-old. I’ve never, not once, for as long as I can remember, wanted kids.

I have nothing against your kids. If they’re annoying, it’s probably your fault. I have two nieces I would gleefully kill for, and I feel similarly about my friends’ kids. But I don’t want kids of my own. That’s why I got a vasectomy. If you’re a man who’s on the fence about whether or not you want kids, or more kids, I think you should get a vasectomy, too.

Some of my reasons are personal. After going through a crushing divorce that resurfaced neuroses I thought I’d left in my college years, I need to focus on my own reparenting for the foreseeable future. It’s possible to invest in parenthood and personal growth simultaneously. But if you have kids, they get priority. Based on what I’ve learned about myself over the last few years, I can’t promise I’ll ever be ready to be the kind of dad my kids would deserve. To replenish my supply of love for the world, I need to soak in it myself for a while.

To replenish my supply of love for the world, I need to soak in it myself for a while.

For my entire life, as you may have already guessed, I’ve struggled with painful anxiety and depression. Any kids who got drunk on my genetic cocktail would almost certainly experience the same, along with the legendary alcohol-abuse issues it took me two full decades to get under control. Perhaps they’d be fine, but if I found myself in a courthouse or a mental hospital on their 16th birthdays, I wouldn’t be able to feign surprise.

If I want to pay for piano lessons, I’ll buy them for myself, not for someone who’s eventually going to make a concept album about what an asshole I am.

I’m not the first man to get snipped, nor am I the first to write about it for this august publication. While I relate to much of Norman Quarrinton’s experience, I lack his confidence in my own resistance to peer pressure. I’m a grown-up and I can handle being different, but I prefer to give myself every advantage against being pushed into a life I know I don’t want.

According to the philosopher Rene Girard’s theory of mimetic desire, we tend to want what the people around us want, or seem to want. This seems to be hardwired and there’s not much we can do about it except be selective in the people whose desires we model. 

In my age cohort, there’s a massive amount of pressure to have kids. There’s evolutionary pressure. Our genes want us to pass them along, and they’ll trick us into all kinds of stupid, humilating situations in furtherance of that objective. Having kids is the easy way to make meaning in our lives; without them, it’s up to us, and that’s scary and painful and not for everyone. And everyone else seems to be having kids. 

Most of my friends from my 20s have kids now and have more important things to do than hang out at the Museum of Jurassic Technology with me. I’m back on the dating scene, and a lot of otherwise-desirable women in my age bracket are absolutely determined to have kids as soon as possible. I wish them the best, but I don’t want to get involved. I’m not afraid of commitment. The vasectomy is my commitment. I know I don’t want kids, and I want to help myself stay true to my own desires no matter who tries to turn up the heat on me.

I’m not afraid of commitment. The vasectomy is my commitment.

Constraints are the best friends of creativity. Having unlimited options is overrated. There’s no point in having options you don’t want. Many poets compose their best work using forms, meter, and rhyme. Steve Jobs wore black turtlenecks every day. Why? Because, having made that decision in advance, he could focus his mental energy on important things like berating his employees and selling gadgets that break people’s brains.

The world is in trouble. We’re in an age of discontinuity in which all bets are off and none of us is ready for what’s already happened. The invoice for climate change is way overdue. A lot of the big liberal democracies are skidding toward theocratic fascism. With the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the fun part of the sexual revolution may be over, and it will certainly get harder for women to pursue life goals that don’t involve child-rearing. Everything will keep getting more and more expensive forever, especially kids. Think of the world your theoretical kids are inheriting, and weep for them. Then, do them a favor and don’t have them.

If you’re a man and you’re not sure you don’t want (more) kids, how much would you say you do want them? Where would you put that desire on a scale of 1-10? If it’s a 7 or below, you should get a vasectomy. If it’s an 8 or a 9, you should consider a vasectomy. It’s likely that you can’t afford kids, you wouldn’t be a happy parent, and you have other work to do, such as building lifeboats and sharpening guillotines.

I got my vasectomy through the good offices of Planned Parenthood, here in the People’s Republic of Santa Monica. They sounded me out to make sure I knew what I was doing, which only increased my certitude. Then, they gave me a physical exam to make sure I wasn’t crawling with crabs. I wasn’t, but they did discover a massive bilateral inguinal hernia, which caught me by surprise. I had experienced some discomfort, but I’d chalked it up to stress. I knew I was intense, but this was ridiculous.

Point being: I’ve got my own stuff to worry about right now. If you insist on having kids, please do it somewhere else so I can rest.

Recommend If You Like is not owned or funded by a billionaire or even a millionaire. We do have a Patreon. Even sites owned by billionaires and millionaires have Patreons so please don’t hold that against us. And we’re paying all of our writers, photographers and graphic designers. So please consider our Patreon. If you can’t afford to become a patron, please sign up to our mailing list. It’s free and we’re asking here instead of a pop-up. Pop-ups are annoying.