Hernan Vera Alvarez
10/23/2020 22:00
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 10/24/2020 4:30 AM
Everyone must write their own life book.
And in mine, the children were never there.
And not because I chose to be a writer, a profession associated with silence and loneliness and, in some way, would be undermined by the presence of a child, since it is silly: so many good authors have had children, which shows that no it is an impediment to making an artistic work.
I kept reading
If there is no desire, why insist?
Society
When I think about where the desire comes from, inevitable images of childhood emerge.
There are many, but I will only name a few: A few slaps for breaking a package of lactal bread that my father had sent me to buy one Saturday at the neighborhood grocery store.
As a child.
Hernán Vera Álvarez says he has some hard memories of those years.
My four-year-old sister, dressed and under the icy rush of water from the bathroom shower.
She cries and screams without finding comfort.
The reason for the punishment?
Some prank that irritated my father.
But he was not the only one with those behaviors.
One day I go to school, I wear shorts that show legs with purple stripes.
I am ashamed to be exposed by the situation of abuse.
I lie and tell the teacher that my cousin did it to me with the belt.
She suggests that I should report the fact to my parents.
Each lived event is a teaching that sticks to one until the end of time.
Children learn by what they observe and not by what they are told.
If there was little emotional contact and constant irritation from my parents towards my sister and me, their bad relationship with the partner also influenced my decision.
When they decided to finish it, the separation was a slow bleeding that spread their traces.
Each new return of my mother after meeting with my father to discuss divorce issues was a spiel of resentments and tears that we had to face as best we could.
"For my children I'm not going to immolate myself
,
"
said our mother in one of those returns.
I did not know the meaning of the word "immolate", so I only understood the phrase when I looked it up in the dictionary.
Still, I don't consider them the main reason I never wanted an offspring.
I have friends who grew up between parents with a terrible relationship and, for that reason, they promised not to commit the same story.
Remember the painful events so as not to repeat them.
If with my parents the relationship was hostile, with my grandparents and aunts the opposite happened.
They were the most lovable, generous, and loving people I have ever met.
Happiness, if it exists, was every encounter with them.
My rejection of children was tied to the concept of family, an entity from which I always wanted to separate.
A reductionist look would say that as my parents experienced a bad relationship that was decisive, but it is not the case, since as I just pointed out, I could have made another story or simply look at my grandparents in a mirror that throughout a marriage of half century they felt love for their children and grandchildren.
That rejection of the family meant not martyring others,
not giving them orders or putting up with bad moods.
Forming a family is a continuation of the ego, transmitting to a child truths adopted by his parent as maxims of life that are piled up with other acquired customs: meetings on Sundays around some pieces of meat thrown into the fire - or failing that, some pieces of dough with salt in boiling water– or New Year's Eve parties in a group, like a tribe, where satiety and emptiness take part of the leisure.
I prefer to avoid Christmas and other celebrations.
With a child, without a doubt, a climate of happiness must be imposed.
I would not be able to write letters to Santa Claus with him or to place water and grass for the camels of the Magi.
I couldn't lie to him.
Confessing my skepticism about the holidays I know that it would hurt any child, and that is something unforgivable.
Anyway, when I look at a child it gives me infinite sadness.
The world is a miserable place, another crime of madness, whether in Argentina or in another country.
I'm afraid there is no escape.
Over the years, the child, if he has received affection, will be able to take refuge in some postcards that he keeps from that past time.
In adolescence the idea of not having children intensified, something that caused my friends to see me as a freak.
In the meetings when they spoke innocently about that future that was only a promise of success, my refusal dislodged them.
"How is that?
Don't you want to give your parents a grandson? ”They asked in horror.
Sometimes, stupidly - we remember that it was another country: Argentine society in the early 90s -
my heterosexuality was questioned, as if that were an offense
.
The strangeness of my position before others was complicated in my youth, already with the first serious relationships.
When it came to making plans - something inevitable - having a child came out in the conversation but in the face of my refusal, the couples of that time felt that this was a rejection of elevation to them and that there really was no love, since like so many they believe, and often repeat the commonplace as a magnet for the refrigerator: "a child is the culmination of love";
"A son represents the love between two" and blah blah blah.
With one of them, the situation reached a tense moment.
I have always taken precautions when having sex.
In general, I use prophylactics, as I consider it the simplest and most effective method to avoid sexually transmitted diseases such as unwanted pregnancy.
However, one afternoon the couple I had been dating for almost two years told me that her period was late.
It was very rare, she added, because she maintained a regular menstrual cycle.
Finally she asked that compelling question: "What if I am pregnant?"
I still remember the answer today because it emerged spontaneously, so suddenly, so human.
"What you consider the best.
I am ”
.
Why did I say it?
Why did I go against a wish that I had been carrying since I was a child?
Why didn't I answer the truth?
Or was that truth now being revealed as a big lie?
I do not know.
After a few days the menstruation came, and the subject was never discussed again.
But what would have happened if I had become a father?
Would an unhappy man have been dragged into such unhappiness a poor child?
Or would I have given her love and happiness?
Would I repeat the story of my parents?
Today that I write this article the questions return, but there are no answers either.
I just know that not wanting children does not mean that I detest children
.
Borges once pointed out that boys are machines for making problems.
If so, the greats would be the factory of those same problems.
I just don't want children because I don't feel the need.
Because I don't like everything that comes with them: the family, the money and the time they need, and the fear.
Yes, the fierce fear that will accompany me until the last day of my life, that will invade my nights, my nightmares.
From the moment a creature is brought into the world, existence is uncertain: what to do to protect the child?
What to do to get away from the pain?
What teachings will last a lifetime, what others will be easily forgotten?
How to make it doubly strong in the face of the darkness of the world?
In the first months of 2000 I emigrated to the United States at the age of 24.
Abroad my idea about children was strengthened for different reasons.
Starting from scratch in another country takes time
: a lot of energy goes into immigration procedures, in perfecting a language, in weaving professional and emotional relationships.
Then the hardest part: understanding cultural codes.
During the first years as a logical consequence of age, I witnessed other foreigners who began to rearm their lives, either with couples of the same nationality as well as from other countries.
If there is a generational distance between parents and children, when one of the two is born in another culture, that distance becomes an abyss.
I have seen parents trying to instill in their children certain passions typical of Argentina and receive in response an indifference that hurts.
At present, these parents do not recognize themselves in the children they raised with care, often experiencing deprivation abroad.
Sometimes I even heard the regret of one for having left the country.
Also in those years I felt the pressure of my environment.
In every phone call from Buenos Aires the question hovered over the conversation.
Instead of telling the truth, he was lying: surely there would soon be a new member of the family.
In time, he thought, they will resign themselves to the truth.
When my sister finally had a child, I never heard the question again.
If the situation weighed on the family, now with my partners there was no such stress.
One of the good things about living in complex American society is its practicality: no time is wasted.
People are to the point, both professionally and emotionally.
When I have had an appointment, the first thing they have asked me is: "Do you want to have children?"
My answer has always been the same.
Sometimes those appointments die in the first meeting - was the wrong answer - but many others have prospered.
"Children are a good investment for old age
," a friend once told me.
I know that many parents believe the same thing, but to me that phrase seems rogue.
Some nights I remember when I see so many elderly people alone at McDonald's.
They eat their “happy meal” wrapped in terrifying desolation.
But I do not think about the mistake they made by not having a family, on the contrary, I believe that these men did have one and now they are left to their own devices.
The mistake was to deposit the best years of his life in exchange for a caress, for being less alone, perhaps thinking that there they preserved their savings for tomorrow.
Today in my 40s, I don't regret my decision.
The reality of 2020 confirms to me that the world is a terrible place where there is no comfort.
I also don't think my books are my children.
That's stupid.
A book is a book.
Point.
Sometimes during
the few conversations I have on the phone with my mother
- in my father's case, I haven't spoken in decades - the subject came up.
I told her about my reasons for not having them and she informed me that at a certain moment in life one must “let go of the things of the past.
Also, I did my best ”.
Thus, in English, the dialogue ended.
I think I am a good uncle, who loves his nephew and spoils him as much as he can.
Although in the twenty years that he has been abroad, I only return to Argentina once, when he comes to visit me with his mother and father, who are excellent parents - my sister was happily able to build another story, something that fills me with emotion–, we shared pleasant moments and the fullness of Playmobil.
I didn't have him, but one day he will play with the pirate ship.
The children of friends are also part of my affections.
I am not afraid of an old age without children and grandchildren.
Perhaps that could be experienced in times past, but today, when life is prolonged as its quality, I am only in the first half of existence.
I occupy my time as I want, without giving explanations.
You can call it freedom.
----------
Hernán Vera Álvarez
, sometimes simply Vera, was born in Buenos Aires in 1977. He is a writer, cartoonist and editor.
He studied literature at FIU (Florida International University) where he is currently a professor.
She teaches creative writing workshops at different institutions, including the Koubek Center at Miami Dade College.
He published "The Electric Romantics", "The Wild Evil Library" (Florida Book Awards) and "Grand Nocturno".
He is editor of “Don´t cry for me, America” (International Latino Book Awards), “Escritorxs Salvajes”, “Miami (Un) plugged and“ Viaje One Way ”.
He lived eight years as an illegal in the United States where he worked in a shipyard, in the kitchen of a cabaret, in discos and in construction.