The Best Decision I Ever Made

Often, as we get to a certain age in life, we begin the process of examining where we are and how we got to this point. We look at the various decisions we made along our journey and wonder how things might have been different had we made different decisions at key junctures. In thinking back over my life thus far, the best decision I ever made was not to become a parent.

When I was a young man entering adulthood, I assumed that I would become a parent somewhere along the way. This assumption was based solely on societal expectations. Growing up in the sixties -- which isn't far removed from the fifties -- the basic assumption by the established order was that heterosexual males and females would marry and produce offspring replete with a nice job and a home in the suburbs with a white picket fence. Though I certainly didn't conform to many established expectations, I sort of thought that eventually I would follow the company line.

It wasn't until my early 20s that I learned that I could not produce offspring myself (due to Klinefelter's Syndrome). When my doctor told me the problem was not a low sperm count but NO sperm count, I was devastated. This news meant I could never create my own version of The Walton's! However, my congenital condition did not preclude fostering parent or adoption.

Going the foster parenting or adoption route meant a conscious decision to move in that direction. It also meant that, unlike many of my contemporaries, I didn't have to worry about starting an accidental family. While I don't believe in the concept of fate, it turns out the inability to produce progeny on my own was a blessing because, as I grew older, I came to the realization that my personality was not conducive to good parenting in the least. This realization is why I never pursued the option of becoming a foster or adoptive parent.

While some people with autism have turned out to be great parents, I am more than confident that I would not be one of them!! For starters, I am very moody. I brood a lot. I get lost inside my head and can become emotionally inaccessible. I sequester myself in my self-imposed "cave" (the 2nd floor of our home) and my wife might not see much of me for days.

I have a very wide personal space. I don't like people to move inside its imaginary boundaries very often. I literally come unglued if people walk behind me and I freak out if someone touches or brushes me when I'm not expecting it.

I am obsessive. Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time KNOWS this. I often write in torrents on a particular topic. I can get stuck on an issue or concept for weeks at a time. Every waking minute is spent contemplating or writing about it. This penchant often drives Della a bit crazy, but, after a quarter century, she's learned to live with it!

I'm too off-the-wall. I neither dress, speak nor act like a man my age is "supposed to." As I've noted before, I wear the same outfit everyday: hickory-striped overalls, a long-sleeve tee shirt, Converse high-tops and, underneath it all, a union suit. I've worn this same basic get-up for the last 20 years or so.

Anyone in this small community can tell you I talk about the weirdest things. Somebody will make a passing comment and I'll launch into a treatise about philosophy, economic systems or psychoanalysis. People are slowly learning NOT to ask me how I'm doing that day because, without fail, I tend to respond in far greater detail than most of them care to hear.

I don't do crowds. My social experiences are very limited to just a few short minutes per day and I pick and choose them with great care.

All these traits taken together (with several more not mentioned here) would have led me to be, at best, a most inconsistent parent. I would have created one or more neurotic children who would have grown up to be very dysfunctional adults.

Aren't there enough of these as it is?