From the mouths of French babes' mothers

When writing Baby Not on Board, I wound up consulting a lot of parents, asking them what they missed about their former childfree lives, their lowest moments of parenting, and so on. They seemed to appreciate the chance to talk about the dark side of parenting, and I got some excellent fodder for my book. I heard about the existential despair that comes when you spend 20 minutes carefully slicing grapes in two or never being able to use the phone again because your teenager has claimed it as her own.

But none of the parents I talked to quite went as far as Corinne Maier, who apparently dislikes raising her own children so much she's written a book titled No Kid: 40 Reasons Not to Have Children. Here's Maier quoted in a recent Times Online piece about her:

“Children are there to stop you enjoying yourself. It’s a child’s hidden face. Believe me, he will be very inventive in this area. He will be ill when you (finally) arrange a night out, he will bug you when you celebrate your birthday with your friends, he will hate it if you bring someone he’s never met back for the night, and beyond that you won’t dare tread for fear of traumatising him for life.” She goes on to list the things you will almost certainly have to give up after having children. They include: a full night’s sleep, a lie-in, deciding to go to the cinema on the spur of the moment, staying out later than midnight (babysitters have to be relieved), visiting a museum or exhibition (children start mucking about after five mintues), taking your holiday anywhere other than destinations where there is a beach and a kids’ club, taking a holiday during term-time and smoking in front of your children, now deemed a “crime against humanity”.

She certainly has some interesting points to make about how the French government promotes population growth as a way to pay for future pensions and how advertisers promote children in order to increase spending on consumer goods, like fancy strollers.

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