CORINNE MAIER

forty good reasons

to not have children
FOREWORD

THE ONLY SOLUTION: CONTRACEPTION

In 2006, France became the European fertility champion. The "French miracle" was proclaimed
in victorious tones: Quiquiriquí! Today, in France, we are witnessing a glorification of
motherhood that Marshal Pétain would not have denied. He is the current face of patriotism: to
face a shitty life, it is better to be many. French people, they are kidding you. They have made
you believe that happiness was within reach of your bellies in a mortally boring and moralizing
country that has work and family as two udders. The reality is that, the more your fertility
grows, the fewer of you declare yourself happy. Open your eyes: your children will be
babyloosers, condemned to unemployment, precarious or declassed jobs, to the condition of
mere human resources. They will have a life even less fun than yours, which is saying
something. No, your wonderful babies have no future, because every child born in a developed
country is an ecological disaster for the entire planet.

Plus, you'll have to spend twenty years "raising" them. The education of children has become a
priesthood, since society demands from modern parents capabilities worthy of Superman or
Superwoman. Always available, smiling, attentive, pedagogical and responsible, what wouldn't
one do to guarantee the "happiness" and "fulfillment" of their creatures? Being a father or
mother is being willing to sacrifice everything else. Partner, leisure, sexual life, friends... and
social success when you are a woman.
And everything for this? Frankly, is it worth it?
Take precautions. Above all, no children. It's so easy to fall! The only solution: contraception.

IF I HAD KNOWN, I WOULD NOT HAVE CONCEIVED

One day in December, I was preparing to celebrate my fortieth anniversary. I was in a bar with
a friend and, in a rather sad mood, I began to "take stock" after drinking a few drinks.
—I have taken the wrong path, I started psychoanalysis ten years too late, I get bored at
mundane dinners with all those people so well integrated into society, I have not known how to
grasp by the hair of the opportunity that destiny offered me (they paint her bald , but I know it
has a punid crest), my children overwhelm me...
"But well..." my friend intervenes. You can question it all you want, but you don't seriously
regret having children, do you?
—Well look, yes. If I hadn't had it, I would now be traveling around the world with the money
my books have given me. And instead, I am confined at home, preparing dinners, getting up at
seven in the morning every day of the week, reviewing the most idiotic lessons and putting on
washing machines. And all that, for some kids who take me for their chacha. Some days I do
regret it, and I'm not afraid to say it. When I had them I was young, I was in love and I
suffered the manipulation of my genes... If I could go back, frankly, I'm not sure I would do the
same thing again.

My friend looked at me scandalized. There are words that a mother cannot pronounce if she
does not want to seem like a monster. The typical speech is: «I am proud of my children. If
there is anything that... I don't regret having had them..."

THE CULT OF THE SON

Having a child is the most beautiful thing in the world, a dream within reach of all pockets and
all bellies. It is the external sign of a couple's success, proof of the parents' social integration in
a world where the greatest fear is of becoming "excluded." The child is in fashion, and every
self-respecting beauty shows off with a baby on her hip or a child in a stroller. As for pregnant
women, they pose naked in magazines. And pregnancy is no longer hidden. Never before have
motherhood and fatherhood been so praised. The great adventure of the 21st century is
procreation. The proof? John de Mol, the billionaire inventor of Operación Triunfo in particular
and reality television in general, not long ago came up with a new "concept", consisting of
filming a pregnancy from the beginning to the delivery. Everything will be seen: nausea,
ultrasounds, medical tests, extra kilos, mood changes... An unbearable and shocking suspense.
Stronger than Big Brother, Survivors and Su~ pennodelo 2006, all together.

Little flashback. In the early days of humanity, man valued abundant crops, voluminous
breasts, huge bison, and numerous offspring. It was necessary to populate the world, hunt and
prevail against warlike neighbors. Hence the religious respect that fertility inspired. Now,
having children also meant submitting to a fatality. Later the “wish for a son” arose, a new idea
in Europe. From the pill and the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, the child is a desired child.
It is no longer the consequence of a sexual act, but the product of a will tamed by science.
Unpredictability disappears, long live programming: the first child at age thirty, when you have
a stable job; the second, when I buy a house; the third, to benefit from a tax reduction.

The "desire for a child" gives wings to adults who lack perspectives (and there are quite a few).
The mission of parents is to dedicate themselves body and soul to the happiness of these
wonderful little people. The child, absolutely sacred, represents for many fools or naive people
the missing link between humanity and the infinite. They want a child, and they want it now.
Today the name of Malthus, who at the end of the 18th century advocated birth control, is
hardly mentioned anymore. Malthusians, increasingly rare, are described as unpatriotic or
cynical, if not dangerous anarchists.

FRANCE... MORE NATALIST, BURST!

France emerged as the most fertile country in Europe in 2006, with 830,000 births, a record
that the press reported with triumphant accents.1 Why did journalists consider this news so
interesting? Is motherhood listed on the stock market? Why is data like this taken as a victory?
Maybe because it is the only thing France can claim to get on the podium? Given so much
exaltation of birth and family, should we conclude that Philippe de Villiers has come to power?
In our country, it is "normal" to want to have children.

However it was not always so. For a long time the French were reluctant to reproduce. From
the 17th century until the 1970s, they were quite resistant to the joys of parenthood and the
birth rate was not very high. To the point that some began to worry about the future of the
national identity (which had not yet received this name). Today, however, the French seem to
be suffering from a strange fever. Everyone talks about their "desire for a son," as if it were a
vital drive arising from the very core, irresistible, feverish, inexplicable and absolutely
legitimate. There are many fathers and mothers convinced that they are carrying out a mission
of national interest, a sacred and transcendent priesthood: the child has become a vital afterlife
that one can create for oneself.

Everyone longs to have children. Gay couples want to adopt children and lesbian unions want
to bear the fruit of their flesh and tears, although for the moment the Civil Code does not pay
attention to them because the law, lover of what is "natural", considers that the "true" Sonship
is based on the body. However, the "right to a child" pokes its nose over the horizon, in the
same way as the "enforceable right to housing", the right to happiness, the right to health or
the right to be thin. When will we have the right to childhood, which will allow us to never
abandon the territory of the wonderful?

In France, as soon as you get married, your office colleagues don't forget to ask you: "So
what? Are you already on your way? The dissidents are so few that apparently some women
have invented a child so that they will be left alone at work. And it is in our country where the
imposition of motherhood is strongest, supported by a powerful family policy (subsidies,
daycare centers, nursery schools, etc.). Among women who have just left childbearing age,
only one French woman in ten has not had children; In Italy and Spain, women without
children are 14%, in Great Britain, 20%, and in Germany, 30% (45% of those with a university
degree). Increasingly, France is seen as an example by other countries in Europe; Germany has
just introduced a year-long paid maternity or paternity leave. To the cradles, Europeans! We
only want to see one face: that of your babies.

THE MANDATORY BREASTFEEDING SERVICE

The problem is that, in the history of the oppression of people (which is confused with History
without further ado), the family with child(ren) is a categorical imperative that has often run
parallel to that of work. You only need to think about the “Work, Family, Homeland” of the
sinister Marshal Pétain. «Work and reproduce, in the meantime no evil will occur to you; I will
ensure that order reigns”: it is the unwritten mandate of every dictator. The State has an
interest in you procreating; Isn't it suspicious? Isn't this a good reason to question the "civic
duty" of contributing to the renewal of generations? Clearly, we are facing a demographic
obsession designed to maintain a very specific vision of the world in force. And the well-worn
argument of "Europe is aging and generational renewal is not assured" does not hold up for
even a second. The only thing we have to do is allow immigrants to come, who on the one hand
will occupy the positions that young people reject (bricklayer, waiter, nurse...) and on the other
hand will help finance retirements.

There is no shortage of volunteers, just open the doors. And don't let them come and explain to
us that today's children are tomorrow's "growth." What growth? To get where? Is economic
growth without more a worthy objective for a society that defines itself as democratic? Is it that
we have no more dreams than to buy televisions, washing machines and mobile phones, and all
that to generate jobs whose absolute inanity does no one any honor, neither those who offer
them nor those who accept them? The ultra-trite speeches on this topic by economists (who
are usually middle-aged, pompous, charlatan gentlemen) make me laugh. Economics, which
pretends to be a metadiscourse on a reality that is difficult to hunt down, has never impressed
me. Especially since for years I called myself an economist, so I know all the tricks of the trade.

Luckily, there are conscientious objectors to fertility. I am referring to those who do not want to
have children. For obvious reasons of prudence, they are discreet. Women have the right to
postpone the age of motherhood, but the possibility of renouncing it is not even mentioned.
Recently, men have also been told that they have ruined their lives if they don't have children.
Tolerance towards the varied forms of private life increases, but calmly explaining that one
does not want to have children still arouses disapproval. Those who dare to confess it are seen
as deviant, to such an extent the family is identified with a universal value. In France, being a
person "without descendants" is a defect. Those who dare not reproduce are perpetually judged
and arouse commiseration: "Poor thing, she couldn't have", "She has ruined her life"... All
these "selfish", "immature", "pessimistic" or "unstable" people are overtaxed by an unfair tax
system that favors families and become marginalized in a world where everything is designed
for the dominant model. That some have other ambitions? Everyone will tell you that they
weigh very little compared to the "joys" of raising a child or the "personal fulfillment" that
reproduction ensures.

However, abroad a healthy counteroffensive is being prepared. In the eighties, in the United
States, Canada, Australia and England, various "non-parent" associations were created.
Becoming true pressure groups, these associations have imposed the use of the word chüdfree
(free of children), as opposed to childless (without children). Not having children is a choice and
not a handicap. Those who choose this do not suffer any lack; They are very happy, thank you.
Some of these associations have even dared to say out loud what many thought quietly: that
children are an intolerable nuisance. Asked about the subject, actor Hugh Grant calmly
declared: "I can't stand disorder or ugliness." In France, it is difficult to imagine Christian
Clavier ojean Dujardin making these types of statements... In Florida there are child-free
zones, residences where entry to children under thirteen years of age is prohibited and which
are designed for thirty-somethings who are not willing to put up with the inconveniences
related to children. In the United States, and more recently in Scotland, child-free housing
estates have sprung up for the use of retirees. The demand is important; Apparently, the
"concept" pleases. At the moment, it has not yet arrived in France. Their promoters are too
afraid of being stoned.
DEMORALIZE POTENTIAL PARENTS

This little book aims to demoralize (in the sense of making them lose morale) potential fathers
or mothers, that is, those who are wondering if it is worth having children. Naturally, these
people cannot confide their doubts to anyone, because such a thing is not questioned: "having
children is okay." However, the reasons for deciding not to have them are many, and are more
reasonable than those usually invoked to make the opposite decision. There are at least forty,
which we will detail below.

Enough of the maudlin speeches about the happiness of being a parent! In the face of so much
enthusiasm and obligatory good feelings, it is urgent and necessary to say "yuck!" to
nurseryland. I know what I'm telling myself, because I have children myself... There are things
that only a mother can talk about, as long as she has the courage to come out of the closet. If I
signed this book without having had children, everyone would think I was a bitter and envious
spinster. Now, they may accuse me of being an unnatural mother. Very well, I assume it. After
betraying my company in Good morning, laziness, here I criticize an idealized image of the
family, which only exists in magazines. By the way, I take the opportunity to mock a certain
natalist and self-complacent France, whose only horizon is work and reproduction. This is
indeed a sign of a worrying regression: what could be more depressing than a country
determined to reproduce what exists, when what exists is boring and extremely predictable?

1. THE “WISH OF A SON”, A FOOLISH ASPIRATION

Wanting to reproduce at all costs is a desire for consummate vulgarity. However, it seems that
we feel safe when we do the same as everyone else and imitate our neighbor. Nowadays, being
"integrated" into society means having a job and/or having a child. Get ready, citizen! To be in
the mood, those who don't get it the first time end up falling into a procreative drive that defies
reason. These reproduction-obscures face the difficult obstacle course of infertility treatments
without a second thought. With the complicity of doctors who are rather unarmed, like
everyone else, in the face of the prevailing science.

The “desire for a child” has spread to such an extent that children have become a profitable
and rapidly growing business. Every day eggs, sperm and babies are put up for sale and
uteruses are rented for periods of nine months. Specialized clinics proliferate all over the
planet, where prices vary depending on the "price" of the product: white babies cost more than
black ones, and in the United States, the eggs of a Columbia student are worth less than those
of one from Harvard. In Europe, this babybusiness is not so developed. And in France, officially,
it does not exist. The State, established as guardian of "good" and ethics, monitors.

The idea of a child for everyone and at any price gives rise to a multitude of predictable and
cartoonish speeches. Choose your side, comrade; The worst is never assured, but stupidity is.
To my left, the fabulous "right to the child." A sacred demand, which we almost hope to see
recorded in the preamble of the Constitution. The child is something so indispensable, so
wonderful, that everyone should have the "right" to it. When will the “right enforceable” to the
child? Nobody knows to what authority we should appeal to demand it, but surely the most
obsessive will soon find the answer. I, who do not have parents because they have already
died, should I claim my right to parents? And start a hunger strike so that justice is done to me
and I am granted... new parents, since we cannot bring the real ones back to life, at least as
long as science is not capable of resurrecting the dead? Returning to our topic: a child is
neither a right nor a necessity. It's nothing more than... a possibility.

On the right side, we are not much better served. In France, the son justifies speeches of bleak
corniness. A family that ensures the happiness of its children is a dad, a mom, and that's it. It
is unthinkable that two people of the same sex can adopt and educate a child... the future of
our little ones is at stake! It is obvious that, behind the discourse against homoparenting, what
there is in reality is a general call for order, directed at all those who are "outside the norm." A
call to order in which the actors are varied; For example, psyche professionals, who give their
opinion on what they want in the name of Oedipus, or anthropologists, who know a lot about
the Human Being. And politicians are the first to use the child to normalize the population (no
medical aid for procreation for single women and no facilitation of access to fertilization
methods with recognition of parentage for homosexual couples, when all of these things are
possible in many other European countries). Anyway, as Patrick Bruel sang, Who has the right?
What is the right to a child, and who has the right to tell us what we should do with it?

2. BIRTH, A TORTURE

The joys of childbirth are a total deception. Except for some women whose bodies are probably
configured according to the tube model, childbirth is painful. Very painful, even. It is true that
epidural (local anesthesia) is of great help, but even so, giving birth is far from being a party.
Personally, I can say that giving birth is the most painful thing I have experienced in my entire
existence (admittedly quite protected). Women who say: "Childbirth was the most beautiful
moment of my life" are suspicious to me; Since I gave birth, I know they lie. Some, more
cautiously, declare, "I don't remember anything," which often means, "I don't want to talk
about it."

The reality is that a birth lasts hours, sometimes an entire day; that immobilize you as if you
were a large beetle, with a pipe stuck in your back; that contractions make you feel as if your
belly is going to burst from the inside... Childbirth is pain, blood and fatigue (and apparently
poop too, but that's a gift to the midwife or doctor). Have you seen that scene from the movie
Alien in which a monster comes out of the body of one of the characters and destroys his belly?
Do you know why it is so famous? Obviously, because it is very close to the reality of giving
birth!

The worst, however, comes after childbirth. The feeling of exhaustion. Stretch marks on an
abdomen that will never again be that of a young girl. The face to face with a draft of a human
being for whom we will be responsible for an endless series of years. In The Possibility of an
Island, Michel Houellebecq speaks of "the legitimate disgust that every normally constituted
man feels at the sight of a baby." Indeed, a newborn child is ugly to death: the red and dull
face, the non-existent features, the gaze veiled by a grayish cloud... everything about him
should inspire us with repulsion. New parents, increasingly fond of illustrating birth certificates
with photos of their children, do not seem to realize that they are the only ones (along with
their own parents) who enjoy seeing these types of images.

However, society fawns over babies, so it is convenient to feign adoration for any human larva
that is only a few days old. Since pretending tires me more and more, when I confessed to my
cousin, who had just given birth, that newborns did not interest me, I received a very angry
look at such a crime of "against babyliness." Enough babies! They are on TV, in
advertisements, everywhere but, as if by chance, they are not newborns but presentable
beings, with a few months to live. However, the more the baby is on display, the more old age
and death are hidden and the more dread they produce. Will there be a cause-and-effect
relationship? Does infantomania run parallel to gerontophobia? Probably. Long live youth, down
with old age and above all death, which for us no longer mean anything. However, in the 19th
century, admirers of the recumbent were celebrating and everyone loved to paint, sculpt and
photograph the dead. Nowadays, the only ones we are interested in are the famous dead,
especially Francois Mitterrand, probably because his nickname was "God"...

3. DON'T BECOME A WALKING BOTTLE

Childhood professionals repeat a slogan all the time: breastfeeding is good. Breast is best, as
the British say. As in the time of caves, natural life and clean air, without pesticides or
genetically modified organisms. While breastfeeding fell somewhat out of fashion in the 1960s
and '70s, it has recently made a strong comeback. There are countless articles that extol the
benefits of nutritious breasts. The baby will be "less sick" and will have "fewer allergies", and
furthermore "there is nothing that can replace fusion with the child." In France, 60% of women
leaving maternity leave breastfeed... certainly not for more than a few weeks. And the
objective of the French public authorities is to reach 70% of breastfeeding mothers in 2010.

Since the explanations are not enough to convince the recalcitrant, described as
"underinformed", the wallet is used to tempt them. In 2003, the health benefits treasury of the
Morbihan department decided to establish a “breastfeeding premium” for breastfeeding periods
of at least one week. When will there be a tax reduction for every nursing mother? And why not
a premium for any epidural refusal, since birth without anesthesia is "more natural" and
probably "better" for the child? When I explained at the maternity ward that I wasn't planning
to breastfeed, the childcare worker looked at me disapprovingly and told me that wasn't right.
A month later, the gynecologist accused me of "rejecting the bond" with the child. The pressure
is increasing on unnatural mothers who decide to bottle-feed their children: soon, the finger will
be pointed at them.

And feeding a child from a bottle is becoming guilty. It is a crime against nature. Studies show
that women without qualifications and who live in rural areas are the most reluctant to
breastfeed; Of course, since they are surrounded by "nature" all day... In any case, what does
it mean that breastfeeding is more "natural"? Are the foods we eat, the clothes we wear, the
mobile phone, the plane or UVA rays natural? Go now! I'm tired of hearing the word "natural"
when we're all bombarded with chemicals. Furthermore, even assuming that breastfeeding was
"better" for the child, do we want to manufacture centenarians? Life expectancy has never been
as high as it is now, will we have to live even longer in the future? When I think about the state
of absolute decrepitude my father found himself in at the age of ninety, I'm not so sure I want
to live that long. Otherwise, I don't plan to quit smoking; With this everything is said.

Breastfeeding is slavery. First of all, it is painful. Secondly, has the reader seen the breast of a
breastfeeding woman? It's not very attractive, really. Breasts ravaged by stretch marks, milk
dripping from the nipple... yuk. Furthermore, the nursing mother is condemned to guarantee
her total availability with respect to the newborn, to whom she is attached in perpetuity.
Squeezed and exploited at will, she does not even have the right to have a beer or an aperitif in
peace, given the prohibition of consuming alcohol, which passes into milk... A friend whom I
asked why the hell she was breast-feeding her child answered me in a blunt and disapproving
tone: "It's a personal choice." No way! Increasingly, it is a collective obligation.

4. DON'T STOP HAVING FUN

Having children is an unconditional and irrevocable commitment. Reproducing is the most

difficult decision of an entire existence. Becoming aware of this is a significant trauma;
Depression and postpartum marital crises are modern ailments, born from the mourning that
one must carry out to say goodbye to our previous life. From now on, there will be more and
more free and improvised activities that you will have to give up. You will begin to live someone
else's time, that of the child, distributed in rigid strips, marked by the availability of the
babysitter, the daycare schedules and the school calendar. These are some of the things that
become very unusual when one accepts the burden (and burden) of a child:
Sleep a whole night (something very rare in the first months).
Getting up late (difficult until the age of eight, since until then the "runt" jumps on your belly as
soon as the sun rises).
Deciding to go to the movies at the last minute.
Leave until after midnight, as you have to free the babysitter. Whoever returns after twelve is
condemned to take her home by car or pay for a taxi. Visit a museum or an exhibition, since
children start screaming after five minutes.
Travel anywhere that isn't one of those stupid destinations where there is a beach, sea or a
kids' club.
Going on a trip outside of the school holiday period (this affects all people with children
between five and eighteen years old).
Raise your elbow before the time of the last bottle, since it is very unpleasant to put the
children to bed while they are completely piripi.
Smoking in front of your children, something that today has become a crime against humanity.

5. METRO, WORK AND CHILDREN... NO, THANK YOU!

Life with children is a trivialized life: you get up every day at the same time to take them to
daycare, the caregiver's house or school, then you. You go to work, at night you come home,
you take care of the bathroom, homework and dinner and at the end you put the kids to bed.
And so every day.
Some prisoners can be released if they wear a monitoring bracelet that allows them to follow
their every move: parents do not need anything of this type, since they are tied by the child.
Its "traceability" is assured. The regime of the former Soviet Union allowed some privileged
people to travel to the West, but their children remained safe behind the Iron Curtain; It was a
very practical way to avoid desertions. Seek the child, and you will find the father. Do you live
in France and the police are looking for you? Thanks to your son, he will have no problem
locating you. In Belleville, a popular neighborhood in Paris, the police detained those without
papers at the exit of schools, when they went to pick up their children. Sweet France, childhood
paradise!

There are husbands who disappear with the excuse of going for tobacco, there are prisoners
who manage to escape from their guards, there are old people who say good goodbye to the
residence... but it is not at all common to see a couple who leaves without warning. and jointly
abandon their children. Good idea for a movie, but I'm not sure a script on this topic would
have a chance of getting a grant from the National Film Center.3 Because of this forced
presence, having children is exhausting. At the time when I was employed full-time and my
children were young, I estimated I worked seventy hours a week. Forty hours in the office, plus
thirty hours taking care of the kids. Three hours of maternity care every night (five days a
week), plus seven hours on Saturday and the same number on Sunday: in total, a lot of time.
Luckily, at work I measured my strength; Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to keep up.

For some years now, overwhelmed parents have found a solution: alternate custody. The child
spends one week with the father and the following week with the mother. It's a kind of family
half-day. For that, the couple needs to separate beforehand, of course, but that is a trivial
detail, compared to what one saves: the hell of endless household chores, each of which is
more alienating. Furthermore, equality has a price, since equal distribution is only assured
when the couple separates.

The naive one will tell me: "Yes, but taking care of children is not a job." Well yes, it is: raising
children means respecting certain schedules and assuming certain responsibilities; They are
tears, worries and sweat guaranteed. Furthermore, in Austria women can now include the time
dedicated to caring for children in the calculation of years of activity that give them the right to
retire. If taking care of children were a pleasant and rewarding task, some people would do it
for free, and that is not the case. No one is willing to take care of your children without
financial compensation (except your parents, who will charge you another way; we'll talk about
that later). The childcare worker, the teacher or the babysitter are paid workers. Not much,
because all jobs related to children are devalued ("children's professionals" are always less well
paid than those who work with adults). For example, child psychologists are less highly
regarded than adult psychologists, and primary school teachers are less highly regarded than
faculty professors. Because? Well, because the first perform a hard and thankless task. The
child, sad tropic.

6. DON'T LEFT WITHOUT FRIENDS

As is well known, love stuns. The lover who spends two hours straight talking about his
dulcinea, enumerating her qualities and repeating her ideas, ends up getting everyone fed up.
The same thing happens with parents who are dazzled and overflowing with admiration for the
fruit of their wombs, who overwhelm those around them with an excess of parental devotion.
Yes, those of which Georges Courteline said: "One of the most obvious effects of the arrival of a
child into a family is to turn completely idiotic nice parents who without him would not have
been simple idiots."

The disaster begins at the stage of birth participation: it is no longer Évelyne and Jacques who
announce Antoine's coming into the world, but Antoine himself who makes it known that he has
arrived at Évelyne and Jacques' house. The fascinated father or mother spreads cheesy family
photographs on the Internet and shows whoever wants to see them (and whoever doesn't, too)
the videos of their child bathing or unwrapping Christmas gifts. It circulates with a "baby on
board" sticker stuck on the rear window of the car: a kind of pious image of modern times, as
useful as an amulet to ward off bad luck. He literally interprets anyone who politely asks him
"How is the child?" as someone who says "good morning" without necessarily waiting for a
response. And the drooling father or mother feels obliged to inform the entire planet of the
dazzling progress of his offspring ("Osear is now using the potty", "Alice has slept all night",
"Noé has drawn a snowman incredibly realistic», «Yesterday, Ulysse said "daddy poop"», «Bad
has started seventh»).

Nothing is more limited than the conversation of the parent fascinated because he has
managed to create a human being. Therefore, as soon as the child enters the door, the friends
leave through the window. It is true that soon the little one will be the one who will go directly
to the phone, which will complicate communication with the parents: Jules (unless it is his
sister Mélissa) has developed an ultra-effective filter of all calls that do not concern him,
hanging up as soon as he hears an unfamiliar adult voice. Related to this topic, there is a very
funny scene in Caro Diario by Nanni Moretti: the protagonist of the film ends up fed up and
gives up talking to his friends. Another discouraging obstacle is the little childish voice that
babbles on the answering machine that their parents are not home. It is a way of announcing
the childfree friend: for me, my child is above the rest of the world.

Furthermore, there is not much dialogue possible between the new parent and the childless
person, although a common commiseration should bring them closer. The childfree
contemplates with a saddened look the uninteresting life of the parent ("poor child, between
the cries and diapers, he no longer has a minute for himself"), while the parent grieves at the
"loneliness" of the second ("poor child , at his age and without children, what a sad thing »).
The misunderstanding is total, since each side considers that the other is leaving aside the
good things in life. To my left, impromptu outings, weekends as a couple, the possibility of
getting up late in the morning and going for a walk with friends; To my right, Oscar's
chickenpox, Leo's cello lessons, the babysitter who doesn't arrive, the daycare strike,
Maxence's homework... Is it a balanced battle? Let the reader judge.

Just think about the times we have visited parents engrossed in caring for their young children.
It is awful. When you arrive, around eight o'clock, the children are obviously still up and
jumping and screaming everywhere. You can't enjoy a relaxed conversation with your friends,
because your gremlins run around screaming, do all the stupid things in the world to get
attention, and throw toys into bowls of chips. While the parents try to calm them down with
long explanations that do not convince anyone ("Honey, it's ten o'clock at night and you should
go to sleep because sleep is restful..."), the guests try to put on a good face and hide their
exasperation. After an hour of hubbub, the guest has to stop himself from blurting out: "Either
you shut up, or I'm leaving!"

Next comes the putting them to bed ceremony, for which you have to allow at least an hour
before the monsters decide to fall asleep. Parents feel obligated to show their child that they
love them, even if they have spent the whole day repeating it to them. During this time, the
guest bites his nails impatiently and wonders why the hell he didn't choose to go to the
movies... When the evening finally ends, he lets out an “ugh!” of relief and (finally) lights a
cigarette on the street to calm down. Obviously, until that moment he has not been able to
smoke yam, because the smoke is very bad for children.

Let's imagine that this same guest who just smoked a cigarette agrees to join a family
weekend. That's when things become downright unbearable. Mourning at the table, crying at
night, exasperated parents, religious respect for nap times: the weekend sucks. But the worst
thing is that the guest is always behind the children. As they clearly make you understand, no
one cares much about your well-being. Therefore, you will have to endure a lot of annoyances
and practical jokes, such as leaving the door to the baby's room open at night with the excuse
that the child is suffocating in the heat, the impossibility of doing this or that because "children
get nervous", etc. One day, when their children are grown, the couple we just described (any
resemblance to real people is not purely coincidental) will find themselves alone and without
friends, occupying a semi-detached house on the outskirts and counting their points towards
retirement. Spooky. Is this how men (and women) live when they have children?

7. DON'T LEARN THE STUPID LANGUAGE

There is a special language to communicate with children. Does the reader really want to learn
it? I'm going to explain its rudiments a little. This language has banned the imperative, which is
replaced by the indicative. It is not said "Camille, say goodbye and go to sleep," but rather
"Camille, now you say goodbye and go to sleep." The most used phrase is "Now you are quiet",
or better yet: "Now we are quiet", an invocation that is repeated like a mantra and that
generally remains on a piece of paper. In general, the child is spoken to in the present; It is
easier and allows you to erase the future little by little: "Dad will be right away", "Tomorrow
you do your homework." As for the past, it has only one form, that of the past perfect: "Have
you tidied your room, Mélusine?" With children, language seems like a two-beat song.
Since nonsense is frowned upon, now we no longer hear phrases like "my little one has cold
feet and hands." It's too cheesy. And it also harms the development of the child, who must
access with all dignity the true language, that of the adults. To achieve this, you have to talk to
him. Whatever is needed. Nothing is more ridiculous than those mothers who give great
speeches to a two-week-old worm tired of hearing them. «Now-mom-will-change-your-diaper,
Kevín, because-you-have-made-a-very-big-poop,-and-then-we-will-go-to-see-grandma, now
"You know, the-granny-who-lives-in-that-big-house, the-house-that-is-next-to-the-station..."
Sometimes the scene lasts for hours. And there are mothers who practice this kind of ridiculous
drooling in public, which is the height of stupidity, frankly...

Later, when the children are a little older, it is not difficult to see parents utter mellifluous
phrases such as: "Cassandra, if you burn the cat's whiskers, the cat will die, and you don't
want the cat to die, do you?" », in front of a hateful kid who is simply torturing the neighbors'
cat (who, fortunately, knows how to defend himself). Above all, no slapping or raising your
voice; You have to act through persuasion, "explaining things." Preferably, with one knee on
the ground to be at the height of the child, who might otherwise feel inferior. Well-intentioned
parents rack their brains to invent forms of authority that did not exist when they were
children, with the aim of convincing, rather than imposing obedience. Curiously, things are
similar in the business world, where authority has been replaced by dialogue, and dialogue by
communication.

The child takes revenge on the adult by taking him for an idiot and speaking to him in similar
language. Children's conversation is full of uninteresting questions, such as: "If you relax your
muscles in the pool, will you sink without moving?" or "Would you like to have an ultra-painful
product injected into your heart that would turn you into a tree?" It took me years to confess to
my children that I didn't feel like answering them. And our time is opposed to such an attitude.
It is no longer possible to tell a child: "Shut up, I'm thinking about important things." The
solution is simple: don't listen to them. My children think I'm distracted... And they are right:
very often, when they talk to me, I start thinking about pleasant things, the books I have left
to write, a vacation on a dream island with the only company of a well-endowed stranger, or
simply an evening with friends to have a few glasses of beaujolais. Anyway, moments without
them.

And when they grow up, things get worse. His vocabulary is pitifully small, his speech is choppy
and clumsy, and every sentence is interspersed with variants of “fuck!” pronounced with great
feeling. Their compulsive use of the "roll" and the "like" translates their disbelief in the face of
the reality that surrounds them: "It was a mess, like yelling at him on the phone...", "I kind of
don't give a shit, you know?" «He tells me: I'm going to kill myself, and I tell him: wait until
tomorrow, because today I'm exhausted», «I was dying a lot, I saw them and it was like a
flash, you know?», «It's kind of a bummer, I don't know ... like they put you together with
someone and you have to adapt... I don't know...». If the reader met someone who expressed
themselves in this way at a dinner or in a bar... honestly, would you feel like continuing the
conversation? Clearly not. The dialogue between parents and children is a permanent idiot's
dinner.

8. CHOOSING PARVULARY IS CLOSING THE BE GAMES ROOM

Let's forget about idyllic visions and recognize that raising a child is a battle. And it's not just a
metaphor. More and more parents are being abused by their children. While you wait for your
dwarf to be old enough to hit you with a cake, you will see how you repeat to him incessantly:
"You have to sit well", "You don't leave dirty handkerchiefs on the table", "When you eat, you
close your mouth." », «You're already tidying your room», «Now you pick up those dirty
tissues», «Let's do our homework»... The child, to verify the power he has over you, will begin
to tease you just at the moment when you are most exhausted. And raising more than one
child is equivalent to double or triple the effort, especially in those reconstituted families whose
"modernity" we exalt so much, for lack of anything intelligent to say about them. In the case of
women, joining a reconstituted family is equivalent to raising one's own children and also those
of another person. That being said, why not start running a holiday colony?

The worst of all is that the son is here to prevent you from enjoying yourself. It is his hidden
face. In this field he will be particularly inventive. He'll get sick when you (finally) go out to
entertain yourself, he'll piss you off when you're celebrating your birthday with friends...
He/she will hate it if you take a stranger home one night; something that, moreover, you won't
even dare to do so as not to "traumatize" him. To make matters worse, he will manage to start
screaming just when you have gotten into bed with your partner. That is in case he sleeps in
his own room, because there are quite a few children who share their parents' bedroom: 12%
of American parents confess that they spend the night with their baby.4 I doubt that they have
a very intense sex life . Goodbye to caresses, what a shame...
What could be more unbearable, for the child who is alone in his bed, than imagining his father
or mother making love? It is something unthinkable.

This may be the meaning of the myth that Freud invented in Totem and Taboo:5 the children
kill their father because the bastard lives the high life and fucks a lot of women, an
unacceptable scandal. Until the 1970s, parents took revenge on their children by imposing
unfair but strict sexual surveillance; no sexual relations before marriage, no mugging before
night prayer. The sexual activity of young people, especially girls, was closely controlled.
Ultimately, it was a question of justice; what is given for what is received: "You don't let me
live my life, I put serious limits on your freedom." A fight.

On the other hand, sexual repression is not explained solely by the fear of an unwanted child.
For nearly a century, the 19th century, parents and educators joined forces to combat an
atrocious plague, childhood masturbation, accused of undermining the health of youth and
making them indolent. Nowadays it is difficult for us to understand that a straw scared the
society of the time to such an extent. But we can point out an explanation, which is based on a
clear and powerful observation: one is bad, two is better. In the same order of ideas, cloning,
which has such a bad press, is to reproduction what masturbation is to sexuality. Enjoying
pleasure alone, making a child solely with one's own genes... the same struggle and the same
scandal. Because? Because it is not okay to do alone what can (and should) be done between
two. Nice way to dilute the individual in the couple, who, left to himself, could stop respecting
the foundations of society, perhaps to the point, horror of horrors!, of not wanting to
reproduce. What relationship does all this have with the son? The lenitive and protective
discourse that society maintains in this regard cannot hide the following order: "Take the
straight path."

As soon as the alleged cloning of a baby by the Raelian sect was announced, the press spoke of
"transgression of all laws on human experimentation", "irreversible fact", "abomination,
monstrosity, attack on ethics" ...Why is it so worrying that a baby is the clone of its mother? A
bit of seriousness: in any case we are all clones, not just of one of our parents, but of one of
our neighbors or colleagues. The motto is not “love one another,” but “be like one another.”
The same thing happens with tomatoes, peas or potatoes. Everything must be the same
dimension, so that it fits in the can or fits in the mold.

9. THE SON, THE DEATH OF DESIRE

The son does not always end with love, but he often ends with desire. This aesthetic attack on
the woman's body reduces her for several months to the appearance of an immense, deformed
and overweight animal. By force of circumstances, he has no choice but to dress like a sack.
Despite how much we are hammered about how radiant and magnificent pregnant women are,
I am deeply skeptical: when I was pregnant, I felt very ugly with that barrel that had sprouted
under my breasts, and the numerous testimonies that I have collected Over dinners with my
friends they have convinced me of something that is not usually talked about in magazines like
The Baby or Being Parents: many men may find their girlfriends or their wives beautiful when
they are expecting a child, but that doesn't mean they feel like it. to make love with them.

Very often, then, pregnancy marks the beginning of a long sexual drought. Bad news, which is
not followed by good news as in jokes. No, deprivation does not end with the birth of the child.
You don't feel like making love after an episiotomy, and if you do, the pain will last for weeks.
Does the reader not know what an episiotomy is? As Robert informs us, it is: "An incision of the
perineum, starting from the vulva, which is performed during childbirth." In other words: a
pickle in the most intimate part of your being, ladies, in that part that generally allows you to
enjoy, although fortunately there are others. According to the medical community, episiotomy
is a benign intervention; and also frequent, at least in women who are saved from the ravages
of a cesarean section, which is a true operation. Should episiotomy be considered a lesser evil,
a bit like choosing Chirac so as not to end up with Le Pen at the head of the State? Should we
be happy about that?

You also don't feel much like making love between diaper changes, after getting up in the
middle of the night to give a bottle or when you've done three hours of housework after leaving
work. You don't feel like making love when you are surrounded by the roars of brats who have
decided to fight. And all this is even more true when you live in a tiny apartment, when all your
progeny are crammed into the same room, and when this room is not very far from the
parents' bedroom. Can the reader imagine a movie like Nine and a Half Weeks with the children
in the next room? The temperature instantly drops nine and a half degrees, even with the
sexiest actors in the world. Goodbye to eroticism!

10. THE SON ANNOUNCES THE DEATH OF THE COUPLE

The arrival of the child marks the end of sex and the couple. The couple, specifically, cannot be
dissolved in the family. Desire, linked to surprise, unpredictability and the inventive capacity of
its components, is reduced to very little when one has a child, a fortiori two. With the kids
attached to your ass, you become a parent and are called "dad" or "mom." You stop existing in
the first person. When you address the child, you say: "Mommy doesn't like it when you stick
snot on the painting, Ulysse...". After a few years, the reader will see, you are no longer just
"dad" or "mom", and twenty or thirty years later, when you are already a grandfather,
"Jacques" or "Evelyne."

Does the priority given to the child announce the death of the couple? Often, yes. When you
have children, you stop being the somewhat capricious young woman who had fun with her
friends and provoked her lover; You stop being the young man full of vitality who led a
bohemian life and didn't even think about the state of his checking account at the end of the
month. Jacques and Evelyne may become grandparents, but not necessarily together.
Statistically, they have little chance of growing old next to each other, since raising children
exhausts them as a couple. They have not known how to reserve strength for themselves.
Jacques now only sees in Evelyne a matron who runs the house and worries about the bills and
the children; and Evelyne now only sees in Jacques an old man with unflattering love handles,
who does DIY on the weekends and cooks from time to time. Cinderella has transformed into a
chacha and Prince Charming into a toad.

Before, when I saw how other couples became parents and threw themselves completely into
their role, I naively believed that they had let themselves get caught up and that nothing like
that would happen to me. Error: It happened to me too. Now, I almost never look in the mirror,
I wear flat shoes, I neglect my contact lenses (which dry out inside the case) and I only buy
new clothes once a year. My partner is first and foremost the father of my children, and a good
part of our conversations revolve around them. When a man talks to me at dinner, it never
occurs to me that his goal is to flirt, and if that's the case, it takes me months to realize it.

Result: in big cities, one couple in two divorces or separates. These breakups especially affect
young couples. More and more are separating when the children are still small: statistically,
things begin to falter around the fourth year after the birth of the first or shortly after the birth
of the second. To desire or to engender, we often have to choose...

11. BE OR DO, DON'T BELIEVE YOU'RE FORCED TO CHOOSE

For a long time, the newborn was assimilated to a simple digestive tube and responded to the
only definition that obstetricians of the 20th century had created for it: "The necessary and
inevitable product of the delivery room." In less than thirty years, it has become a precious
object and endowed with a genius of its own. Many theorists of the psyche, including some of
the greatest, have dedicated efforts to explaining that babies and children are not mere objects
but subjects whose uniqueness must be respected. Which is true but gives rise to confusion,
since the parents have understood it as an exaltation of the valuable character of the child and
have begun to treat him as the apple of their eye. A child can never lack anything. Therefore,
parents strive to meet needs that did not exist before and experience this obligation as a
pleasure. Yes, repeat it after me: a pleasure!

Furthermore, parents compensate in the area of action (caring for children) for what they lose
in the area of being (being a father or mother). The question "What is it to be a father or
mother?" It no longer has an obvious answer. Not so long ago, parents were mom and dad.
Everything was very simple. Nowadays, more and more children need a third person to be
born: the sperm donor, who replaces the infertile husband; the oocyte donor, who replaces the
sterile mother; and finally the surrogate mother, who allows another woman to have the child
conceived with her partner or husband. To have a child you need three bodies, not just two.
The same thing happens with reconstituted families, this time in the social field: the man or
woman who raises the children of his partner participates in the "creation" of the child.

Who is a parent? Is the mother who gives birth to the child born from the implantation of an
egg from another woman fertilized by her husband "entirely" a mother? Is the man who
accepts that his partner be inseminated by the sperm of an anonymous donor "entirely" a
father? Everything has become incredibly complicated. What is clear is that the more the
parental coordinates blur, the more involved one becomes in one's role as father or mother,
because the child becomes the anchoring point of the family. Nowadays the child has come to
occupy a central place, everything revolves around him, and the adults who surround him and
serve as his supporters form increasingly diverse combinations. Luckily, there is still a point of
reference: "Having children is giving love," as one of the columnists of Being Parents explains,
a reassuring publication for parents with identity problems. Love, always... How simple, and
how calm we remain!

12. "the child is a kind of vicious dwarf, with innate cruelty" (Michel Houellebecq)

Our view of the child is shaped by JeanJacques Rousseau. This author, who nevertheless got rid
of his own children by entrusting them to Public Assistance, sensitively celebrates the alliance
between the child and the savage. According to him, both live in an immediate communion with
things, in the apprehension of what is authentic, in a purity that civilization has not yet altered.
But let's get serious. The innocence of the child, Saint Augustine already said, depends on the
weakness of its members, not on its intentions. The child is like a dog; If it were two or three
times bigger, it would be a ferocious animal, your best enemy. On TV they interviewed a series
of boys and girls, who confessed their desire to grow up enough to correct their teachers, hit
their classmates and even kill authority figures, that is, their parents and teachers. It is the
theme of the film Honey, I Made the Child Bigger: after a laboratory accident, a clueless
scientist sees his two-year-old son reach a height of several meters and begins to spread terror
in the neighborhood.

Think about your childhood years... Little friends who laugh at you, demand snacks or marbles,
criticize your clothes and make you understand that you are not "cool" enough. The child thinks
only of stealing his neighbor's toy, humiliating him in public and hitting him. And then go to
complain to the adults saying that they have hurt him, because the child loves to make people
feel sorry. By nature, he always considers himself a victim, never responsible or guilty. Does
the reader know Lord of the Flies} This uplifting novel tells the story of some children lost on a
desert island, who end up killing each other. It is something that happens more and more often
in reality, and sometimes not too far from us. At the end of December 2006, in Meaux, a
twelve-year-old schoolboy died after being kicked by two of his eleven-year-old classmates. A
few months earlier, a thirteen-year-old Spanish girl was beaten by three classmates and ended
up with multiple fractures in her right leg. Lord, forgive us for our childhoods!

The boy is a wolf to the boy. But it is also an unbearable nuisance for adults. Traveling on a
high-speed train with young children is a nerve-wracking test: screaming, soft drinks spilled on
the curtains, kicks on the back of the seats... For a long time, the only way to avoid such an
annoying situation was to choose the smoking car, but there is no longer one. I suggest that
the SNCF put "no kid" tickets on sale with a supplement: assured death of political correctness,
but guaranteed success. And, even worse than a shared train ride, living under a family with
children in a poorly insulated building is a real via crucis: welcome the screams, the gallops on
the parquet floor, the toys thrown violently against the wall and they wake you up
unceremoniously as soon as the sun rises... I know of some who have had no choice but to
move.

In the same way, living near a school is synonymous with setbacks. Let's look at a small true
example, taken from everyday life, which is an unparalleled source of valuable information.
This banal event has to do with the problems that children cause when they leave school. In
this case, the parents received the following letter: «For some months now, neighbors living in
the vicinity of the French Lyceum have complained about the inconvenience caused by the
incivility of the students, whether on public roads or in private buildings. Furthermore, it seems
that the crowds of students that form at the end of classes are a source of disruption, and
some of them have been accused of uncivil behavior (abandonment of waste) and degradation
of public and private property. A piece of advice: when the reader wants to buy an apartment,
it is better to choose it close to a nursing home. Even if you have children, at least you will
avoid the inconvenience caused by the childishness of others.

13. THE CHILD IS CONFORMIST

Nothing less original than a child. It is normal, since the child imitates adults, kids older than
him or those who are the same age but make him envious. The child spends his entire life as a
child wanting to be someone else to be "popular." Only when he realizes that he is getting older
does he understand that growing up is not an end in itself (but then childhood ends, too late to
take advantage of it). As he always wants to be someone else, the child is not happy with
himself. He fears that they will make fun of him, that they will point fingers at him, that they
will criticize his sweater or his backpack. Consequently, he does everything like his classmates;
To calm himself down, he wears the same shoes, uses the same notebooks and adopts the
same way of speaking. Childhood is a long neurosis, because neurosis is living according to
what one believes to be the desire of others.

Often the childhood neurosis is not cured but slowly evolves into the adult neurosis. The child
hates being different and does not accept well that his parents are singled out. My children
have told me that their schoolmates cannot see us with our old and dented Peugot 205. They
also don't want their dad to go pick them up from school in threadbare shorts. They don't
understand that I spend so many hours at home, writing or receiving my patients, and the little
one told his classmates for a long time, not without vague embarrassment, that "my mother
doesn't work." The mothers of other children go out to spend a certain part of the day in an
office: for them, this is proof that they really work, even though it is often not known exactly
what the hell an "office worker" does.

Without knowing exactly what work is, many children think that it is like school, a place of
mandatory presence and stupid teachers. The work of parents has become a totally abstract
entelechy for their children, who when they grow up will be ready to occupy a useless and
uninteresting position. From a very young age, society demands from children a blind respect
for rules and discipline: kindergarten or school are nothing more than two pieces of that
immense system of control of bodies and people that is the world. From the nursery to the
company there is no essential difference, since the first

"guards" the child and the second the adult. The child imagines that this is normal. A space that
welcomes you, with heating, schedules that must be respected, a dining room and colleagues...
A Lilliputian dream, absolutely tailored to you.

14. THE CHILD IS EXPENSIVE

A child costs a fortune. It is one of the most expensive purchases the average consumer can
afford in their lifetime. From a monetary point of view, it is more expensive than a latest model
luxury car, a cruise around the world or a two-bedroom apartment in Paris. And what's worse is
that the total cost threatens to increase over the years. Yes, of course, there is aid from the
State, happy to distribute the various supplements (attention: one does not always have the
right to receive them) that are included under the rubric of the PAJE (child benefit: benefit for
parents of children of young age), in addition to help for returning to school, school scholarship
or secondary studies... However, all this adds up to very little compared to what the child will
cost. And the child must be fed, clothed, housed, left in the care of someone, paid for school
and/or studies... and all of this for a period of between eighteen and twenty-five years, if not
thirty.

It is known that the total of expenses, on average, is equivalent to between 20 and 30% of
family income but, curiously, the exact amounts are not known. In France, however, there are
many statistics professionals, and there are even people whose job is precisely that, such as
the members of the Council on Population and the Family. In reality, everything is due to a
conspiracy by natalists, ideologues convinced that France needs babies to ensure the
permanence of a model that, as we know, would irremediably become extinct if the little ones
of our race were missing. JoélYves Le Bigot, president of the Children's Institute, accuses: "All
those who are concerned about the demographics of the country think that it is better that the
French do not really know how much it costs to raise a child, because in that case they would
still have less." They hide everything from us, they don't tell us anything...

Obviously, the secret to happy parenting is money, which allows us to escape the servitude
inherent in the job of parent. In gossip magazines, Angelina Jolie, Sharon Stone, Madonna,
Nicole Kidman and Laeticia Hallyday present themselves as satisfied mothers, unable to resist
the pleasure of declaring that motherhood is the most important thing for them. And men do
the same: fatherhood has made Johnny Depp discover abysmal depths in his personality, and
Tom Cruise wanted to be a father throughout his life. Of course, having staff makes things
easier: a babysitter who can stay at home all night when we decide to go out, a babysitter who
gives them dinner when we meet up with friends, a student who helps them do their
homework... It is the minimum to make having children bearable.

Stop dreaming, reader: if you belong to the lower class or the middle class (which are
increasingly the same thing), you will have to fend for yourself. If you have a child, you will end
up learning, whether you want it or not, a lot of jobs: childcare worker, caregiver, monitor,
pedagogue, cook, teacher, police officer, driver, nurse, psychologist or counselor. And above all
as an actor, because a child constitutes the ideal audience for those who are willing to play the
role of parent, at least until adolescence. There are many demands for a single person, and the
most surprising thing is that mothers, despite being so flexible and versatile, are very
undervalued in the job market... Has the reader ever seen businessmen fighting for hiring
mothers over forty-five? This shows that something smells rotten in the sweet territory of
human resources.

15. THE SON IS AN OBJECTIVE ALLY OF CAPITALISM

Consumption is the pillar of parenting. To become a father or mother worthy of the name, you
have to gather an incredible list of objects. A crib with bars, a playpen, a bassinet, a maxicosy,
a car seat, a stroller, a stroller, a travel bed, a baby carrier, diapers, clothes, a bottle warmer,
a bottle sterilizer , cosmetic products, wipes, mucus pumps... Some of these items include
technological refinements that are as impressive as they are useless: the stroller, for example.
In France, the "avant-garde" models are called Vigor, Aeropuerto or Carrera and are sold with
six and up to eight wheels (up to 27.3 centimeters in diameter), inflatable tires, front disc
brake and rear locking brake, handlebars ergonomic, etc. A small wonder. But they weigh twice
as much as normal ones and it is difficult to take them on the subway or navigate on a narrow
sidewalk. To transport all this paraphernalia, a car is essential, preferably large and equipped
with airbags, for obvious safety reasons. Each trip becomes a complete move, a nightmare of
suitcases and bags.

And all this is expensive but it is only the beginning, because the child gets dirty and eats, and
therefore you need a washing machine, a dryer and a dishwasher, AND also an endless supply
of laminated diapers (six or seven a day for two or three years), which are a real disaster for
the environment because they are not recycled. Since the dwarf takes up space, we have to
buy an apartment so he can have his own room, hoping that it will be less annoying. And you
also have to dress it, since there is a children's fashion that the most conscious fathers and
mothers strive to follow, going to specialized stores. A multitude of articles in women's
magazines, in addition to the children's version of Vogue (which is titled Milk), help us choose
clothes that are as expensive as those intended for adults. Our dear little one will only wear
them for three months, if ever, but what does that matter?
The child, in addition to consuming, gets the parents to consume. That is why it is the main
target of "communicators." The newer and shiny something is, the more the child likes it. He
has played with the GameBoy since he was very young and at the age of eight he received his
first computer, so technology has no secrets for him. When he turns twelve, it is absolutely
essential to give him an MP3 so that he does not act badly at recess time. And that's not all,
because the digital camera is also imposed. And then, the cell phone. According to a British
study, two-thirds of children between six and thirteen years old own one. What do they do with
it? According to an expert in children's marketing (a fascinating profession, I'm sure): "Children
want a cell phone, although they don't use it much or only to call home." To call home? Don't
parents and children have all the time in the world to... not talk to each other? In addition, the
boy has disgusting taste: horrible colored sneakers inspired by the fashionable video game,
clothes taken from stupid television shows, cards from YuGiOh! or from the Duel Masters, the
Diddl dolls... welcome to the kingdom of ugliness!

For parents, all this means wasted money and time spent purchasing junk, plus thousands of
hours spent at work paying for the apartment where the purchases will be stored. And the
space needed is not little, since every children's room is an authentic Ali Baba's cave in which
toys are piled up to the ceiling and an incredible disorder of clothing reigns, boxes that were
never opened. and broken, out-of-fashion or forgotten pots and pans. In the realm of the
commodity, the child is in his element. What capitalism pursues, that is, the incessant
proliferation of objects, gadgets that are increasingly difficult to recycle or items that quickly
become obsolete and must continue to be renewed ad infinitum... that is exactly what the child
wants. As long as there are children, this absurd world we live in will continue to have a future.
The human species perhaps not, but that is another story.

16. KEEPING THE CHILD BUSY IS A HEADACHE

A few years ago, the British gave us a masterpiece of Anglo-Saxon humor, titled 101 Uses of a
Dead Cat. The 101 Uses of a Living Child requires a lot more imagination. Before, children
played in the street or in the lots and had fun without adults, but today these spaces have been
invaded by cars. And child kidnappers, a great terror for today's parents, convinced that there
is one on every corner. You can no longer tell a child "Go play amera!", unless we want him to
play alone in a suburban garden, and experience has taught me that it is not his favorite
entertainment. Therefore, the child ends up locked within four walls like in The Heartbreaker by
Boris Vian, that story in which a mother, obsessed with the idea that her children could have an
accident, decides to cage them.

Capitalism has robbed children of a natural space for play and experimentation with one hand,
and with the other it has given them products to compensate them. The first was free and the
second are paid, so the battle is unequal. First of all, he has given them TV, in front of which
the child can spend hours without moving, concentrating on brainwashing. At least during this
time he doesn't think about hurting himself. But the middle and upper classes distrust TV
because they know that it makes children stupid (and adults brainless, but in general in their
case it is too late). That's why they prefer to replace it with increasingly more advanced
gadgets (the GameBoy, the PlayStation...), which the child loves and which are not smarter
than the TV but at least have the merit of keeping the child occupied. Long live high-tech
babysitting.

In any case, the most rewarding thing for parents is to rack their brains so that their children
are intelligently entertained. You have to start when they are very young, after a few months.
That's why baby swimming classes have been invented. The principle consists of submerging
the baby in a body of warm water (and probably full of piss) from the age of four months; It is
very fashionable, to the point that in Paris it is advisable to register the child before it is born.
What are these classes for? I don't know, but let's see what one of the websites dedicated to
this type of leisure says: «The child learns to be autonomous, since he is in a stimulating
environment that favors his psychomotor development. For many babies, the pool is the
opportunity to come into contact with society, and this early socialization favors the quality of
future relationships..." Autonomy, development, socialization... the key words of an achieved
education. Everything is played, therefore, within a few weeks of life. If your children don't go
to baby swimming classes, they won't do anything in life... Who Forewarned is forearmed.
Later on, children will have to be enrolled in a plethora of extracurricular activities, which often
involves taking them back and forth. Let's look at the impressive agenda of Antoine, aged
eleven.7 Mondays, between 5:30 p.m. and 6 p.m., guitar; Tuesday, handball between 5:15
p.m. and 6:30 p.m.; Thursday, music theory between 6 and 7:30 p.m.; Friday, handball again,
from 5:15 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.; one Saturday out of two, I rehearse with a children's orchestra...
Is this marathon agenda made to keep children busy or rather parents, forced to take them to
school? one place to another? "Smart" activities are those that improve a child's performance in
the school market, a sign that in the future they will know how to adapt well to the labor
market. Chess or music theory fall into this category. In addition, parents can opt for creative
activities such as drawing or theater, a good tool to feel comfortable in public. Everything must
be useful for the "realization" of the child, that ultra-trite concept, key to "personal
development" based on recipes of proven effectiveness that lead to happiness. As for sports, it
instills in the child a taste for competition and team spirit, all of which will be quite useful in the
business world.

But be careful: overbooking is on the horizon. The child's agenda is worthy of an executive (by
the way, if the child succeeds in life, in the sense in which the parents expect it, that is what he
will end up being). From early childhood, the child has time to get used to it: there should
never be a "wasted" hour, never a free moment to watch the raindrops fall... It is a preview of
life, the authentic one, that of the winners, because the winners are very busy while the loosers
do not hit a single blow. However, the latter are at the forefront of modernity; Someday, in a
world where there will no longer be work or much to do, everyone will be on vacation, retired
or on maternity leave. That day, the only ones working will be the parents... raising their
children.

17. THE HEAVIEST OBLIGATIONS OF PARENTS

The job of father or mother is a via crucis paved with numerous stations. The reader is not
obliged to carry all of them, but he should know that it will be impossible to get rid of some.
Let's see the worst:
Eurodisney, that city inspired by idiotic cartoons, in which underpaid beings dressed as ducks
reign.
The Marineland of Antibes, where animals that look like plastic learn to jump in lines in pools
that reek of chlorine.
The immense expanse of the Mammouth hypermarket on Saturday morning, when you have to
fill the fridge for the whole week (with Raphael who screams and Aliénor who demands all the
nonsense he sees: the heart-shaped lollipop, the can of carrots with a gift included, the cake
adorned with a teddy bear, the mega-crispy fries, etc.).

The dusty square with little vegetation, the only space where urban children can play. On
weekends it is almost inevitable to go there with the child, who, like the dog, becomes
unbearable if he does not go outside. The father or mother waits for time to pass (things drag
on) and if it is winter it freezes. Has he picked up a newspaper or. a book8 to escape from the
spectacle that is unfolding in front of their noses: children throwing sand in their eyes, tripping,
settling scores, looted flowerbeds, racist insults... nothing is missing in this announced
bankruptcy of every dignified and just human society .
The townhouse with a garden, a natural place of retreat and multiplication for the suburban
family, described by the famous American feminist Betty Friedan as "a concentration camp with
amenities."
McDonald's, which serves filthy, greasy food in a vulgar Formica setting, with gifts handed out
to compensate. Children's haute cuisine and parents' annoyance. The only advantage is that it
ends quickly.
The Acquaboulevard, that filthy parody of a beach, in which one ends up locked in an
overheated cement bell adorned with kitsch palm trees.
Thoiry, the “freedom animal park”, which perfectly illustrates the formula “move around, there
is nothing to see”; The only one observed is the tourist, prisoner of his car.
Children's movies, which are most ridiculous: Inspector Gadget; Nemo Babe, the brave little
pig; Harry Potter; Pocahontas; Ninja Turtles III...
Vacations in the month of August are extremely annoying: traffic jams, full parking lots,
overcrowded beaches, extremely uncomfortable "rural houses" that have to be booked at a
bargain price six months in advance... Bearable if there is a daycare or a kids' club; If not, let
September come!

And finally, the height of the abomination: Christmas. Armies of parents rushing into stores to
endlessly buy newer, flashier and more modern toys. Objective: to prove to themselves that
they are good parents. A task that never ends because creating a good conscience is
expensive, especially if we think about how few opportunities there are to achieve it in normal
life. It is worth taking out the video to immortalize the precise (and rare) moment in which the
child unwrapping the gifts next to the fir tree adopts a happy and slightly foolish expression.
You have to be very attentive, because the child, inundated by an avalanche of useless and
expensive toys, soon becomes saturated (he would probably be more comfortable going out
into the garden and ripping off a spider's legs). Therefore, the entire gift-opening ceremony will
have to be filmed in its entirety, every year too, so as not to miss a single bit. Watching the
film on a loop for several hours in a row is a nice metaphor for capitalism: an incessant
accumulation of objects, which however do not bring us more satisfaction.

18. DON'T BE FOOLED BY THE IMPOSTURE OF THE IDEAL CHILD

Beautiful, poetic, ideal: this is our vision of the child. The boy embodies the longing for a lost
golden age, which, like all golden ages, never truly existed. Films like The Choir Boys (8.5
million tickets sold) or programs like The Chavagnes Boarding School (6 million viewers) play
with this, and are doubly reactionary because they mobilize at the same time the nostalgia of
past times and that of the childhood. Since the child is attractive to the viewer, television uses
him as an alibi to broadcast the stupidest programs. Among them, television marathons, aimed
at helping children affected by genetic diseases, for example, true Yom Kippur of good feelings
that make a spectacle of generosity. Marathons make a titanic effort to raise funds in record
time. What wouldn't one do for sick children? The result is obscene and deeply stupid, but of
course, it's in the name of children, right?

Curiously, childhood has become an ideal model that allows adults without perspectives to
continue dreaming. It is no longer children who dream of the freedom of adulthood, as Benoit
Duteurtre points out in La Petite Filie et la Cigarette, but adults who dream of childhood, seen
as an ideal country to which they will never be able to access. Except on TV. What do reality
television shows, Operación Triunfo and the like, show, if not adults who voluntarily agree to
cloister themselves in a kind of school to learn to sing, dance, occupy a communal dormitory,
pull their hair out and publicly forgive themselves? TV loves children, especially when it is
adults who write and play this role.

The (misnamed) news reporters are also very fond of children, who are always on the hunt for
sordid events. Missing or murdered children regularly make headlines on the 8 o'clock news.
Apparently, the audience demands them. In France, I adored little Grégory, the victim of a
murder that had never been explained and about which they had been drilling our ears for
months, if not years... a sensational suspense. Anyone would think that between 1986, the
year the "case" took place, and 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell, nothing else happened.
Luckily, a few years later, the audience (or journalists, since it is not so easy to distinguish the
chicken from the egg) was able to enjoy the murders of the filthy Belgian Dutroux.

More recently, he has been interested in the fate of Dr. Godard's children, who disappeared at
sea and of whom only one skull was found. And he has also been enthusiastic about Natascha
Kampusch, the Austrian kidnapped at the age of ten and victim of a kidnapping that lasted
eight. Furthermore, he has been outraged by Véronique Courjault, a French woman living in
Seoul who kept two frozen children in the refrigerator, and has been shocked by the German
woman who killed nine of her newborn children and hid their bodies in flower pots. Faced with
these modern Medeas, one must react with a morbid fascination. The evil infanticide, the
perverse murderer of small children... those are the monsters! Between us, however,
everything is fine, thank you. Among us, children are "fulfilled" people and parents are
"balanced."

19. IT IS INEVITABLE THAT YOUR CHILD WILL DISAPPOINT YOU

The son, sweet revenge. We procreate to take revenge for our bad luck. We are convinced that
we will be able to protect the child from the error of which we believe ourselves to be victims.
Obviously we will commit others, perhaps more "serious." To avoid them, mothers have to
make an effort and be "attentive" to the way their babies respond: it is a real mission. And a
job.
There are many families convinced that their boy or girl is more intelligent than average, willing
to analyze their children's IQ from the time they turn four years old and immersed in the
search for a special school so that their future Einstein can develop all his or her abilities.
capabilities. How is the “precocious” child recognized? According to what their parents say, it is
easy: "The boy (or girl) is bored at school"; Given the number of kids who spend the entire
class staring at flies, anyone would say that France is the favorite country of genius. How sad it
is for those parents who are forced to make daily round trips, which can be quite long, between
the home of the gifted child and the aforementioned school. But nothing is too good for our
son, right? What wouldn't one do to "stimulate" such a smart kid? What wouldn't one do to
"succeed" by proxy?

However, as pediatrician Winnicott warns us, what a child needs is a "good enough" mother...
more is too much. Therefore, the good mother is forced to let go of her worries a little, which is
not easy. Letting go a little means accepting that our child is not an ideal child. Because no
child is ideal, and a child always ends up disappointing his parents, especially if they had
imagined him as a perfect being. Have school results been insufficient? We already have a
couple disappointed and forced to correct their first opinion about their little one's talents. The
most comical thing is to see those parents who previously seemed fascinated with their child's
"capabilities" and now are forced to confess (with a small mouth) that their son, who is already
over twenty, had problems taking off the high school and is pursuing lower education at
Frutería La Monda or at the Grisú Mining Corporation... A shame, for someone who
nevertheless had all the attributes of a genius.

And later, if our beloved offspring, instead of becoming an autonomous, flexible and
responsible person, turns out to be an immature zangolotino, the result is directly the disgrace
of the parents. If the kid doesn't work, if he is condemned to perpetual free time (the curse of
the poor), no one dares to ask his parents about him anymore. What if this same kid, who was
nevertheless educated in the most virtuous, flexible, pluralistic and charitable modernity,
becomes anti-democratic, anti-European and anti-progressive? Well, that is impossible,
because in France the ballot boxes are installed in the lobbies of schools, so that, by definition,
they serve to promote the radiant future. But there is something worse, that the boy ends up
being a terrorist. No, something like that is unimaginable! A person who has managed to
integrate so well into such a perfect model of society cannot wish for its loss.

20. Becoming a supermom... how horrible!

The supermom is a family mother who, above all... is a family mother.9 She works, yes, but for
economic reasons, and also because the model of the family mother who spends all of her life
at home is not very enriching. His own mother attests to this. The supermom's mother was a
mother and housewife throughout her entire existence and devoted her entire life to her
children, to whom she incessantly repeated that she had made great sacrifices for them and
had missed something essential and enriching: work. The forties of my generation were almost
always educated by this type of woman, devoted body and soul to household chores and the
education of children, and totally frustrated by the emptiness of her existence. Chronic fatigue,
loneliness, dissatisfaction, overeating and obsessive interest in children: often fat, paunchy and
dressed in hideous dressing gowns, our mothers were harpies. The supermom, on the other
hand, has sworn that she will do better.

However, nothing has really changed, since the supermom's main concern is the children. The
typical supermom has a photo of her children on the office table and another in her purse, and
she doesn't hesitate to show them to anyone who wants to see them. On Wednesdays he
misses work because he has to organize his children's multiple activities and take one of them
to a birthday party and the other to karate class. He has a tendency to snack on the dishes he
prepares for them, and that is why he is thinking about dieting and drinking only mineral water.
He doesn't have much conversation, because he spends most of the weekend taking care of
Lea, Mattéo and JeanBaptiste. As soon as you try to drag her into a conversation minimally
interesting for anyone who doesn't have children, the supermom starts rambling about the
boy's school results, the girl's artistic talents or the comparative level of public schools in the
western outskirts of Paris. . In short, it ends up tiring almost everyone, except the
supermommies themselves, who know that the child is a priesthood that requires multiple
sacrifices and total self-denial.

The supermom makes her work vacation coincide with the school vacation period, which is
quite long: ten days at the beginning of November, two weeks at Christmas, two weeks in
February, two weeks at Easter and two months in summer. About four months, during which it
is necessary to either sacrifice and stay at home, or send the children to their grandparents, or
sign them up for colonies. A small miracle of organization every time. Luckily, the 35-hour day
has allowed the supermom to "get organized" to spend more time at home. All this frenzy of
school parties has had important consequences on the work habits of our country and explains
why foreigners are convinced that in France we don't do anything. The truth is that during
school holidays there are not too many "workers" in companies. It is difficult to "find time" to
hold a meeting between Christmas and New Year's Eve, during the February holidays, at
Easter, in August or at the beginning of November. And then? Globalization can wait, right?

21. FATHER OR MOTHER FIRST OF ALL... NO, THANKS

Even if she runs a company, sells millions of records, or does a passionate job, we expect
women to say that their children come before everything else. Increasingly, man is subject to
the same limitations of parental correction. Can we imagine the two main candidates for the
2007 presidential elections, Ségoléne Royal and Nicolás Sarkozy, confessing that their political
activities come before all else? However, given their agendas, some men and women in our
political class should not spend much time at home... This is the case of Francois Bayrou, also a
candidate, whose family model, as Le Monde reveals to us, is the following: «Six children and
his wife Elisabeth, who has often taken care of them alone in Bordéres, while Francois was
doing politics in Paris ». Without worrying, the candidate adopts a nice father's suit, specially
cut for the elections. Good move, Frangois!

In France there has never been a president of the Republic who did not have children. There
are not many of them abroad either, and when a childfree like German Chancellor Angela
Merkel appears, we are surprised. Having children is a powerful electoral argument that
candidates do not hesitate to exploit on the media scene in the form of edifying family photos.
President Kennedy set the tone in the 1960s. Let's remember that image in which the president
is sitting in front of the White House desk while his son entertains himself by playing on the
floor. The child is, simply, an aid to sell oneself, a walking advertising banner that says: "My
father (or my mother) is a trustworthy person, you can vote for him (or her) with complete
confidence, since, since he has children "He will know how to understand your problems."

It is difficult for us to imagine a public personality who recognizes the following: "My work
comes first, that is why babysitters were invented...". It would be a very important
communication error, likely to sink a career. Mother first, professional second, woman last: this
is the winning trio. Let's not try to reverse priorities, because it is ugly. The sincere and
sensible words of the model Adriana Karembeu when she declared: "Having children scares me
a little, because I'm afraid of not measuring up or of repeating my parents' mistakes," earned
her a few problems.

However, Karembeu is right. Every supermom is a potential bad mother, and she feels guilty
about it. The fact of bringing a child into the world, and above all, perhaps, "having wanted it,"
gives rise to a terrifying feeling of guilt. “I have created a human being and I am responsible
for him” is a very difficult burden to bear. Every mother fears that she is an evil stepmother:
she never does enough, she doesn't take good care of her children, she is never available
enough, never "alert" enough, she never prepares enough dinners, enough "balanced" menus...
No, she never does enough, especially since her own mother (and the feminists) have
hammered her with the story that she must work and now she finds herself caught between the
rock of domestic work and the wall of wage work. She is guilty, guilty of coming home from
work peeing, guilty of not singing lullabies at night, guilty of having a nervous breakdown after
two hours of screaming, guilty of feeling relieved when she drops the children off at daycare in
the morning, guilty of being happy when the children leave colonies. He is almost there until he
ends up asking his children for forgiveness. Sorry for not knowing what a "good mother" is,
sorry for unintentionally resembling Snow White's stepmother.
What does it mean to “want” a child? Do you know what you want when you want to have a
child? Do you want "your good"? Psychoanalysis teaches us that there is nothing as destructive
as wanting the good of someone, because one projects one's own good onto one's neighbor,
and one day or another they will make them pay for that famous "good" that they try to impose
on them. Furthermore, wanting the "good" of another at all costs is destructive because no
father or mother is really up to the task of what they want for their offspring. When Marie
Bonaparte asked him for advice on raising her children, Sigmund Freud responded lucidly: “Do
what you want; In any case he will do it wrong.

In the past, that is, just a few decades ago, children were endured as a fatality, which was far
from being the ideal situation, but it had the merit of freeing parents from too heavy a
responsibility. Be careful: it is not my intention to seem nostalgic for a time that I did not
know, but it is true that we tend to worry more, going to the point of overprotecting, the child
that has been desired. According to the authors of the book Freakonomies, the widespread use
of contraceptives had the surprising effect of reducing crime in New York; According to their
argument, the desired children would have fewer difficulties than others in integrating into
society. From there to imagining that the pill and the IUD were sponsored by big capital to
achieve a more docile workforce, there is only one step...

22. CLOSE THE DOOR TO CHILDREN'S PROFESSIONALS

To educate a child, you need experts. Social worker, pediatrician, speech therapist,
psychologist... a true medical colonization of the family. How did our grandparents manage
without them? Our world is obsessed with the psychic, moral or sexual problems of childhood.
Short parenthesis: it is interesting to note that the transfer of skills from parents to other
people is paralleled by the expropriation of workers' technical skills by the managers of the
modern company. That one house has nothing to do with the other? Let's not fool ourselves,
because one of the fundamental pillars of the world in which we live is precisely this: we are
surrounded by a multitude of esoteric knowledge to which some supposed specialists claim to
have the key.
The family is under the surveillance of a therapeutic State that subjects it to permanent
control. All these people are here to bother, like everyone else who tries to help us. And also to
let us know what society expects of us, parents, and that it is no small thing. There is so much
waiting that we will soon have to go back to school to learn the trade. No, it's not a joke:
Ségoléne Royal has defended it very seriously. "When uncivil acts multiply, a system is needed
that forces parents to undergo training in parenting schools," he declared."

While the time comes for us to be forced to take parenting courses, I am going to detail your
duties. Parents: it is convenient that you have authority, but also that you "dialogue" with the
child. That you take care of him dozens of hours a week, but also that both members of the
couple have a paid job so that the child is not "cancelled" by so much request, often coming
from the mother. (This is especially true in France, because in Germany it is quite frowned
upon for women with children to work.) It is important that you become virtuous alter egos,
concerned about the well-being of your child and his respect for moral values. May you be
balanced and responsible. Serene and pedagogical. Open-minded and capable of stimulating
the child's curiosity. Everything that is needed. Purpose? A "structured" child, that is, well
restrained. The ideal: a “balanced” child who “understands limits.” Translation: a child who has
been made obedient enough by his parents that anyone else can manipulate him.

This whole crowd of experts is pretty chatty. Pediatrics, psychology and educational sciences
are devoted to the problems of childhood and their slogans reach parents through a vast
popular literature, received with open arms by a lot of publishers, despite their limited
intellectual reach. And the market niche is appetizing. In the list of nonsense, the 100 recipes
to increase your child's intelligence, the work of an author whose name we prefer to omit out of
charity, are in first place. Some of these books are real bestsellers, such as the tracts by the
prolific Edwige Antier (I watch my baby grow, Expecting a child today, My baby sleeps well..),
which have dethroned the classics of Laurence Pernoud. All these works are studied carefully by
the disoriented supermom looking for advice to educate her child "well."

In matters of physical or mental hygiene, the supermom does not act according to her own
considerations or feelings, but according to the (rather vague) image of what a good mother
should be. When she gets the impression that all this accumulation of advice is getting her
nowhere, she turns on the TV to watch SuperNanny. It is a program that five million viewers
have seen in France and which is, according to the Mó network's website, about "a nanny
different from the others, who restores order in families with faltering authority and threatened
by the chaos". In other words: practical exercises to tame those little angels who do nothing
but make life miserable for their poor parents.13 The "specialists" in childhood, true family
gurus, are very good at propagating new trends. Where do they get them from? Nobody
knows. Some are particularly fanciful. I remember that when my daughter was born, about
twelve years ago, we had to "diversify" the baby's diet. Has the reader tried to get a baby who
is only a few weeks old to swallow a spoonful of spinach puree, orange juice or egg white? It is
impossible, but in the mid-nineties it had to be tried because the child's nutritional balance
demanded it. Anger or a nervous breakdown were guaranteed. A few years later the wind had
changed, because specialists had realized that too early diversification caused allergies in our
beloved dwarfs and they stopped demanding nutritional prowess from their parents. But there
are trends for everything, for the way babies are put to bed, for changing diapers, for the type
of stroller that should be used. But no, children's science is not cutting-edge science, and
despite their pretensions, all these experts seem somewhat clueless. Should we throw the baby
out with the bathwater? Let the reader decide.

23. FAMILIES ARE SCARY

A wellspring of kindness, affection and spontaneity... that's supposed to be the role of family. A
refuge of safety in a public world increasingly dominated by the impersonal mechanisms of the
market. Family life, idealized, magnified, a refuge for authenticity, which we are told facilitates
the free expression of "personality", is obviously a postcard image that has nothing to do with
reality. In fact, the modern family is a prison turned in on itself and centered on the child. The
family is the arguments by the Christmas tree, the terrible "minutes of sincerity" with the
mother-in-law (whom no one has asked anything), the hatred entrenched over generations, the
shameful secrets that no one dares to evoke. but they weigh on everyone... The majority of
homicides and acts of pedophilia take place within the family, which should at least make us
think. Every family is an inextricable nest of vipers.

Welcome, neurosis and psychosis. Parent-child relationships are not easy. It is not only about
love but also about hate, resentment and jealousy, that is, feelings that no one had because
"they are not right." However, there they are, you don't have to go far to find them. On this
point, psychoanalysis has shown itself to be especially lucid. Freud explained that the child
wants to kill the father to sleep with the mother, a most tender and kind idea. Winnicott, for his
part, stated the seventeen reasons that a mother has for detesting her baby: it is a danger to
her body, it is an interference in her private life, it causes damage to her breasts, he treats her
as a nonentity, forces her to follow her law, frustrates her... We are far from a sweetened
concept of motherhood. If the reader decides to have children, they will have to "face" these
ambivalences. Many prefer to repress them, and this may be where the secret to happy
parenthood or motherhood lies. Do the children gain anything in this case? It's not so clear,
since anyway, at one point or another in the family tree, someone has to foot the bill for
everyone. And that is as complicated as in Muriel Robin's humorous number.

Let's go back to the reader's family. When you have a son, you'll see how he holds you
accountable. It is a paradox, because when one decides to have children, is it not to pay their
debt to the parents who "gave" them life? It would seem that one is finally left at peace... Well
no! It would be too easy. Parents and in-laws try to explain to you the art of raising a child and
they flood you with ridiculous advice that you never asked them for. And that is nothing
compared to the veiled reproaches, the understandings and the little advice that points in one
direction: convincing you that you are an incapable father or mother, that you do not know how
to behave, that your child is not "fulfilled." . Does little Juíes wet the bed from time to time,
does Alexandre have eczema, does Isodorine not like his math teacher? It's your fault. It's
because you moved away from home in the middle of the course, because you worked too
much or too little, because you care more about Isodorine than about Alexandre or the other
way around; or because when you were little you were jealous of your brother, you were
asthmatic, you were in love with your sister or you collected stamps.

Psychological discourse has entered families with force, where every self-respecting supermom
handles it poorly rather than well, proud to have one or two (poorly digested) works by
Francoise Dolto in her library. The supermom uses simplified psychological jargon that takes
the form of familiar Esperanto: "He's having an Oedipus" (like someone who says "he's having
a cold") means that the child loves his mother and that she is delighted to have him. in his
possession a small pocket worshiper. "He has a castrating mother" only applies to other
people's children, who have terrible mothers, never to one's own children. “He is in the anal
stage” can be translated as: “He plays with poop; "It's disgusting but it's normal." But the
worst of all is that the reader will also fall into the trap. As your family (or that of your partner)
will be a generous reserve of free babysitting hours, you will see how he accepts without
question (yes, yes, I'm not lying) your impositions, your talks, your sermons and your three-to-
a-quarter psychological considerations. . You feel less guilty when you leave your child in the
care of a family member instead of leaving it with a babysitter; The latter, a vile mercenary, is
useful because she gets you out of trouble, but she doesn't want your children because she is a
paid professional. In both cases, getting rid of the children for a few hours or a few days is a
pleasure that you pay for. But be careful: not always with money.

24. DON'T GO BACK TO CHILDHOOD

The young man is the high priest of taste. The "young" look is sweeping. There are many
mothers who try to dress like their teenage daughters. Short T-shirt, navel visible... The tastes
of childhood have become those of the majority of the population. In the past, girls imitated
their mother and dressed as a lady, and now it is the ladies who imitate their daughter and
dress like a little girl. The sexy and mysterious woman like the one that movie stars embodied
in the old days no longer exists, and it is incomprehensible that couturiers go to such lengths to
dress a womanwoman who no longer wants to be one. The proof is that the models are getting
younger; certainly, nowadays only childhood is sexy, not adulthood.

We can assume that the models of tomorrow will be "preteens", a new semantic category that
has made childhood as a whole shrink and end earlier than before, around the age of ten. From
this age, be careful: decrepitude lurks.
Everything that is intended for childhood ends up becoming an object of worship, such as
Kinder Surprise gifts, converted into a passion for adults that is apparently exhibited in
museums: puzzles, figurines, vehicles or robots to assemble, dolls with spring... Yes, yes: all
that is art, and if it is not, at least it is a market around which experts, collectors, gallery
owners, speculators and even... forgers gravitate. Adults adore products intended for children
and are willing to snatch some of them for their own use: children's furniture, pocket
motorcycles... In addition, adults love miniatures: travel vacuum cleaner, beauty products in
compact versions, mini fridge, Heineken XXS beer kegs. Small is beautiful. The adult's dream?
Living, in a children's room, an extrasmall life. The only advantage is that, when you think you
are a child, you don't have to take care of your own children because you don't have them.

Children's taste shapes that of the rest of the population. This is also true of books. In France,
the unpublished Stories of Petit Nicolás have had a dazzling success, with 650,000 copies sold
of the first volume, which appeared in 2004. One of the best-selling books in the world is Harry
Potter, of which you must have read the last episode to be in the mood and speak with
knowledge of the facts if necessary. Anyone who hasn't read Harry Potter is totally out of date.
Meanwhile, what we have agreed to call the Harry Potter "phenomenon" (learnedly commented
on by a plethora of psychologists, sociologists and philosophers) at least has the honesty to
present itself for what it is, that is, as reading for young people. As the vein is appetizing, in
bookstores we find entire sections dedicated to "youth literature." Presumably there will be
more and more, and why waste time with books that are difficult to read? "Youth literature" is a
nice example of an oxymoron, that stylistic formula that consists of associating opposite terms.
No: Kafka, Shakespeare, Proust or Cervantes did not write their books for readers under twelve
years of age.

The fashion of young people creates emulators. There are more and more books of literature
for adults that look like... literature for young people. Youth literature aimed at adults has
among its flourishes Antéchrista, by Amélie Nothomb, which tells the story of two very different
friends, one of whom is mega-jealous of the other; and Oscar and MamieRose, by
ÉricEmmanuel Schmitt, where the protagonist is a very very sick boy who meets a mysterious
lady. Accessible from the age of ten, if not eight in the case of the second. The very useful
social function of this type of reading is to ensure that the adult who does not read has the
illusion of having consumed at least a few crumbs of what we call "culture." Alexandre Jardin,
with his Zébre, goes even further: this is indeed a book that addresses the child who snoozes
inside every adult. But where the author puts the rest is in his work Les Coloriés, in which he
praises the spoiled child, the spontaneity of youth, his natural disinhibition and his innocence as
an astonishing novelty. It is a call intended to awaken our "most authentic part", supposedly
nullified by "the civilization of adults." Welcome, childishness...

25. KEEP SAYING “ME BEFORE ANYTHING” IS A SHOW OF COURAGE

The family is a shared selfishness. A group selfishness, which denies the individual. And it is
not, as one sometimes hears it said, the fruit of unbridled individualism. The evolution of recent
centuries has often been presented as the triumph of freedom over social limitations, which
include the family. Where is the individualism when all the couple's energy is focused on
promoting their children? On the contrary, the evolution of contemporary ways of life
demonstrates the prodigious excrescence of family sentiment. The family triumphs to the
detriment of social relationships, friends, neighbors... The family is queen, and this cannot be
interpreted as a good sign, but rather as an indication of an "identity withdrawal", as the media
says. The historian Philippe Aries formulates it this way: "The feeling of family, the feeling of
class and perhaps also that of race seem to be different manifestations of the same intolerance
towards diversity, the same concern for uniformity." Should we understand the family as the
base cell of the Front National?

We live in a society of ants, where work and procreation configure the definitive horizon of the
human condition. If work is the opium of the people, are children their consolation? A society
that understands life only as the need to earn bread and reproduce is a society without a
future, because it lacks dreams. Having a child is the best way to avoid having to consider the
question of the meaning of life, because everything revolves around it: the child is a wonderful
substitute for the existential search. My son, my battle, as Daniel Balavoine sang; It is a
beautiful phrase, but if you have no other battles to fight, your life is reduced to very little. The
philosopher Kojéve said that "the animal is defined to the extent to which its existential
possibilities are exhausted in procreation." Today, many parents are not far from the state of
animality.

Answering the question of the meaning of life by reproducing is equivalent to passing this
question on to the next generation. Isn't refraining from responding, or at least trying to, the
worst of cowardice? Isn't it leaving too heavy a burden in the hands of your children?
Furthermore, the spectacle of adults who have given up is not very edifying for our little ones.
One day soon, children will not forget to judge their parents, and the verdict will not be
pleasant, especially if their parents have had a shitty life. A shitty life is an existence of a
servile small salaryman, whose greatest concern, for lack of something better, is to improve his
psyche, to feel and live his emotions fully; immerse yourself in the wisdom of the East; walking
or running to “feel good about your own body”; learn to establish "authentic" relationships with
others, and "overcome the fear of pleasure."

In reality, citizens, you can sleep peacefully: order is maintained, because today's young people
do not have as much "courage" as those of 1968. They will not take to the streets to protest
because they have been left with a shitty world, they will not demand accountability or
destabilize the social order to take revenge. They're too busy trying to... integrate into society.

26. THE SON IS THE DEATH OF YOUR YOUTH DREAMS

For many centuries, society put strong pressure on couples not to separate and to continue
raising their children together. It was appropriate for each of its components to turn their backs
on their aspirations and continue united with the other to take care of the children. But today,
since it seems that such a theatrical phrase as "I sacrificed myself for you" is no longer in
fashion, many parents take refuge in a more avant-garde version of it: "I gave up my most
precious desires for you. So that you were a happy and fulfilled person. So that you had a good
education. So that you could continue training later..." The song is different, but the hypocrisy
is the same. Sometimes, people without children seem surprised at so much sacrifice consented
to by offspring who asked for nothing, but the only response to which they have the right is:
"You can't understand it because you don't have children."

Paraphrasing Céline when she defined love as infinity within the reach of a poodle, the child is
immortality within the reach of a sheep. No, the child is not the future of the adult. It is another
of the lies devised by society to keep us calm, and in this case it is formulated as follows: your
children will succeed where you have failed, we will give them the means to achieve it thanks
to school and social promotion. , we guarantee the result. Paradise is for tomorrow, not for
right now. Happiness is for your children, not for you. While you wait for the bright tomorrow to
arrive for your offspring, keep your mouth shut. Is “my son may have it” worth more than “I
want this here and now”? It is debatable.

We often hear the following phrase from the mouths of fathers or mothers who have ruined
their lives in the name of their children: "I can't do anything else, I have children to raise." I
can't leave a job that bores me, because I have children: a nice excuse. "I haven't been able to
fulfill my dreams, because I had children to feed." It's terrible to say something like that, isn't
it? In the days of our parents, my mother used to say, "I can't abandon your father because of
you." But at a certain point I realized that that was not the real reason and that in fact my
mother preferred to stay home so she could harass my father and let him harass her. There are
those who prefer to be unhappy as a couple rather than happy alone; things are like that.
In fact, children are often an easy excuse to give up before having made any attempt. The
moral of this story is that, when you don't do what you really want, there is no excuse. Neither
work, nor family, nor country.

27. YOU CAN'T AVOID WANTING THE HAPPINESS OF YOUR CHILD

The happiness that one wishes for one's children, and that one also promises them, is
something very rare. First of all, no one knows what happiness is. Is it material well-being?
Social success? Wine and women? Let everyone respond as they can, because no one knows.
Happiness appeared at the time of the French and American revolutions, and is even enshrined
as a right in the United States Constitution. "Happiness, a new idea in Europe," said SaintJust.
What is certain is that happiness is a product of democracy and the massification of lifestyles,
and that every person believes they are entitled to a slice of the pie. In a world of uncertainty,
to return to the formula consecrated by futurists, the normal thing is to live in the present and
look at one's navel, as Michel Onfray advises his numerous readers.

For a long time, the expansion of this concept was based on the idea of progress, when it was
believed that the future would be more radiant than the present. Nowadays, however,
promising happiness to a child is a characteristic display of bad faith. I'm not going to give a
sermon about the state of the planet, but we already know that things are not great. Holes in
the ozone layer, global warming, overexploitation of marine and forest resources... what a
panorama we have. And above all, what a great prospect you have, the future generations,
who are the ones who are going to pay the price. We are leaving you a piece of shit, so that
you can manage as best you can and on top of that, you can give thanks because your parents
did everything possible to make you happy. That's right: they didn't try to change the world
because they were too busy changing your diapers.

Parents go out of their way to ensure happiness for their children. The happiness. In fact, they
do not promise happiness to their children but demand it of them. "Be happy" is a fierce and
obscene injunction, similar to the superego described by Freud, which at the same time gives
orders and imposes enjoyment. Enjoyment is suspect in itself. In a capitalist system, all
freedom leads to the same point: the universal obligation to enjoy and offer oneself as a reason
for enjoyment. “Take advantage of life, enjoy it, my son,” is a tricky command. Because at the
same time, the father or mother is saying to their child: "Don't do this, don't do that, please
your parents." If someone assures you that just here. When it comes to your happiness, be
wary, because this person will necessarily believe he or she is authorized to lecture you and
give you advice and will try to force you to do what you don't want to do. For this reason,
educating is a mission eternally condemned to failure, since wanting the good or happiness of
others causes havoc. The happiness? No, thanks. No way. It's not for me.

28. THE CHILD, A LAMP

What do you do with a child? Everyone fawns over him, but no one wants to know anything
about him. It must be recognized that spending entire years without leaving home to take care
of your children is a mission of mortal boredom. Contrary to Scandinavian countries, in France
nothing is designed for the supermom to go with the child to the restaurant or the cinema.
Therefore, the supermom leads a monastic life, guided by diaper changes, the bathtub and
bottles. Taking care of children soon turns out to be a heavier obligation than going to work.
That's why it's smarter, when possible, to go back to the office and pretend to work. At least
this way you can sit quietly all day, go to the gym at lunchtime, relax in front of the coffee
machine, write emails and spend two hours talking on the phone with friends without anyone
bothering you. I suspect this is why so many women return to work after having children: in
Europe, the norm is a mother who works outside the home. And here I speak in feminine
terms, because in our society it is still the woman, and only she, who assumes the essential
responsibility of caring for the children. Men, whether more astute or lazier, have always
managed to get away with it.

Work, yes, but in that case you have to leave the children in the care of someone. How to fit
your child into an overloaded schedule? A home caregiver is very expensive. This is where the
problems begin, because the brat is not easy to place. Anyone would think that all
kindergartens, nurseries or schools put up the "full" sign at the exact moment when you try to
transfer this burden to other people, those who have made this task their profession. First of
all, you have to do the paperwork in advance, because, as the reader will see, there are always
more requests than places, it is an unavoidable law of the child foster care system. It was
already like this when I was little, but back then you could blame the baby boom: today, it is a
"structural" problem. And this applies from kindergarten to the School of Higher Business
Studies, including ski courses for teenagers and the office works council. Adults can't find a
place anywhere either (which explains why those who manage to find a place don't abandon it
even if they shoot). Not even the homeless can find a place, because the city council has
removed all the public benches, probably not by chance. Circulate, leave with the music
somewhere else... Consequently, 70% of children under three years of age stay at home,
usually in the care of their mother.

Instructions for getting a place in daycare: besiege the town hall and answer extremely
detailed, if not clearly intrusive, questionnaires. «How much do you earn? How much does your
partner earn? Aren't you married? Education level? Profession? Normal work hours? Do you live
in property or rent? How many rooms does your apartment have? How many people live in it?
Do you have family in the neighborhood? Health problems?". And I skip esoteric questions like:
«Family coefficient? AIL, APJE?».16 A real police interrogation. To free yourself from the burden
of eight in the morning to six in the evening, what wouldn't you be willing to do?

The difficulties continue in the next stage, that of school. Although it is mandatory to send
children to school, it is not that simple. As in the daycare, there are lack of places because "our
staff is full" or because "you are on the waiting list" and you can now give thanks if they accept
you. Especially if you want to put your child in the “good” school, which is sometimes simply
the least bad one nearby. In some neighborhoods modestly classified as "mixed" (those with a
population of poor people, users of official protection blocks or "priority education zones"), the
father or mother has the possibility of choosing between being a good parent or being a good
citizen.

Generally opt for the first option. Since in France you cannot choose your children's school, it is
necessary to undergo all kinds of contortions to choose something anyway, but without being
noticed and without being caught. Therefore, it will take patience, skill, people skills, repeated
visits to the school administration, and sometimes a false registration and a small dose of
cheating to avoid the school in which none of your neighbors want to enroll their children. Yes,
the school is a selection machine, a formidable device for attributing social privileges that
reinforces class divisions while hypocritically promoting equality. Liberty, Equality and
Fraternity, but we prefer to stay with our own. Republican elitism, another nice oxymoron: on
the one hand there are elitist schools and on the other there are "republican" schools (which
accept everyone), but both do not accept the same students. Child, there is a space for you,
but not just any space.

20. THE SCHOOL, A FIELD OF PUNISHMENT WITH WHICH YOU HAVE TO AGREE
The child will spend most of his time at school. It is very good for "socialization," parents say,
which means that school is convenient for the child even if he does not learn anything, because
at least he plays with his peers. However, school is not a territory of frank camaraderie or free
expression; On the contrary, it is the realm of social control. From the age of six, when nursery
school ends and the serious stuff begins, things get ugly. At the end of the 17th century, what
we have no choice but to describe as a disciplinary regime was imposed. In the same way as
the crazy, the poor or prostitutes, children (who until then lived among adults) suffered a
process of confinement. The child's quarantine is called school, college or institute.

The school is a place of training and indoctrination. It is designed for the average Frenchman,
neither too bright nor too stultifying and adapted to the model. For those who fit the mold
without problems, for those who learn to read the year in which they say you have to learn to
read and not the following year. For those who agree to do a series of stupid exercises without
asking why. The school is tremendously normative. It serves to mold people suitable for work,
for a routine that does not require special technical or intellectual skills. Industrial society needs
a brutalized people, who resign themselves to doing uninteresting work and not seeking
satisfaction except in the hours dedicated to leisure. And school is a wonderful prelude.

In this territory of limitation, the teacher reigns, or more precisely the teacher, who is generally
a person who did not like school when she was little, because otherwise she would have done
more brilliant studies and would have had a more interesting job. and better paid. The basic
teacher is often a bitter one, an expert in the awful jargon of university teacher training
institutes, in which a ball is called a "bouncing referent" and a student is called a "learning
receiver." These people use incomprehensible words, such as "teaching triangle." They are very
skilled at detecting any deviation and, as soon as they can, they refer their students to an army
of speech therapists and psychologists, thinking that this way they will get rid of part of their
obligations. It is with these people that parents must sign a non-aggression pact, which is not
always easy.

We imagine that the child must feel quite perplexed, since the functioning of the school
completely contradicts the family discourse focused on his personal fulfillment. The work that
parents do not do, the school and society will do. In school there must be unanimity; If by
chance a child stands out, it is the father who will receive a reprimand (phase prior to the
child's expulsion). I once had to endure a teacher's sermons in a schoolyard, between a bust of
Manarme and a stack of wooden benches. It was my fault if my son was not interested in
classes, if he hit his classmates during recess, if he left things at home.

And I didn't perform my role as a mother well. I had the impression of finding myself in front of
an investigating judge. There I was, mute and forced to adopt a contrite expression, all so that
my child would not be expelled. And I was terrified of suddenly starting to look for a private
school in the middle of the course that would do me the favor of accepting it... It is hard, very
hard, to be the father or mother of a schoolboy. Especially from an “atypical” schoolboy, which
can be translated as one who does not fit the mold. It seems that there are more and more of
them.

If the school fails to get the child back on track, it will be society that will try. This time,
according to the model of repression. In 2005, Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior,
included in his draft law on crime prevention the need for "early detection of behavioral
disorders" in children, which "could lead to crime." in the adolescent. What the hell does this
mean? Well, in every child who is not "normal" (that is, the asocial or nervous child) a potential
criminal slumbers, and society has the duty to root out evil from the roots. Welcome,
controlling paranoia! A delirium that is supported by a report from the National Institute of
Health and Medical Research: long live science, the best ally of the police state. Thanks to a
campaign to collect signatures entitled "Elimination of the zero of conduct for children under
three years old" and the condemnation of the National Ethics Advisory Committee, this bill
ended up in the trash can. But a pattern had been set.

Is France too permissive? No way. The discourse that criticizes the supposed "permissiveness"
and the havoc caused by May '68 does not hold up. On the contrary, it is the absence of play,
flexibility and even disorder that makes this society unbreathable. Anyone who does not fit into
the established categories is separated, then sanctioned, and in the end simply abandoned to
their fate. This is what is happening now in some neighborhoods: get out, barbarian! Or at least
put on a balaclava, so we can't see your dirty face. Long live the French model of integration,
which ends up disintegrating all those who are not integrated.

30. "EDUCATE" A CHILD, FOR WHAT OBJECTIVE?

From the age of six, the child returns from school loaded with homework. Duties that you don't
feel like doing, and we understand that. Grammar exercises written in pedagogical jargon,
"self-dictated", horrible poems to memorize, nothing is missing to add even more obligations to
the already overloaded agenda... of the parents. To make matters worse, everything that the
child has not understood at school must be explained again at home. Can the reader guess who
is in charge of the duties? Almost always, the supermom. We will have to conclude that within
every supermom lies a frustrated vocation as a teacher, because she will have no choice but to
lose a lot of hours a week until the child becomes "autonomous", which can take a long time to
happen. Very often, the supermom becomes so impatient with the child's lack of willpower that
she ends up doing her homework alone to finish as soon as possible. Some nights I lost up to
an hour and a half telling homework stories.

However, my children were enrolled in a ZEP ("priority schooling zone", which can be translated
as "school for the poor"), where, if my information is correct, the "pedagogical team" is less
demanding than in the very select schools of the good neighborhoods. Helping them do their
homework for years has been an unbearable hassle; Of course, as a child I hated school, I get
tired of explaining and I hate repeating myself. With my children, I had the impression that I
was listening to all those hated lessons again, until one day, on the verge of a nervous
breakdown, I finally gave up and said to them: "Children, from now on you can handle yourself,
and let it be what God wants. His grades are as bad as before, but at least I have stopped
trying to break the arid soil of knowledge.

The homework scandal is twofold: first, written homework is theoretically prohibited in primary
education, although teachers pretend to ignore it, probably to give themselves importance.
Secondly, it is evident that homework is an aggravating factor in the social and cultural
fracture, since only children who have a father or mother to help them at home (or paid help
that replaces the parent) manage to complete their homework. . Why do parents accept
something so absurd? Because they have the impression that it is "good" for their children and
allows them to "learn things" that will be valuable background for the future. At first, I naively
believed that only a small minority of revanchists of knowledge accepted without question
becoming a tutor every day. After a few years I understood that it was all of France that was
affected by the virus of "the good old methods" of grandfather: debates around syllabic
learning, return of the uniform, sermons on effort and work, questioning of school mixed...
When will the goose feather and the rulers on the fingers be used?

But school is not enough to accompany the child's ascension towards the lights of knowledge.
Every self-respecting middle-class father or mother is convinced that their child should read.
Therefore, a crucial question arises with anxiety: "How can I make my child read?" It is a real
challenge, on which the personal development of our beloved offspring, the progress of his
intelligence and the strength of his imagination depend. It is not difficult to see good archetypal
citizens, totally uneducated and who probably do not read more than one book a year (and we
would have to see which one), ranting about the importance of reading. They are the same
ones who dedicate to their children a phrase that they repeated so often to us and that is no
longer true in a world where a plumber earns more than a general practitioner or a lawyer: "If
you get good grades in school, you will have a Good job when you're older."

In reality, reading is the best enemy of success. The misunderstanding is total, since children
who really like to read end up being weirdos, and I am the perfect example. When I was a
child, I was not interested in anything else, not school, not music, not walks, not vacations.
Result: I am an asocial being and incapable of "working as a team." Could it be that a true
passion for reading makes one incapable of doing anything useful? Anyway, I'm exaggerating a
little, since often children who really like to read simply become members of the intelligence
reinforcement bodies, discontinuous workers of culture, kids for everything in publishing, in
freelance journalists or poorly paid and poorly regarded librarians. In any case, they are people
well prepared to occupy any position available on the market. For these eternally bitter people,
every company meeting is torture, "finalizing a project" an unbearable obligation, a job
interview, the clash between two worlds. And these declassed people abound, although they
are condemned to extinction because young people read less and less, especially those who
have completed "prestigious" studies, that is, those from the great faculties and the like. In
short, the country's elite doesn't know what to do with books and culture: Vade retro, Satan!

31. ESCAPE FROM BENEVOLENT NEUTRALITY

The baby is a person, we have been told this enough. Psychoanalysts, psychologists and the
like have tried hard to put this idea into our heads. To begin with, Freud, who, within the
framework of his praxis, gave the word to a child (little Hans); and later Francoise Dolto,
Winnicott... All these pioneers did not speak of the child in an idyllic tone, and if they dared to
give him the word it was because they were not afraid to assume the consequences because
they were willing to listen to an annoying speech. Many educators today, however, think that
communicating with the child serves only one purpose: to integrate him into the world, to make
him "feel good" and to "express himself." In short, the discourse they use and provoke is purely
decorative, without any effect and no consequence. It has the same function as business
communication: to spread gossip in a convincing way.

The function of these professionals is also instrumental. The objective? Try to get the children
to obey. It is difficult, because parents no longer give orders to children, but rather practice
more subtle means of bringing them into line. Parents no longer say "no" to Eliott or Ursule,
because in general no one can say no anymore. Likewise, your boss will not say "no" to you
either, in any case he will say "maybe", and your banker will "study your case" to end up
rejecting your request, regretting it very much but answering you only because you have
insisted on receiving an answer: "I I fear that it will not be possible. In this world, nothing says
no anymore. Everything has been seen and everything has been explored, from the most
distant planets to the most secret corners of the body. We have even shed light on the process
of reproduction. Not yet about desires and the unconscious, but apparently neuroscience is
going that way. Who is there still who can tell us NO? The terrorist, perhaps. In any case, he is
not content to say no, but adds "shit!" to complete the gift.

To be a "good" father in the sense that society gives to the term, you have to be neutral. That
the kid wants to decorate his room with a filthy Megadeath poster? That the girl collects Diddl
stickers and sticks them everywhere? That the child always wants to eat the same thing,
refuses to eat vegetables and his favorite dish is the hamburger and fries from McDonalds? The
parent's face must remain imperturbable and not express any value judgment, otherwise it
could "traumatize" the child. Everything is acceptable, the child has to "find his space." In
today's society, you can't say, “Get that crap out of your room! Until further notice, I am the
one who decides in this house because I am the one who pays the rent!", and also: "What are
these corny things? Someone who is interested in something so ridiculous cannot be my flesh,
surely there has been a genetic mutation... The parent, like the businessman, must remain
calm in all circumstances and demonstrate his ability to listen.

Above all, no violence, since slapping a child has become inconceivable. In Scandinavia,
physical punishment in the family is directly prohibited. A book like Le Baby de Monsieur
Laurent, where the prolific and hilarious Topor imagines the absurd and comic story of a baby
nailed to a door, could not see the light of day today (in fact, it has not been republished). As
for me, lacking skill with a hammer, I confess that I once slapped my son. I know, these lines
are likely to scandalize a sensitive public and cost me a complaint to the League for the Rights
of the Child. These are the facts. My son started running and screaming in the municipal
library, annoying everyone and refusing to listen to my admonitions. I slapped him. I did it at a
bad time, since a well-intentioned lady was quick to explain to me that it was a monstrosity to
hit a child. When I told him to mind his own business, he threatened to call the police. Having
children leaves you completely unarmed in the face of authorities and public opinion.

32. UNFORTUNATELY, PARENTALITY IS A MELIFLUE SONG

Always happy, happy, smiling. Even when it's raining, when your colleagues have played a
practical joke on you or when your favorite uncle has just died. In the world of work, those who
face the public are supposed to exhibit permanent enthusiasm (at this point, France still has a
lot to do, although it is not known whether we should regret it or rejoice).
At home, the same thing happens. Parents are told that they must "stimulate" their child from
the earliest age. It is advisable to talk to him, say "very good" when he drools, make him play,
read him books from the earliest age, sing him songs by moving his little hands, transform the
dinner moment into "an occasion of pleasant coexistence", express joy and interest at the
resonance of a burp or the contents of a diaper... To perform all these feats every day, you
have to be an idiot or gorge on Prozac. Does seeing their parents pouting throughout the day
make their children smarter? I have my doubts. Maybe it makes them completely stupid. A clue
to explain the famous and often trite "lowering of the level" of schoolchildren, which has so
worried pedagogues since... Antiquity?

When the child grows a little, it is advisable to set an example. And doing it every day is hard.
Devouring bread with Nutella on the couch, smoking chocolate when you get home from work,
or drinking a bottle of wine in bed is not an edifying sight for a child. Walking around the house
with greasy hair and a stained sweatshirt is also not an example that can turn you into a
responsible and positive adult. How could it be "formed", in a context like this? It is also not
advisable to break down sobbing in his presence because Josyane has played a trick on you or
because you have lost a promotion opportunity. Let's not talk about the fights with your other
half, accompanied by their share of shouting and reproaches, scenes that condemn the child to
several years on the couch, if not to alcoholism or crime.

The most difficult thing is to maintain an aseptic discourse in front of the child about the society
he has just entered. However, you have to try. We must talk to them about "values" (honesty,
consideration for others, loyalty to one's word), even though they are things that above all
"not" must be respected to move up in a society marked by rivalry and competitiveness. . It is
interesting to instill equality between men and women by buying anti-sexist toys (a doll for
boys, a chemistry set for girls, children's books purged of stereotypes from other times...),
even if there is not really equality at home. Let us not forget that parents are the missi dominici
of the empire of good. The stewards of Sisysyland. Conformism and moral judgment prevail.
Skepticism and indifference are frowned upon. Is the reader pessimistic by nature, even
somewhat depressed at times? Do you question the meaning of life, the weight of the word
“democracy,” the “emancipatory values of the Republic”?

In that case you must do work on yourself, with the aim of outlawing this deadly negativity.
When you have children, you have to pretend and make an effort at all times to maintain clean
and friendly speech, a "civil" speech. Without roughness. Neutral. Compassionate. Worthy of
the news. A honeyed ditty sprinkled with positive words, like political language. It is what
society expects from parents, although many do not achieve it due to the heavy burden. If the
reader decides to be a father or mother despite this book, they will have to start practicing
right now in front of the mirror because it is hard work. I recommend enrolling in a theater
course, which could have the title: "Put a good face in front of children and give them a positive
image of the society in which they live." Being a father is not a child's play, it is a performance.

33. MOTHERHOOD IS A TRAP FOR WOMEN

The cult of one's son is a very hard burden for women. The modern French woman is
necessarily a mother, a working woman and a companion. Preferably, it is thin. It must be
recognized that there are many demands. Especially since women do 80% of the housework.
When you leave school, you see mostly women, just as you do at parents' meetings or at the
pediatrician's office when your child has bronchitis or chickenpox. For many women,
motherhood means coming back earlier in the afternoon to take care of the kids, skipping
strategic meetings that happen after 7 (and they always happen after 7), and turning down (or
not applying for) more interesting but chronophages.

If women, until recently, have had so little presence in the cultural history of humanity, it is
simply because they had to do the dirty work, that of giving birth in pain and caring for their
offspring. Until the 20th century, few women stood out as writers, painters, musicians or
scientists. Perhaps having children was a substitute, since "creating" a human being could be
seen as the equivalent of creating a work. Is it a substitute or a compromise solution?
“Creation” through motherhood is available to everyone; a true democracy of the womb. Some
preferred to express themselves through more demanding methods, and Hannah Arendt,
Simone Weil, Marguerite Yourcenar or Simone de Beauvoir did not have children. For Beauvoir
it was a conscious decision, because in her opinion, it was impossible to be both an intellectual
and a good mother. In The Second Sex he defines motherhood as an obstacle to
transcendence.

Is it possible to imagine something new while wiping asses, giving bottles or reviewing
multiplication tables? The question remains open. It must be recognized that the prosaic and
brutalizing tasks inherent to motherhood are a brake on the unfolding of the magnificent wings
of thought. Are women victims of an unjust order dictated by men, or rather are they victims of
their own children, who would serve as an excuse for not creating anything or achieving
anything? I'm not giving an answer, I'm just speculating from my corner... Who knows what
would have happened to me if I hadn't had children, if I had been less hampered by the
administration, shopping and dinners? I confess that I only hope one thing: for my children to
finish high school so I can finally dedicate more time to my small creative activities. At that
time I will be fifty years old. Later, when I'm older, life will begin for me.

34. CARING FOR CHILDREN OR SUCCEEDING, YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE

Today, in Europe, working mothers are the majority. It may be an advance, but in any case it is
not a promotion because very few succeed professionally, despite a social policy that favors
families with children. French women are the envy of the entire world (daycare, state subsidies,
generous maternity leave...), but the salary difference between men and women is still 27% on
average. Being a mother can mean losing money. The time that the supermom spends with her
children, preparing dinner, vacuuming or reviewing stupid lessons, she does not spend working.
According to one economist, caring for children causes women to lose on average 100,000 to
150,000 euros over their entire career.

And if 80% of mothers work, only 30% access positions of responsibility. A little more than in
Germany and especially than in Italy, but less than in the United Kingdom and especially the
United States. Does the reader know many company directors, press officers or deputies? The
famous "glass ceiling" prevents them from accessing positions of responsibility, which at least
have one advantage: the higher one rises in the hierarchy, the fewer idiots one has above
them. It is not surprising that the biographies of “successful” women never forget to point out
the number of children they had, and that they were so many obstacles that these women had
to overcome to do something interesting in life. It's a bit like running a marathon with a five
kilo weight (per child) on each foot.

For all these reasons, motherhood is often synonymous with part-time work without prospects
or hopes for promotion: today, 31% of women are hired part-time. And among those who
work, many occupy low-skilled positions in the tertiary sector or in the public sector, especially
in the National Education service; That is, they carry out poorly paid activities but which leave
them free time to fulfill their maternal duties. For women, the implicit mandate is: "You have a
horrible job but you have time to take care of your children...what are you complaining about?"
As for those with less education, a series of well-intentioned financial aid directly encourages
them to leave the labor market.

And don't come and talk to me about the "new fathers", who are more involved in the home
than those of previous generations of men. It's true, now they know how to change diapers and
give the bottle. But that doesn't mean they sacrifice their careers. The proof: when men
become fathers, their professional activity intensifies and they dedicate more time to their
work, unlike women. There are studies that show that men with a brilliant professional career
tend to be parents with children, while women who succeed professionally tend to be women
without children. There is no doubt, children function as a career activator for some and as a
shackle for others. The proof: at the beginning of 2007, in Zapatero's government there were
eight male and eight female ministers; The first had a total of twenty-four children, and the
second only five. (No, let the reader calm down, it is not a mathematics problem for
schoolchildren.) Did you want equality between men and women? Start by stopping having
children.

35. WHEN THE CHILD COMES THROUGH THE DOOR, THE FATHER ESCAPES THROUGH THE
WINDOW
The father is no longer what he was. He is no longer the father of divine right, who imposes the
law at home and before whom everyone bows their heads. We do not know what has become
of him, but he has discreetly disappeared, hand in hand with the Stakhanovite, of whom we
have no further news either. Often, the current father is a man of about forty, a little bald and
with love handles, reasonably disillusioned with the world and with himself. It is not easy for
him to tell how his day went when he returns home at night, because the children interrupt him
all the time and because he himself gets bored at work.

Numerous sociologists and psychologists have expanded on the death of the father and the
decline of authority. In reality, the one who died is not the father, but rather the one capable of
mobilizing people. This does not mean we live in a permissive society, quite the contrary;
Simply put, obedience is now imposed on us by processes instead of by people. In the 1970s,
Christopher Lasch, an American philosopher ahead of his time, developed the idea that the
current moment is characterized by “a fatherless paternalism”; In any case, we cannot accuse
today's parents, who still want to be open and cool, but without assuming a position of
authority and the law. In parallel, paternalism thrives in the form of the welfare state, a
protective social system and a bureaucracy that claims to be benevolent. Example: in large
structures, direct reproaches are no longer made but rather the employee himself is expected
to impose what the organization expects of him. In this way, power becomes totally impersonal
and does not need any type of authority to impose obedience. The standardizing mechanism
works alone. Clever, right?

There are no more parents, only stallions left. And not even that. For men, being a father
means seeing their space reduced to a minimum. The man no longer decides to be a father.
Fifty years ago, they were the ones who made women mothers, sometimes through rape.
Today the relationship of forces has been reversed and the only voluntary thing is motherhood,
not fatherhood. Men, to be fathers, must be accepted as such. Nowadays it is women who
decide everything that has to do with children: whether or not they should come into the world,
who will educate them, what last name they will have... Women no longer have men trapped
by their balls but by their guts (theirs).

While the divorced father, in the name of equal recognition, faces a judicial system that
deprives him of the company of his children, his wife advocates for the reorganization of
domestic and parental tasks in families. It is unfair? Yes, quite a bit. But true equality between
the sexes is probably a pipe dream. After all, since it is women who continue to shoulder most
of the domestic duties, it is quite logical that they should be the ones to decide, right? He who
works, arbitrates: if this logic were applied to the world of business and politics, everything
would be very different.

36. TODAY'S SON IS A PERFECT SON: WELCOME TO THE BEST OF WORLDS

Being a father or mother means being very attentive to the health of our beloved offspring. The
children enjoy prosperous health, perhaps because of the constant surveillance to which they
are subjected; There are no longer cases of tuberculosis or cholera. Infant mortality has never
been so low. However, we have never feared so much for the lives of our children. There are
many parents who rush to the pediatrician's office or crowd the hospital emergency services at
the slightest cold. The major pests have been eradicated, but new ones have appeared. In the
last twenty years, new diseases have multiplied, ranging from sleep disorders to emotional
development problems, including allergies, language delay, obesity and school phobia...

The curse of parents is the hyperactive child, a disease of recent invention. A few years ago,
the hyperactive child was just a nuisance. His biological alarm clock rings reveille at dawn, and
throughout the day the kid strings nonsense after nonsense, talks incessantly and screams at
the slightest annoyance. The hyperactive child is all the more disturbing... because it is difficult
to differentiate him from the others. It's like the contemporary child, but worse. Only worse. It
is this “alone” that makes the situation unbearable. And some children accumulate defects: in
the great roll of the genetic dice, one runs the risk of ending up with a hyperactive obese
person at home.

To avoid illnesses, the child must be protected from himself. Explain everything that is
necessary, in a calm and responsible tone. Convince him with a multitude of arguments to eat
green beans and tomatoes and not just hamburgers or pizzas washed down with ketchup. I
have seen parents tearing their hair out because their child "won't eat" (and yet he is alive,
how will he do it?). Since the child cannot be forced to eat because it is no longer popular,
these parents have to deploy treasures of diplomacy and patience to make him swallow a bite
here and another there of vegetables or fruit.

Normally the father or mother knows how to get what they want by handling threats with one
hand and persuasion with the other, since they themselves have seen how many people
address them in this same way, including politicians, bosses and some doctors. . Isn't the adult
an irresponsible child, surrounded by hygienic, charitable, humanistic and protective programs?
You have to take care of him like a minor, prohibiting tobacco and explaining the harms of
alcohol... All of this for your own good and for the good of the community. To educate the
citizen, pedagogy is needed, a great word that is repeated everywhere: only pedagogy will be
able to stop demagoguery. Do they take us for children? When I hear the word pedagogy, I
take out the gun (that is, the pen). Pedagogy is the art of fooling a person without them
realizing it.

The child must be in good health, integrate into groups, adapt to school. The pressure on him is
enormous. There needs to be a counterpart to everything he receives, to all those toys, to all
the time we spend with him, to all the hopes we place in him. The child pays for all this, and
pays dearly. To make the most of the excess care and anguish to which they are subjected, the
child must show good development (physical and mental). To do this, it is advisable to consult
a speech therapist if it takes him a while to learn to read, an orthodontist to fix his teeth, a
nutritionist to help him lose weight, a psychologist if he does not seem "fulfilled" enough. Only
a child from whom one does not expect much (that was my case, and yet my parents were not
monsters) recognizes and appreciates, once an adult, the freedom that this gives him:
whatever he does, he will not disappoint.

Does the reader want to be sure that he or she will have a child in good health, capable of
supporting without question the forty-two years of contributions that entitle the employee to
the only freedom, and I mean retirement...? Now, thanks to advances in genetics, you can
resort to preimplantation diagnosis (also known as PID, since without the right acronym, every
word loses its hold and feels helpless). This is a genetic analysis that allows us to know, before
or during pregnancy, if an embryo suffers from certain hereditary diseases or deformities. Aim?
Have healthy children. Ready to work for a long time, like Duracell batteries. The result is
guaranteed. That the child is defective? To the trash. Is there some anomaly? May it end up at
the neighbor's house, not mine. Today, Mozart, who probably suffered from La Tourette's
syndrome, would have been considered a deviant unworthy of life. For now, only thirty-four
children have been born after ECD in France, but we can be sure that there will be more in the
future. Someday all children will be born without defects, without diseases, without cancers,
without schizophrenia and without depression. Will its existence therefore be free of defects?
And will the world in which they live also be free of defects? I have serious doubts...

37. ATTENTION, DANGER: CHILD

A child is a danger. It can cost you a legal complaint and even your freedom (which in fact is
quite relative, it must be admitted). And this innocent being is capable of denouncing his
parents without thinking twice and putting them in the hands of justice. Let us remember that,
in totalitarian regimes, children are the first to be recruited by the party: the little communist
who hands his parents over to the secret police because they have made an ideological mistake
is a good example. In our country there are also small informers. The case of Outreau shows us
this, a gloomy northern city where distractions are not abundant, it must be said. In 2001,
after a series of children reported it, eighteen people were arrested and spent between one and
three years in prison, and one of them committed suicide. It was a miscarriage of justice: the
friendly creatures had lied, but very unprofessional experts endorsed their statements and
quite incompetent judges believed them.

Firstly, Outreau's case scandalizes, and secondly it terrifies. When we think that something like
this could happen to any parent, a chill runs down our spine. For the rest, it almost happened
to a friend of mine: his thirteen-year-old daughter told at school, one day in a bad mood, that
her father had tied her to the bed. The police interfered, the parents had to appear at the police
station and undergo interrogation, and it was not until several months later that they were able
to have their innocence recognized. Let us not forget that the circular sent by Ségoléne Royal in
1997 obliges school authorities to never doubt the word of children who say they have suffered
abuse.

Why is the child's word considered superior to that of the adult? First of all, because the child
tells the truth; as a potential victim, he is necessarily innocent. We are not far from the myth of
original purity. Secondly, because the child is the seventh wonder of the world in the eyes of
his parents, convinced that a lot of malicious adults are hanging around him to subject him to
detestable sexual abuse. Lolita, Nabokov's acidic novel, could it be published today? It's not
very clear. Our world is obsessed with the child rapist as a figure of absolute evil, worse than
the SS officer. The incarnation of the child-rapist murderer with all his abjection is Marc
Dutroux, monstrous culprit of numerous deaths and rapes.

The Dutroux case explains why things like Outreau's can happen, due to a kind of powerful
precautionary principle: since a Dutroux lurks in every adult, all adults will have to be
imprisoned. It is not even necessary for your son to report you. Photographing it may be
enough to get you into trouble with the law. Beware, iconophiles. In 2005, a Dutch artist, Kiki
Lamers, was sentenced to eight months in prison and a fine of 5,000 euros for taking naked
photos of her children to use in her paintings. The protection of the child justifies repression...
we seem to be dreaming. But the nightmare continues when, in 2000, the director of the
Faculty of Fine Arts in Paris, Henry Claude Cousseau, is arrested and subjected to interrogation
for having organized an exhibition in 2000 entitled "Presumed Innocents: Contemporary Art
and Childhood." ». What was violent, pornographic or contrary to dignity in this exhibition
where the cream of contemporary art gathered, among others Christian Boltanski, Jeff Koons or
Cindy Sherman? Ármete Messager unleashed the fury of self-proclaimed defenders of childhood
with a work titled "Children with crossed out eyes", which showed photographs of children
taken from newspapers and with their eyes crossed out with a pen. Faced with something like
this, we are speechless. Is it serious, inspector? The day will come when ultrasounds will
replace pornographic images and will be exchanged in secret. Basically, the principle is the
same: everything has to be visible, not a single mystery should be left forgotten in a corner.

38. WHY BREAK YOURSELF TO ACHIEVE A PARIA FUTURE?

The reader must not forget that he will have to carry his son on his arm for decades. It will be a
real burden that will be difficult for you to get rid of. A piece of advice: rather than keeping a
parasite, you'd better hire a gigolo. It's nicer, and at least you know what you're paying for.
And we will see if in twenty years the world has become more hospitable to young people; It's
unlikely, because things have only deteriorated for them for a generation.

The "cultureta" minute begins: the son embodies the object "a" (lowercase "a" object) of the
psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, and therefore is both a wonderful object and a waste. In the
past, it was a bit of both. For a long time, the son was considered a parasite; not always
desired, far from it, its existence was uncertain. Let us remember the little value that
Montaigne, in the Essays, attributes to his children, almost all of whom died at a young age: "I
prefer a good book to a child," he says in essence. It is true that every newborn is a
consequence of the desire of its parents, and that the child is for a long time the parasite of his
family or clan. Nowadays the child is exclusively a wonderful object. It is not necessarily lucky,
since the young man who will necessarily end up being is condemned to the unenviable role of
waste, of outsider. It is not a question of introducing something new into the world: the young
man's task is to confirm youth as a legend. It is understandable that so many stars refuse to
grow up, starting with Michael Jackson and continuing with young rebels like Brad Pitt or
Johnny Depp.

Therefore, the spoiled child is condemned to one day be an excluded young man. Society
appreciates its beauty, its youth, its freshness: luxury object, be beautiful and shut up. He lives
in countries that are too rich and too heavy, where everything is already done and tested, and
consequently, he feels that he is not accepted as a subject. And since in Europe there are no
longer wars or colonies, the traditional escape valves for idle youth, the young man can only
arm himself with patience and wait for better times to come. Yes, you have the right to make
love, which was not the case before the 1970s (remember that May '68 started because male
students wanted access to female students' dormitories). Enjoy, yes, but not to mention that
the young man gives his opinion on anything, and even less that he intends to change things.

France, a child-loving country par excellence, turns out to be very inhospitable to its young
people, condemned to massive unemployment, precarious contracts and meager
accommodation until they are thirty or more. In the age group of twenty-twenty-five years,
only one in four young people works, and those who have managed to "integrate" carry on
their shoulders all that labor flexibility that our country does not want to know anything about:
87% of young people They have a precarious contract, which should be understood as a shitty
job. Poorer than their parents at the same age even though they have more education,
babyloosers are a burden on unemployment protection services, potential criminals or, in the
luckiest case, socially declassed.

The system needs individuals without history, without a dense or fixed identity, who live in a
fragmentary present. Your kid, future "without a job", will lead a life without ideals and without
projects and without any dream other than that of "integrating." Security, certainty, control of
your own life... you will even forget the meaning of these words. He will have no reason to be
in the world. Quickly, faster and faster, everything ends up in the trash. Your child's existence
will emulate the current way of life, in which nothing is destined to last and where today's
useful and indispensable objects are tomorrow's waste. Immersed in the uncertainty and
anguish of the future, he will have no choice but to fend for himself without knowing the diffuse
rules of a society that purposely hides them. There are no instruction books for those who want
to chart a path in this society: if you have children, you will have nothing to pass on to them,
no recipe, no how-to that will be of any use. It is not unusual that the number of young adults
suffering from depression has doubled in twelve years.18 De Gaulle said that old age was a
shipwreck; Today, the shipwreck is the youth.

39. THERE ARE TOO MANY CHILDREN IN THE WORLD

Too many objects, too many bars, too many shops, too many organic and wholemeal flour
breads, too many people... The world population is made up of 6.5 billion individuals, and it is
estimated that in 2030 there will be 8 billion. It is the poor who have more children, and
fertility rates in (supposedly) developed countries have fallen below the magic figure of 2.1
children per woman, which is considered the generational replacement rate (zero growth
population ).
However, the planet is not overpopulated. If the entire population of India and China together
moved to the North American continent, it would not be more populated than Belgium, Holland
or England. The problem is not overpopulation but superpollution. The relatively small
population of rich countries consumes two-thirds of the total energy. In fact, it's not that there
are too many people in the world, it's that there are too many rich people.

I am referring to us, the planetary freeloaders, who consume more and more. Is it really
reasonable to have children, children who will continue to consume more and more to the
detriment of the poorest? Nobody needs our children, because both they and we are the spoiled
children of a planet that is heading towards disaster. Therefore, having children is immoral
when one lives in Europe or North America, since it is equivalent to continuing to waste
resources that are scarce to maintain a way of life that is increasingly voracious, more
capricious, more thirsty for fuel and more devastating to the environment. atmosphere.

Having a child in a rich country is an uncivil act. It is the people who have decided not to have
children who should receive aid from the State. Less unemployment, less hassles, less wars...
Let's imagine for a moment France with a few million fewer inhabitants: fewer greenhouse
gases, fewer queues to rent homes at stratospheric prices, fewer traffic jams on the Western
motorway on weekends, fewer crowds in front of cinemas to go see Borat, fewer waiting times
for one to have surgery... It would be Jauja!

Other European countries have the intelligence to be less fertile than us. Some forecasts place
on the horizon of 2050 a Germany with only 73 million inhabitants (today there are 80) or a
Spain with 35 (instead of 40). Does the reader want to visit the Mosque of Córdoba without
being overwhelmed by a horde of tourists or to stroll peacefully through the Sistine Chapel? In
the future, something like this will be possible. Let's imitate these other countries. French
people, make one more effort to reduce the birth rate. No kid is a possible goal to achieve if we
are supportive: if we are all attentive, no sperm will reach the egg.

40. FORGET THE TEN RIDICULOUS COMMANDMENTS OF THE “GOOD” PARENT

Your child is more important than you, than your projects, than your partner, than all other
children, than all adults living or dead, than the society in which you live.
You will have to transmit some flexible "values" (tolerance with others, integrity...), which no
one respects and which are not useful for integrating socially or for making money (they even
hinder it).
You must wish for their "happiness." No one knows what that is, but maybe your child, if you
try hard, will know someday. That today's young people don't seem very happy? It's because
their parents didn't go out of their way enough for them: that's the explanation.
You must ensure that your child is occupied all the time and in the most varied way possible.
It is a very heavy obligation for you, but necessary for the child to be a "stimulated" and
"fulfilled" person.
You must be an example for him: no joints, no drinks and no orgies in your house. Neither
bad taste nor inappropriate jokes. Ideally, no tears or arguments or dueling, but sometimes
that is unavoidable.
You will protect your child from the multiple dangers that threaten him, since he is a potential
victim; Whatever he does, he is neither guilty nor responsible. The child always tells the truth.
You must prepare your child to be an "adapted" person, an available and "flexible" worker for a
changing world. And don't forget that the day will come when your child will be, above all, a
tourist.
You will never hit him. You will not punish him or scold him: the school and society will take
care of it, which will hammer him into the mold.
You will talk to him (as much as possible) and explain everything that is necessary.
You will be positive. You will talk to him about the world he will live in when he grows up, a
civic, plural, globalized world opposed to discrimination: your son will really want to grow up.
But don't let him grow up too quickly, because the only true paradise is still childhood...

Children? No, thanks. Better not. The decline in the birth rate is our only hope. Ladies, the
future of our country depends on you. The ultimate freedom is that of “I would rather not do
it.” Like Bartleby, Hermann Melville's subversive character, who introduced chaos at work with
his lack of participation and who, obviously, had no children.

"I would prefer not to do it" is the formula for negative thinking, for systematic doubt. It is the
refuge of those who do not fall into the naivety of thinking that they know the solutions, or into
the cynicism of making others believe that they do. It is the motto of those who wonder why
we must say yes, with enthusiasm and good will, to this adulterated version of the best of all
worlds that is sold to us as the result of several centuries of progress and humanism. I would
prefer not to have children. Do not work. Don't watch the news. Do not participate in the
economic competition.

The reader can also choose "I would prefer not to." Non-doers of all countries, brothers and
sisters, comrades in arms... let us remain disunited, skeptical and, if possible, without
offspring.