Got the kid back.

[qcontinuum]

You know, there is something fundamentally stupid about the nature of sentient beings who endlessly complain about something, get it solved, and then don't like the solution and want what they were complaining about back.

Yes, yes, you all resemble that remark, but actually I'm talking about me this time. Running around the universe causing general havoc... isn't nearly as interesting as it used to be. Oh, the nostalgia value was great for a short while, but honestly? It palls, eventually.

I have actually spent a considerable amount of time MISSING my SON. Who, for 500 years, I have been trying to dump on a babysitter. There's something ironic in that.

Anyway, I've got him back, and he's an even bigger know-it-all than he was before. Apparently he thinks his mother knows more than I do. Which, given that we are both Q and therefore have equal access to nigh-omniscience, is absurd. He didn't even miss me, the little ingrate. Well, except for the parts where his mother squished him up and put him in a Hawking black hole for a time-out. I think that's cruel and unusual. Do you know how hard it is to fit a whole Q into a Hawking black hole? It doesn't seem to have permanently traumatized him, but I think she went over the top. He *is* just a kid, after all. If you're going to put him in a black hole, put him in a decent-sized one at least. Poor little guy.

Of course the first thing he did when he got home was sneak behind my back to grab some Kazon ships Amanda wasn't paying close attention to and start playing war with them. You know, here I am, actually missing the brat, looking forward to all this father-son bonding stuff and then the first thing he does is disobey me. How do you mortal parents stand this? Some of you have more than one!

He also got into a fight with an adult who thought some negative things about his mother rather too loudly. The stupidity appalls me. Fighting with a full-grown adult Q is not smart for other full-grown adult Q to do; for a child, it's nothing less than supremely idiotic. On the other hand, I don't care if he's trying to bite you, do *not* throw my son into a gas giant. "It's soft" is *not* sufficient excuse for attacking a *child* as if he were an adult Q! You go to me about it.

Sigh. Kids. Already I can tell that I won't be bored for a while. Stressed out of my mind, most likely, but not bored.

Comments

[smiley-miles.livejournal.com]

Yes, children can be difficult, can't they? It's worth it, though, just for their little smiling faces.

*sigh*

[kiranerys.livejournal.com]

I had been chalking my missing Kirayoshi to hormones, but I suppose if you don't have those, then there's something that isn't biological that makes beings attached to small children, irregardless of if you wanted them or not.

Sorry to hear that your family life is still a bit of a mess. At least things are starting to calm down, here.

Well, I did *want* mine, idiotic though I might have been.

[qcontinuum.livejournal.com]

I did actually want my son. Went through quite a bit to have him. If he'd been someone else's kid that was sort of dumped on me through accident of fate, the lack of hormones thing would have had an effect. You won't catch me missing amanda_the_q anytime soon. (Well, actually, I *can't* miss her, we're both in the same Continuum. But if she wasn't around, I wouldn't miss her.)

But yes, if they're your kids and you wanted them, you end up missing them even though you very well know better.

Q...

[cptpicard.livejournal.com]

Children are a tender subject I'm afraid. I am often quite uncomfortable around them, but there is a part of me still that wishes I had at least one child out there. I'm sure it's quite impossible, however. And the incident with Jason Vigo complicated matters. For the time that I thought he was mine, I was happier than I thought possible. And then there was Rene...

I'm confident that you are doing a fine job. Missing one's offspring is probably a most common phenomenon. drcrusher doesn't always speak of it, but I'm sure she misses wes_crusher a great deal.

Depends on how bad you want one.

[qcontinuum.livejournal.com]

The issue with you having a kid isn't whether you're comfortable around them or not. I *hated* mortal children. (Mostly still do, in fact, and I'm not at all positive I'll like anyone else's Q child.) If it weren't for the fact that anyone else they sent would probably have killed her outright, I never would have arranged for amanda_the_q to end up on your ship where I'd have to train her. Babysitting. Bleah. I'm supposed to be mad, bad and dangerous to know. People are supposed to lock up their children around me, not have me *babysit.*

But it completely changes when it's your own. Which means the issue has nothing to do with liking children in general. It has to do with "are you willing to chuck your entire way of life out an airlock and embark on a journey into the unknown and mostly annoying?" If your entire way of life has been destroyed *already* by a civil war, this sort of makes sense to do. (Kind of. In a "only screaming 'What was I *thinking*???!!!' every hundred years or so instead of constantly.) On the other hand if you're doing something you like doing and no one is making you quit yet, DON'T HAVE KIDS. When they say children change your life forever? Believe it.

If you decide at some point in your life that you actually *do* want a passel of little Picards to rebel against you and decide that what *they* really want to do with their lives is performance art, you're quite capable of making that occur. But it would force you to give up the life you're currently leading. So I'd recommend that you not do it until Starfleet puts their foot down about you not being an admiral yet and chains you to a desk, or you retire, whichever comes first.

I would also heartily recommend that you actually be in love, or something that passes for it, with whoever you'd pick to be the lucky mom. Deciding that you have this good friend, see, and you've got this off and on thing going, and you want to have a kid so wouldn't it be nifty if... Well, let's just say it leads to mutual ripping-out-of-hearts-and-stomping-on-them-in-front-of-crying-children and leave it at that. Not a good idea.

Re: Depends on how bad you want one.

[cptpicard.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have come to realize that part of the reason why I don't have a child yet is precisely because I don't want one badly enough. Too few of my life's pursuits easily lend themselves to having children.

Still, and it took the accident to bring this to my attention, there is some lingering guilt buried somewhere over not having produced any issue. I thought I had resolved that long ago. Ultimately, however, I am content with my choices. I have been made to feel guilty over my decisions before, after all--archeology, for example, or that little trip you gave me to my past, and I've learned that where I am now is where I most need to be.

I sincerely hope that they will never make me an admiral. I don't know which is worse--that, or retirement.