The Pope Thinks Childfree People Are ‘Selfish’. So What?

I received a surprise text yesterday, from a producer at the BBC’s popular Radio 5 Live talk radio show.

“Please can you give me a call when you see this? Think you might be a good fit for a chat we’re having after 10am today”.

As it happened, I wasn’t free yesterday morning, so I politely turned the invitation down. Curious about the discussion they thought I “might be a good fit” for, I listened to the show later on.

Said discussion was to do with the Pope — that old rascal! — who’d been in the news talking about how choosing pets over children is selfish.

Apparently, it’s also “a denial of fatherhood and motherhood and diminishes us, takes away our humanity”.

Those guests on the show had strong opinions about this story, as well they might. The host, Nicky Campbell, struggled to keep the conversation under control at points, and even had to apologise for some choice language at one (it’s the BBC, after all).

As I listened, I felt glad I hadn’t been available to take part, mostly because I haven’t got a strong opinion about the Pope thinking I’m selfish.

For one thing, I’m not a follower of the Catholic church, which means anything the Pope thinks is as irrelevant to me as the opinions of any other person I’ve never met and don’t agree with.

If you are a follower of the Catholic church, then you probably have kids, and you probably agree wholeheartedly with his comments, which is fine. It’s a (mostly) free world.

For another thing, I am selfish, in that I’ve made some choices about how I’d like my life to look and feel, and now I’m pursuing them. As most people are also doing this, they’re selfish, too. This includes parents, and His Holiness himself (who, of course, also made a choice not to have kids).

To my mind, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of selfishness. It’s a perfectly human trait which not only helps you know your own mind, but can be usefully combined with all manner of other traits, like caring for others and doing nice things.

The only thing I took slight issue with the Pope over was the “choosing pets over children” thing. For me, children were never on the table (as it were) in the first place.

It’s not like I sat cross-legged in a low-lit room one evening, armed with a bottle of wine, a die, and a piece of paper, whispering “if I roll three sixes I’ll have kids, if I roll a five I’m getting a dog, and if it’s a one and a three then it’s cats.”

I just have cats. That’s all.

I doubt my thoughts on all of this would have made conversational waves on a radio talk show, but there it is. I’m not that bothered by what the Pope thinks about my life choices.

I don’t need to get het up about it, but just carry on living my undiminished, human life.

(If anything, the pontiff’s divine disapproval only proves that I’m on the right track).