What Have I Done To Deserve This?

My former coworker, Mao, is a funny guy whose strong emotions are on full display.  He laughs and talks loud when he is happy; when he is upset, everybody around him is bound to notice.

Mao is divorced, but has shared custody of his adolescent daughter and son.  The man works funky hours because of the way shifts are at the vast kingdom of orange aprons.  After those long taxing shifts, he freelances as a plumber/ handy man to bring in extra income.  He gets to spend time with his kids mostly only during the weekends. 

Friends of Mao are all accustomed to hearing him rave about his upcoming exciting weekend plans with his kids on Thursdays and Fridays.  By the time Monday comes, however, it all turns into rants about the ungrateful, spoiled brats who let him down.  

"Argh!  My daughter!  She wants me to buy her new shoes and a new phone.  All she cares about is to get me to pay for new fancy things,"  "Detest" was written all over Mao's face.

"So, the sweet daddy, did you buy the princess everything she wanted?" a coworker teased.  

"Of course not!"  Mao roared.  "Do I look that stupid?  I asked her, 'What have you done to deserve that from me?'  That girl, she does not have good grades in school.  She and her lousy friends get in trouble all the time.  She fights with her brother nonstop.  And worse still, she talks back at me!  She has no respect for her father.  I told her, 'You deserve nothing from me.  Stop asking, okay?'  My son is not too much better, but at least he is not as bitchy as his sister.  Sigh!  What have I done to have such terrible children?"

Week after week, the cycle repeats itself.  

One Monday, after listening to his usual rant about his rotten kids, I asked him, "Hey, Mao:  Now that you know who your kids are, what kind of people they become, and how upsetting they can be, if you get a chance to go back in time and do it all over again, would you choose to not have kids?"

Mao instantly sat straight up and looked at me like I grew a horn.  "Hey, hey, hey!  What do you mean?  You are saying that I may choose not to have my kids?  No way!!!  I love my kids.  I truly love those guys.  Yeah, they are a pain in the tush, but I will never trade them for anything.  You let me go back ten times, I would do exactly the same thing ten more times.  They are my babies.  I want them and I want them forever."  

Before I could even respond, he whipped out photos of his children.  With a big smile filled with sunshine and eyes glittering with love, Mao started a show-and tell on how cute his kids were and how they made him laugh.  Suddenly, these kids sounded like the best children one could ever have.

Many friends who are parents like to say to childless people like me, "What do you understand?  You don't have children!"  On this one, yeah, maybe they are right.  I really don't understand.