Honest, we ain't kidding. No kids. Ever. Just not interested. Our genes aren't selfish, they're just slackers. We've hit the "pause" button so hard, we broke our biological clock. The lifeguards have stop us diving deeper into our gene pool. Now we're trying to figure out why. So if you have a minute, maybe you can help us out.

We did a study. 100% of all arseholes were babies once:

• That guy who nearly swiped your car at the corner? Ex-baby.
• That couple upstairs who play loud music? Kept the nursery awake with their crying.
• The really unhelpful woman at the insurance office? Used to wear nappies. Bet they were soiled all the time.

Maybe the whole baby/kid thing is wrong-headed. How do kids compare with, say, cats? Well,

• Kittens take six weeks to toilet train.
• Kittens still look cute if they haven't had a bath this month.
• When they grow up, they never bad-mouth you to their therapists.
• No one will question your abilities to function normally at your job when they hear you just got a kitten.
• Also, they kill vermin. Well, actually, they half kill, then bring inside to proudly show you. Your role in this little dance is to scream in fear and take a broom to the bleeding snake/ wriggling bird/ screeching bat/... For her part, your kitty will gaze at you all perplexed. Then, understanding dawns. and cute kitty will go outside to get you something else to play with.

On the other hand, there's kids:

• People with kids have to present them in public, screaming, usually in crowded supermarkets.
• People with kids start acting members of some weird brain washing cult: They try to trick others into joining!
• And babies are just stupid. According to Institute president Molly Bentley, in an effort to determine infant survival instincts when attacked, the babies were prodded in an aggressive manner with a broken broom handle. Over 90 percent of them, when poked, failed to make even rudimentary attempts to defend themselves. The remaining 10 percent responded by vacating their bowels. The Daily Onion, Studies Reveals: Babies are Stupid

Clearly, given the choice we'd get cats, not kids. Hmmm... maybe babies are some sort of involuntary thing. Something we can't control. Like an air-borne disease that we pick up from just walking around. And these been lots of baby infections lately. World population is currently 6,121,897,710 (as of 2000).

(Six billon looks pretty bad, right? But look again- the increases are decreasing: 100% increase 1950-2000 but only a 50% increase projected from 2000-2050. We shouldn't get much past 11 billion [gasp] before things start dropping again. And while that's a lot of folks, its only double the current population: we might just be able to squeak past the peak without collapse.)

But by now, you might be offering the Lady Gertrude objection: methinks they protests too much? Why so anti-baby? Hell, we were babies once and we just spent an amiable and fun couple of hours working on this page. So kids can grow into things you don't want to shoot on sight or run from screaming whenever you see, hear, or smell one.

Its a puzzle- why are we so vehemently anti-baby? Could it be that we're over-compensating for our appalling record at nurturing?

• Helen got a Tamagotchi and it died in a week- starved to death.
• I played The Sims and bought a baby. Social services had to take it away!
• Helen always kills every plant she buys, and I'm no better.

Then the other night Helen broke down, confessed all, and the anti-baby mystery was solved. Helen's great-great-great mother three times removed married the sister of... dramatic pause.. Clive of India! Robert Clive was an Englishman who lead a band of mercenaries that conqueored Bengal in 1757 and executed its leader.

Dangerous genes indeed! And mine are no better. One of my relatives was this arch-consvervative Prime Minisiter of Australia. Robert Gordon Menzies championed the white Australia policy; called out the army to break up miner's strikes; tried to outlaw the communist party; and best of all- kept helping other people to bomb his own country. Just before WWII, he sold pig iron to the Japanese who promptly used it to build bombs to drop back on Australia! And if that wasn't bad enough- after the war, he gave away bits of Australia to the British so they could do atom bomb tests. Some people never learn!

Mystery solved. Our genes are just too dangerous, too imperious, too English empire-ish. The 21st century is not place for a Robert2 Clive-Menzies. These days, we don't need any more atom bombs, white man's burden, black holes of Calcutta, her gracious majesty the Queen, and six different knds of forks.