Sub-human?
A busy grocery store on a Saturday afternoon - the lineup to the cashier is endless, but what is the reason for inactivity?
A quick glimpse to the front reveals a common answer: a child.
Each enraged person that curiously peers to the source of the problem suddenly releases all anger as the source is found. "Oh, a kid."
Why is it that all is excused when a child is the basis for any kind of socially unacceptable behavior?
Because no one sees them as a normal human just yet.
So then what drives someone to want to be faced with such a prospect for at least continuous 16 years?
At what point do you throw your fancy-free life of leisure and/or making ends meet to get by fairly comfortably in exchange for a string of exhausting and mentally straining public embarrassments at the cost of some tiny tyrant?
So, at what point do you passively accept being shoved into the "Oh, person with a stupid kid" category on occasions when you can finally leave the house?
You are no longer that guy in the lineup carrying a bottle of good wine and some olives doing a bit of shopping before a night of hitting the town and romancing hot broads back at the swanky pad.
You are now the guy with the crocs, nondescript jeans and a hoodie, who hasn't shaved in days, trying to pull his screaming mongrel away from the candy rack just so you can shell out your hard-earned dollars for some more objects needed to appease the maniac.
You hope you can leave the store before said maniac starts breaking things and possibly flinging feces... until you review what alternative awaits you back at the almost foreclosed hovel. An unshaved, dilapidated behemoth that hasn't watched the news in weeks, no longer bothers dyeing the roots of her disheveled greasy strands and that generally has nothing interesting to say, unless updates about the child's every activity can be considered to be stimulating tidbits of information.
Yes, this is what you were striving for, isn't it? The pinnacle of your existence? The reason you used to work out 3 times a week, buy decent garb and finished your Master's degree?
No... somehow, I don't think it actually is.