All About Me.....

Navigating my way thru my 30’s I have developed this very acute awareness of this underlying expectation that people “my age” should have children. The looks, the questions, the confusion encountered regularly are disturbing to say the least. I don’t have the plague, I just don’t have children.  At “my age” I no longer romanticize the notion of giving birth to another human being. At “my age” I have come to recognize that this is a person, not a thing, not a pet. Life would change drastically, and suddenly I’d be responsible for molding someone into a functional/productive human being.  

No longer will I be able to just drop in to a happy hour after work with my co-workers. I will need a baby sitter to catch a movie on Sat. night.  I’ll have to sacrifice my designer handbags and shoes for diapers and daycare.

Babies grow into toddlers, then comes grammar school, pre-teens, then teenagers. Homework, school projects, ballet lessons, soccer practice, sick days, ER runs. They gain personalities, form opinions and somewhere along the line they swear they know more than you even though they are not paying a SINGLE bill in your home.  Moody girls, getting first periods and learning to navigate boys. Hormonal young boys, discovering and exploring their “junk”, aggression and trying to prove that they are the alpha male in the home. I’m not ready…..

One might think that my stance is really selfish HOWEVER I have been changing diapers and caring for children since I was 6 years old. Coming from a large family that was primarily raised in the south, you are expected to assist with younger siblings and cousins.  I gained a brother not long after I turned 6. From then thereafter I was “Mommy’s little helper”. It was cute because when he was born he was about the size of my Cabbage Patch kids, as far as I was concerned he was one of my dolls. 

The novelty of having a younger sibling began to wear off when he began to walk and get into my stuff, even more so when he became school age at which point it became my responsibility to be a third caretaker as my parents worked different shifts and there was a point during the day when neither were home. It wasn’t until I was a junior in high school that I was truly able to join an extra curricular activity at school because it was then that my brother became old enough to leave home alone for short periods of time.   

My junior year of high school was also when my goddaughter was born. I instantly fell in love with her and where I went, she went. She was my sidekick, my ace, my #2. Because of my love for this kid I became a “parent by default”. I loved her like my own and would give my right foot to make sure she had if her mom didn’t have it to give. I changed diapers, bought diapers, I’ve done 3AM feedings, wiped noses, tended to scraped knees, the birthdays, the holidays and most recently watched as she proudly accepted her diploma as a new high school graduate! All of this while trying to complete my own education and growing into adulthood myself.

With that said I feel like many newly liberated parents (actually I have for a few years) FREE!!  I can travel like I never have before, late nights, partying, coming home to a quiet home to a glass of wine and SLEEP!!!! I feel like I’m 18….so……therefore I’m hesitant to “start over”. I LOVE my life the way it is, the ability to come and go as I please and to worry about no one but ME!!!  I don’t feel the overwhelming urge to reproduce, to have someone walking around that looks like me, to be responsible for someone else. I am not married, I am not in a serious relationship and honestly there are things I have yet to do that will be hindered by having a child.

So for now, I won’t stress. I’ll enjoy my life. The shoes, the bags, coming home to a quiet house and a glass of wine after a trying day at work, I’ll travel to the ends of the earth if I can (you can tell I watch Pirates of the Caribbean right?). And IF I meet someone special before I am incapable of reproducing then MAYBE we’ll have a serious discussion about procreating. 

But until then….It is ALL ABOUT ME. Don’t believe me? Count the number of times “I” is referenced in this post ;)