Love and kids

As a women in her thirties, I always get asked the proverbial question, "when are you going to have kids?" In addition, I feel bombarded by baby pictures and more baby pictures on Facebook. Everyday, someone seems to be making a pregnancy announcement. I've thought about making my own fake announcement or using a friend's daughter as my fake kid. After the kids are born there is only one conversation topic: kids. It's a good thing I work with kids or I wouldn't have anything to contribute at some gatherings. Sometimes, I try to talk about something else at the dinner table and the conversation inevitably shifts to children. You start to feel as though you don't matter if you don't have kids. Say you have a big accomplishment that you want to announce to Facebook or IRL: publishing a book, meeting someone you like, winning a big tennis match, or anything else you may consider important or noteworthy. It seems like stories like that don't get anywhere near as much attention as baby or kid stories or pictures. Sometimes, I talk to family friends and instead of asking me about my life, they ask me about my sister's kids Umm- I don't know- why don't you ask her if you are that curious about their well being. And believe me, I'm happy for my friends with kids and my sister. I enjoy hearing about their kids. I work with kids so I obviously like kids. But I want the childless women of the world to have a voice and not feel like such a pariah for not having kids. It's every woman's personal decision whether or not to have kids and nobody has the right to tell them whether or not they should have kids. I'm a little young for people to be telling me the classic lines of "You can always adopt. Have you considered freezing your eggs? Maybe you should consider asking a male friend of yours to be a sperm donor or even produce a baby with him the natural way ( I prefer option 2)." But I'm sure if I don't have kids in 5-10 years I will be hearing those sentiments echoed. And its not right to say that to people, ever. Unless they specifically ask you about ways to have kids when you are over 40 it is never ok to give them unsolicited advice. Would you want unsolicited advice on sensitive topics like say your mortgage, other debts, your child not being able to potty train?

Here's something I have been told that I find puzzling and hurtful. I was told that if a guy won't give me a kid, it's a sign of his lack of love and affection for me and indicates a lack of desire to commit to me. Excuse me? What did you say? First of all, give me a baby? Wouldn't the kid be his also? It's not as if he is passing it on to me and then moving on to to deliver a baby to the next woman he procreates with. Also, some people just don't want kids. Maybe it's not for them. Or maybe they already have kids and can't juggle more ( after all in NYC, where I live, raising kids is expensive). And if they are open and honest about his desire to have kids, isn't that a better indicator of his love and affection for someone than acquiescing to a woman's desire to have a kid when he doesn't want one? In fact, he would be doing a disservice to a woman if he either lied to the woman about his desire to have kids or produced a child with a woman and then couldn't be the ultimate father because his heart wasn't in it. So, I think I have proved my point. I should have done law, making this argument was riveting.

Another sentiment, I have heard is, "having a child is the most adult thing you can do". Umm, ok. Aren't there many more "adult' things we can do. Let's say fight for your country, handle losing a loved one, help an infirm parent cope, deal with financial straits. The list just goes on. Don't get me wrong, I'm not degrading having kids. I don't think that having kids is easy and I truly believe having kids requires fortitude. But I felt patronized and devalued when the person told me this.

Ok, now I'm done. Wow, writing IS a good form of therapy.