Aug 18 2008
Getting Old
I went out with a friend from my childhood this weekend. We manage to go out probably a couple times a year now, since I live an hour or so away and with work and family and relationships, it seems harder to find time. But after a lunch at micro-brewery type place, we ended up strolling around the mall with cups of coffee. And we talked about kids.
See, this is not a normal course of conversation for us, generally. But danged if we didn’t come back to the subject of pregnancy a few times over the course of our outing. Neither of us is of the opinion that having kids now is a good idea. We both work full-time, she has a degree and is considering going for a Masters, I’m in the process of finishing up my degree. Still, we couldn’t stop staring at and talking about babies.
I’m not really used to the uterus quaking at the sight of a baby. It seems so abnormal, since I’m not entirely convinced about having kids yet. I like being a young married. I can get rip-roaring drunk on weekends. I can eat take-out food every night. I can go out to clubs or movies without worrying. I occasionally have grown-up tastes in activities, what with being grown up and all. Sure, kids would like to go to fairs and Chuck E. Cheese with me, and I’d love dragging them along. But I’m kind of enjoying having a moderate amount of disposable income to waste on traveling or concerts.
Do all women who hit a certain age just start obsessing over babies? I’ve never even changed a diaper. Sure, I’ve held kids and given them formula and played with them and managed to shut up their crying every so often, but dang. I don’t know the first thing about babies. And here I am considering them every time I spy one.
I’ve a feeling this is all to do with the good of the species. Stupid instincts.
no one really knows anything about caring for a baby until they are taking care of one 24-7. it’s entirely different. plus, all babies are different. so it’s not that big of a deal if you have never changed a diaper (dude, you never babysat?!).
I babysat once, for two deaf kids. Neither was diaper-age.
I didn’t have younger siblings, like some people who have changed diapers.
Yuck. babies. Seriously I have no idea why people want them so badly. Why would someone *want* to be a boring old, loose-as-a-goose housewife with no freedom to do anything ‘because of the kids’?
i never changed a baby either, and I never will. Their shit has the same sort of appearance as Dijon mustard but it smells exactly 1,000,000 times worse. women who have kids have a tendency to turn into boring old sods anyway
I dunno, doing things differently “because of the kids” is still doing things.
I do understand people who are attached to a childless lifestyle, but it’s pretty hard for anybody to complain about babies/children in a general sense and not come off as self-hating.
Not having kids won’t keep anyone from becoming boring and old. People start out boring and time takes care of the rest.
You send them to their grandparents when you need to do grown up things. And like Kara said, you get a built-in excuse to do corny things like Chuckie Cheese and carnivals. But, we did really enjoy the almost decade we had before we had kids — one advantage of getting married very young!