So, do you/are you/when are you having kids?
My way of deflecting this question is: "No, but we have cats. Wanna see pictures?"
As I reached my mid-30s I've found myself more and more out of step with people my age who are moving to the burbs and having families. As for me, I'm no more inclined to have children than I was 10 years ago. After much ruminating, I've realized that my real answer to "The Baby Question" may be "No, not now, and possibly not ever."
Most of the time I am able to believe that it's OK to feel that way. But there are a lot of societal messages that tell me that my answer is not, indeed, OK. (Do I need to make a list?) So sometimes I still question my own judgement.
As I get older, the stakes seem to get higher. They're apparently high for a lot of people, because the issue inevitably makes people on both sides of the fence feel defensive at best and hostile at worst. I wish it wasn't so divisive and that there were more ways to see comfortably across this particular fence. The author of this article takes rather a more generous view than is usually heard in this highly loaded discussion.
Posted at May 07, 2003 06:54 PMThat was our response ( well, in our case it was 'we have the dogs')for many years, as we didn't go forth and multiply until we were 35. It provided a fine end to the conversation.
I thought that the comment in the article about the matter of choice was rather true, that as long as what you decide to do is your choice, you'll be happy with it.
Posted by: sue on May 8, 2003 08:41 AMBabies? No, no, no. I can't even keep up with my OWN laundry.
And thanks for the link. :)
Posted by: JR on May 8, 2003 01:50 PMSometimes we use the cat answer, too. But if the questioner is particularly annoying about it, I'll sometimes reply with "Jee-sus H. Christmas! What would we do a dumb-ass thing like that for?!", which, oddly enough, does a pretty good job of ending that particular conversation. ;-)
Posted by: John on May 9, 2003 12:50 PMI was going to point you to the Salon articles from last week, but I see that you've already read them.
A friend of mine recently gave an answer to the kids question that I liked quite a bit: "I feel like I did when I was 16, I'm pretty sure I want kids, but not for another ten years." I thought that worked well.
Posted by: Eszter on May 14, 2003 06:43 PM