reproducible effect
kelly | 21 July 2007 - 8:04am
A couple friends sent me this article, saying they'd read it and thought of me. Replace the dogs with cats, and it is right on. Well, except that, unlike the writer, I'm not sure I ever want kids.
One of the friends who sent it to me is recently engaged, and she said in her email that she's sure her new status "will bring about a slew of rude questions regarding my intent to procreate." Which, sadly, is true. And reminded me of something...
Rob and I got engaged my junior year of college, over spring break. Soon after returning to school, I was in the food court and ran into an acquaintance. We weren't really friends, but we had some classes together. We talked for a minute, and then she noticed my engagement ring and squealed, "Oh my god, you're engaged!! Now you can have babies!!!!"
I realized then what I was in for.
At a party a few weeks ago, one of the guys there informed Rob that we should be having kids now. The guy is our age, and ready for kids of his own. And, apparently, since that's the right choice for him, it also should be the right choice for us. As he explained to Rob, "You have good jobs, a house...it's time to start a family!" Rob said it actually sounded as if he couldn't imagine why else we'd be married, or have jobs, or have bought a house, except so that we could have kids.
Dear people of the world: Mind your own fucking business. Thank you.
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I am often stunned (although how one can remain in a "stunned" state for years is perhaps a matter for concern) at the areas of our lives that other people do believe are their business. Our society has no decorum, and precious little couth, and manners? Fuggedaboutit.
We were married for thirteen years before we had a child. The first . . . 8 or so years, that was by our choice. We heard all of the crap that you and Rob are hearing. I recall once in an expensive boutique, on vacation with my MIL, who was shopping for a gift for someone's new baby. She was saying, "And I would buy you this, and this, and this..." And the clerk said to me, "What would you have to do to get all these things?" I answered, "Just reproduce. That's all."
The link . . . meh. I don't buy the writer's "I'm not having a baby because of YOU PEOPLE." You can't have it both ways: "My choices are none of your business, and my choices are dependent upon your behavior." A bit of twisted thinking going on there. Also a bit of she must have missed something in all those child development courses she's taking, because a four-year-old is as likely to punch you in the face as not, regardless of how good the parenting is :)
Oh, and please go see Hairspray. I swear Zac Efron looks like a young (and hotter) John Stamos.
Amen. Hmm, what can I add to Susie's comment? Check on the "none of your damn bidness." Check on the "four-year-old face punch" Although, I would apologized and then disciplined my child for doing that. It's all you can do. They aren't robots. Even the best mannered child can be unpredictable. Would she do that to a dog she didn't know? No way.
I agreed with her point about the sensitivity concerning couples who may not be able to have a child. I would never ask for that very reason given the number of people I've known with this very problem.
You know how I feel about you and your babies. If they are the only babies you ever know and you're happy, then I am happy for you. Human babies don't "complete" everybody's lives.
I don't know why people care so much if you and Rob or any other couple want to have children. I mean I can understand that those of us who have kids want everyone to feel the same thing we do by having kids, but there's no need to force that opinion on anyone. As far as I'm concerned if you guys choose not to have kids, great. And if you choose to have them, well that's great too.
I think the woman writing the article seems a little...nasty. Maybe unnecessarily so, but I've never been in her (or your) shoes with the ridiculous nagging so maybe not. I tend to get a little defensive when people talk negatively about mothers and their children in a general sense. I know it's silly, but I always feel like they're targeting me even though I'm not guilty (at least I don't think I am) of the things they are writing about.
Amen to the minding of people's own fucking business. If someone put their hand on MY stomach in addition to the rude question? I would be LIVID. Livid enough to write every word in that article.
As it is, it is a hard enough question for me to hear. I do want kids. But we haven't figured out exactly when that is going to work. I'm 29, but still a student, with several years plus residency ahead of me. Daycare is expensive. Do people think they're making a unique suggestion to us? "Don't you think you'll have kids soon?" Oh, KIDS! What a great idea! Why didn't we think of that?
omg - Touching the belly when it's not even pregnant? ... I'd have to smack a bitch. When I was pregnant, I decided my retort to "6 months??" was to grab a breast and say "34C??"
i always hated that question so much. it's apparently inconceivable to the masses that you'd want to be married without kids. not everyone wants kids and while it should be ok and is actually no one's business, the masses don't like to see the opposite side.
for the first few years after we had our kid, everyone kept telling us why we should have another. now with so much infertility, most people just assume we can't have anymore, not that we actually made a decision.
next time someone asks this annoying and personal question, you should just reply with a 'baaa' and let that person figure out that not everyone is a sheep.
Soooooo, what you're saying is?
:)
People are fucking rude. This drives me bonkers. I applaud anyone who knows they don't want kids and doesn't have them. The world is full of bad parents who should have thought twice.
I love my kids but let me tell you, it's hard work. Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I didn't. This does not mean that I wish I didn't, it means that it is often overwhelming.
Thankfully for me it always passes and I am able to enjoy my girls and appreciate what they have brought me but I am still envious at times of my single friends.
My girls look nothing alike and I am a single mother by choice. You should hear the comments that I get. Especially when they find out that I adopted my eldest. They have asked me how much it costs!!!! Sorry but that is rude people.
And you know what else isn't cool. If your wife decides not to have a drink when you get together with another couple for dinner and the other couple asks "So, are you pregnant?" What is up with that? I mean, totally rude. :)
Ha-ha! I'm totally kidding. Kelly is a nice person. Please don't phase me out :(
That is all.
Well to play the devil's advocate maybe these people have the World's Greatest Children and want you to share in the joy that they have obtained in being parents.
Though having said that, I must say that I was preggers BEFORE I was married so the 'are you having kids' question was never posed to me!! It was more like, "Aren't you going to get MARRIED?"
I'd just like people to stop asking me if I'm going to try for a boy (I have three girls. That's enough thanks. And they are quite nice.)
We've only been married about a year so far, and luckily only my parents have been prodding us about having kids. I have to admit though, I'm looking forward to when other people start asking us about having kids, just so I can tell them to mind their own fucking business (in those exact words :)
You won't get any stink-eye from me. I am 38, unmarried and there is simply no biological clock ticking in my body. And now I can't have kids so that is probably for the best. I don't exactly know why I don't ache for kids but I don't. Perhaps a lot of it has to do with the fact that I am afraid I won't have what it takes to be a good mom 24/7 and parenting is something one shouldn't attempt in a half-assed fashion - best intentions or not.
On the flip-side of this coin I presently have a friend who is undergoing IVF even though there is great risk to her and the baby's health (short-term AND permanent) as well as potential major financial hardship. Everybody around her thinks it is a train-wreck waiting to happen. I don't think we'd all be so worried if she and her husband desperately wanted a kid but they are going through it because, "if we don't do it now we might regret it later so we might as well..." I think they are caving to the pressure to have a kid opposed to any great desire of their own. However NOBODY has been anything less than supportive of their decision because it is THEIR decision. So I am not sure why people think it is ok to push kids on a person when it is clearly not ok to push childlessness on somebody else.
Amen. Mind your own business. Why do people not understand that simple thought?
I have never understood why people care so much about whether other people want to reproduce or not. I mean, really, if you and rob are perfectly happy raising your kitties and loving each other, who the hell cares??!!
And I've always found it weird that you get so much crap about it. I NEVER had a single person prod me about having kids or getting married. Strangely, I always got the OPPOSITE flack- "Don't get married young- you'll throw your life away!" "Don't have kids so young!" "Please wait to have kids!" "Don't have kids before your thirty!"
Isn't it weird that people insist you and Rob have kids so young and everyone wanted me to wait until I was, like, 45 to start reproducing?
This phenomenom happened to my cousin when she moved from NYC to Alabama. Suddenly, her single status wasn't praised or apreciated, but everyone was fixated on why she wasn't in a relationship or didn't have a boyfriend. I was thinking maybe it's because in rural areas, everyone our age is already married with a whole set of kids by now, and it is so very counter-culture to not follow suit. Do you think this could be it?
Also, don't let it bother you. Just calmly reply to people like the guy at the party, "Actually, now that we have a house and good careers, it's the perfect time for us NOT to have kids. We can now just lay back and enjoy life, travel, live life exactly the way we want to. We like that WAY better than chasing after snotty toddlers right now."
Really, it's a good thing not everyone has my mouth. Cause I could never stop from shooting it off in a situation like that.
i was anonymous above. sorry.