Go Scramble Your Own Eggs

Yesterday, I became an Aunt.

My brother-in-law and his girlfriend brought a gorgeous but tiny little girl into the world. It was the first time in ages I've held an infant, and the first time I've ever held a human being that was just over 12 hours old. 

She laid in the crook of my arm, sleeping soundly. Her face would twist up into a angry pout whenever I had to adjust my arm, she'd point and kick her toes whenever I tickled her feet, and she made tiny squeaky noises as she dreamed. 

Dreamed about what? I'm not sure. Probably the trauma of coming out of someone's vag and being forced to do something other than float around in placenta all day. 

It's a hard life. 

I purchased tiny pink clothing yesterday for the first time as an adult. I had serious conversations about labour and epidurals and the horrors of childbirth. (Yes. Some of those things are horrific. There's no other way to put it. Having stitches in your lady parts? HORRIFIC.)

There were parts of me that felt like I was very much just pretending to have a very adult conversation. Surely I'm too young to have in-laws and never mind a niece! But it all seemed and came very natural. I'm an Aunt now. 

And, one of my good friends has a 2-year-old girl. I went to a playground on Friday where they only let adults accompanied by children in. Being around a 2-year-old has been good for me, I think. It shows what life is like after the breastfeeding and the stitches and the shock of being a mother. 

Hanging out with a 2-year-old with a ton of personality, that's active and talkative and says funny things is fun. Fun for me, because I don't have to deal with the temper tantrums and "terrible 2" antics. 

My life went from being completely child-free and rolling my eyes at the loud ass kids and the mothers with the huge ass buggies in Starbucks, to shouting at Taxis drivers who don't slow down enough to let me, my friend, and her 2-year-old who insists on walking along side the buggy, instead of in it, cross the street. 

Has all of this made me broody? Does all of this make me go, "Oh, it would be nice to have one of those?" 

No. No it doesn't. 

The facts: I am 24. I am running my own company/brand/website. I am busy. I have a Blackberry and have one of those "on the go lifestyles" that those yogurt and tampon companies are always chirping on about. 

I do not really like "kids" or "babies" or the idea of motherhood. I've been having nightmares about childbirth since I was 6-years-old. I was more in to pretending I was Lois Lane or Laura Ingalls Wilder than I was in to playing mommy to my dollies. 

I like my niece. (All 24 hours of our relationship so far has been awesome.) I like my friend's daughter. 

The baby that goes past me in the stroller on the street? No. The kids running around Starbucks while I'm on the phone to a PR? No. The smug mothers who act like they're god's gift to the earth because they have managed to do the one thing their body is meant to? Um, no.

 I don't get all gooey inside when I see little girls and their mummies. I don't get envious when I see a cute family of three. I don't coo over tiny clothes in shops. 

The suburban motherhood lifestyle does not appeal to me. It makes me want to throw up. 

The same way the idea or going back and working in an office full of people who don't get me or don't know what their doing makes me want to take a nap on the freeway.

A child at this time in my life is not an option. It's not about "not having time" it's I DON'T WANT TO MAKE TIME. I am too selfish. I care too much about my business. I LIKE being tired from having to go to too many events. I would NOT LIKE being tired because I've had to feed a kid with my boob all night.

I'm not looking down on other mothers. I'm not saying your suburban lifestyle is gross. I'm saying it's gross for me, because it's not what I want to do.

If I had a kid right now, I would be miserable. My marriage would be miserable, because it's not what we want. I would be depressed and resentful and while I'm sure I would love it. I wouldn't love it in the way that I should, or the way that I would want to. 

I'm 24. 

And when I tell people that my eggs should be good for the next 10 years or so, they get freaked out. 

"You shouldnt' have a kid after 35!! That's not good! You should have it when you're 28. Decide when you're 30. You'll change your mind! I see the way you look at Blank's kid! You'll change your mind! You'll change your mind! YOU WILL CHANGE YOUR MIND AND HAVE CHILDREN BY THE TIME YOU ARE 30!!!!!"

Let me break it down for you. 

I am not saying I will never have children, and that is our final decision. I'm saying I don't know if we'll have children, that I don't have to decide right now BECAUSE I AM 24, and that  yes, maybe, if we decide to have kids, we'll probably have it when I'm in my early to mid 30s.

Not when I'm 45. Because that's not what I said. 

If Iain and I ever decided we wanted to have a kid. We'd have a kid. 

It would be when we are financially stable enough to give our kid(s) the life we would want them to have. When our professional lives were stable and fruitful enough that we could spend more time with them. So that we could travel with them. 

I had anxiety when I was a kid. I remember freaking out one day because I knew something was wrong with my Dad's car and because I knew it was going to be expensive and ohmygodhowcouldweaffordthat. 

I don't want my kids having to worry about shit like that. 

Call it unrealistic. Call it unattainable. Tell me I'm naive and that I'm basically saying I want to raise my kids in a bubble. 

I don't want to raise kids in a bubble - I want to raise them in an environment that is free of financial trouble, of intense and disruptive emotional turmoil (such as divorce, constantly fighting parents, etc), and the aspects of a lifestyle that I'm uncomfortable raising a kid in.

I'd want to bring up a family in a farmhouse. Or  a country cottage.  My own Petit Trianon and Petit Hameau with fields and animals and dogs and kitties. They'd have to get summer jobs and work. We'd have the money for them to go to good schools, and good Universities. We'll invest in whatever hobbies and quirks their interested in. Encourage them even if they say they want to be an astronaut, or something we don't necessarily want for them. 

They wouldn't be spoilt, but they would be given a different sort of childhood. 

That's what I want. A balance of the whimsical and the gritty. Realism and fantasy mixed into one. 

When we are in a position to give that, or a version of what I have in my mind, we will. 

If we're not... we won't.

Judge what you like. Tell me I'm stupid. Tell me I'll change my mind and that I'll end up having a realistic kid in a realistic house in a realistic lifestyle. 

But, I'll do what I like. I'll have a kid or I won't. I'll have it when I'm 34 if I so please, and if that's how it works out. Or maybe it won't work out. Who knows.

I know myself the best. No one knows me better than I know myself. And of all the decisions in the world, I think the choice to change your life and reproduce is the most personal one to make. 

It's a decision for my husband and myself to make together. Not you. So please shut up. 

Comments

[Neeva]

Hehe, yes some people feel really threatened by the idea of a young woman not wanting kids...
The same people who get nervous if young men doesn't act like commitment-phobic assholes ...

Best to ignore them.

[rainsinger.livejournal.com]

People telling other people when to have children sends me into a frothy type of rage. I cannot tell you the amount of time I have fielded these comments directed at my elder sister who is 35 and doesn't have children. Comments along the lines of: "But her life is so impoverished without the experience of motherhood" are factually wrong from where I'm standing.

I had my son at 27 and while I don't regret that, if anyone's life is impoverished it's mine because children are a constant financial drain no matter how much we seem to budget and plan. In the last two years since my son was born my husband and I have been to the theatre a grand total of three times while my sister's social life is only hindered by her employers and the need to sleep once in a while.

I didn't think I wanted children, until one day I just did. It's complicated. Children by their nature are wild cards. You plan, you give it your best shot, but your life will still get turned upside down most likely at some point.

When my son was born we were relatively financially and emotionally stable. He was a loved and wanted child. His dad and I were deeply in love and had a good marriage. But within three months everything was at breaking point and I was so angry with both husband and son because I felt one of them wasn't supportive enough and the other one cried all the time and wouldn't sleep. It was genuinely crazy making, and it was one of the things you just grit your teeth and get through. And on the other side of it is the deep deep joy that comes from having a wonderful toddler who is fun and funny and the sense of being bound to one another not only through love but through him.

Children are bloody hard work even when they are wanted and welcomed, so the last thing I wish for the world is children coming into lives not ready to receive them.

[Lilee]

cute header!

[Janie]

Everyone needs to mind their own business. It actually makes me sad how set in their way society is and how it feels threatened by anything outside "the norm". Is it really so scandalous to not want children or marriage or to wear odd socks? Chill out, society. :P

[Theresa Caruana]

This is great Kate.

It's so refreshing to hear a young women have an opinion about her life and exercise her right to choose how she lives it.

I had two kids by the time I was 25 both were un-planed

(four months before I became pregnant with my first I considered getting a gold fish for my new flat...i decided against it as I couldn't face the inevitable toilet funeral)

and are very much cherished even though I am FAR from the Mumsie type

Becoming a mother brought into focus societies constant badgering of women that seems to only get worse when you become a mother. Constantly preaching to women about how they should be, should want and should behave.

Knowing what I want, how I want it and then getting on and living it is a freedom that I cherish and fiercely defend. In fact it has become the foundation of my whole life and an important gift I share with my husband, my son and daughter, my nieces and nephews and my friend's kids.

After all what else is freedom for?

[Alex]

It still baffles me why the area of children - for most people the most personal decision they'll ever make since, natural or adoptive, nothing else will ever require such body-and-soul commitment - is one that people still think they can comment on uninvited.

If you want to ask them their opinion and are undecided, then they'll have ample opportunity to say.

They'd never dream of telling you that your bum looks big in that, or that they think you should change your job. But a decision that means stretching your body to its natural limits for well over 9 months (remember, sleep depravation is torture) or if you're adopting, stretching your emotions beyond anything you usually have to bear while a stranger decides if you're good enough... that's fair game.

Oy.

People are basically, to coin a phrase someone once used in front of me, roughly as smart as toast.