I’m 27—going on 28—and married. I hadn’t anticipated it, but that means that people inevitably start wondering “so, when are you going to have kids?” as if that’s the next logical step in my adulthood. As if that’s the only thing that we have in our future that matters. No one asks “so when are you going to take that trip to Prague?” or “when are you going to get a dog?” or “when are you going to buy stock in Google?” Nope. People want to know when my wife and I are going to “start a family” as if that’s as easy as deciding Wendy’s or Whataburger (Wendy’s, duh).
Start a family? Make a little reproduction of me that will enter the world with a cone head and an untrained sphincter? Make a real live human being that will piss and moan for, like, 18 years about being hungry or being sick or needing the newest Jordans? That’s what I’m now supposed to do with my life? Now!? And though I don’t have the cajones to give the answer that I want to give, it’s always on the tip of my tongue: We’ve got other things going on right now, and we simply don’t have any room in our lives for kids.
And besides, who says I’m ready? Shouldn’t you be really, really prepared for a life change as huge as creating life? Right now, I’m too lazy to change out that blown light bulb in the kitchen (I’ll do that tomorrow…or whatever). Just because I’m at the prime baby-making age, that means I’m suddenly qualified? Is that all it takes? There’s no background check, no credit check, no psychological examination, no screening, no parental aptitude test?
Nope. Apparently, there are only two qualifiers that make me 100% fit to be a parent:
• Are you legally married and currently living with your spouse?
• Are you nearing the age of 30?
And that’s it. That’s all it takes. So, that either means that I appear to be totally tearing it up as an adult—the Shaun White of adults, the George Clooney of responsibility—or I’ve become boring as hell and rather than take up a new hobby (boogie boarding perhaps?) or go back to school and get a degree that pays better money (dentistry!) I should just procreate and wear puke on my shirt and carry diapers.
And the closer I get to 30 sans children, the people around us asking “when are they going to have kids?” are going to come to one and only one conclusion:
His junk doesn’t work.
They could of course assume that my wife is barren, but that would just be mean. No, the blame would be firmly pointed at me and my (broken) dick. Because why else would we not have kids by age 30, unless we simply couldn’t?
And thanks to Mark Zuckerberg and his ubiquitous social site the when-are-you-gonna-have-babies pressure is only getting worse. All of my friends that have recently become parents use Facebook as if it has one and only one purpose: to be a medium to show as many baby pictures as possible. All the time.
At this point, reader, you’re probably thinking “geez, dude’s got baby anger!” but it’s important for you to understand that that’s not the case. I’m not mad at babies—because they haven’t yet formed any opinions worth arguing over (babies don’t even know who Obama is!). My point is simply this: human couples can do lots of things, and most of the time they do make babies, but sometimes they do other important things. And that’s OK too.
Yeah, I've become one of those people that have way too many pictures of my kid on facebook. I didn't plan for it to happen, but as Michelle's sisters, aunts, and everyone else that took a picture of her started posting them, they just racked up. I've tried to mitigate the damage by refraining as much as possible from changing my status every time she "makes poopie."
ReplyDeleteOn another related note, I am extremely interested when you are going to get a dog. Bob needs someone to rough him up a little every now and then.