Babies can wait. Thank you.

I have been toying with the idea of not having babies for a couple of months now. It was mostly caused by the fact that kids have those breakdown moments of screaming, crying, kicking, punching and overall brattiness all because they have to go to bed, horror of all horrors. Thanks to my baby-sitting years, I have put down many a child; sometimes they screamed as I tried to gently explain to them that I would love for them to go to sleep and tell me all about their dreams the next day. For the most part, it was easy to stay mostly calm as the child I was baby-sitting for screamed and wailed in my face. This calmness rested firmly on the fact that I could leave the child in his or her parents care at the end of the night. It's easy to like a kid when you get to return it. I am truly afraid to have children.

The thing that scares me the most about having kids is that one day, there will be a very real person who will go from depending upon me and my husband for everything, to challenging every word that comes out of my mouth, to spitting my mistakes in rearing them in my face, to asking me for money and material things, and then might walk away from me, as I did to my parents, thinking that I know nothing about what it's like to be young. Yeah, yeah, I know there are many upsides to having children, i.e. macaroni Christmas ornaments, beautiful childish laughter and smiles, the possibility of a grandchild (who I can return at the end of the day), and many other things that I have yet to experience.

But think with me for a second about what married life could be like without a little person that I would have to raise. I could take after Miss Carrie Bradshaw and throw an "I'm not having a baby shower." (Carrie made a wedding registry when she claimed to have married herself). I could still get presents, I would even register for things for my husband (no need to be excessively selfish). I wouldn't spend countless dollars on diapers, clothes that take all of 3 weeks to grow out of, pounds of food, education and who knows what else. I wouldn't lose my jet black hair to worry and anxiety on what the little person is doing or will do or won't do, only to be replaced by non-flattering, dull grays.
There will be no issue of baptism or whose turn it is to feed the baby or who is going to be the bad guy.

Maybe one day my opinion on this matter will change. Tonight, babies can wait a long while more before they can become part of my plan for the future (because that plan was going so well to begin with....or not).

Anyway, go see Knocked Up. It's hilarious.