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Saturday, March 21, 2009

"You're next!"

Its my uncle's favourite thing to tell me at family holidays. "You're next!" Why am I next? Because in order of age of my cousins, I'm next in line to get married and start popping out the rugrats. Good times, good times. With my cousin who's two years older than me getting married next month, I'm the last grandchild that's marrying age that is unwed. And with many friends from high school getting engaged, married and announcing pregnancies, my head can't help but think, "HUH?! ALREADY?! But...but...we're so young!" (VERY early 20s, for those of you keeping score at home)

And good for them, if they're happy. I mean that sincerely. If its right for them, good for them. But when I see someone carting a baby seat around at a party, you'll have a hard time selling it to me that they're happy. Parents who bring their baby somewhere where their friends are boozing hard don't want to be mommies at that point in time. They just want to be like the rest of us, who aren't getting up at 3 AM for a feeding.

I look at some single mothers my age, and watch them trying to balance school (if they haven't already dropped out), the baby, their family, their friends and social life, child support and visits (sometimes supervised - way to choose a winner there) with babydaddy and all I can think is "No. Thank. You." I don't ever want that life. I don't want to live off a combo of welfare, support payments and mothers allowance. Not on your life.

So maybe I'm next. I still makes me want to backhand the person who says that. But you better believe that when I have kids, I'll be having kids because I'm ready to be a mom...not because I was forced to be a mom to a baby that was already here. My test for whether I'm ready for parenthood is simple. When I see on the stick and it says positive, I want to say "YES!!!!" instead of "Oh shit, what now?"

4 comments:

Lost In Splendor said...

Sounds like a plan to me. I see the same thing with my peers who have children.

After my first long-term relationship ended I was sort of stuck with that. We were together for almost 7 years and we had always said if we were a straight couple we would have married at 18 and had at least two kids. So when we broke up it really hit me that I could have been divorced with two kids at the age of 22. Scary!

In this relationship I am happier taking it slow. I never wanted to have children after age 24, but now after 30 sounds good to me. I want KC and I to have time to enjoy living together alone for a few years complete with extra money to travel and do all the things we love.

I do want children someday, but for now I am really enjoying my life without them.

The bunnies take enough of my time!

The Grown Up Teenager said...

I completely agree with taking it slow. If you're meant to be together, you've got the rest of your lives, so whats the hurry?

I don't think many young people realize how demanding children really are. I've spent enough time around them to know that you need to be ready. And there's so many ways to prevent "Oops" that you may as well.

Anonymous said...

Hello. I'm totally new to your blog and I'm going to add you to my follow list. This is exactly how I feel about babies and marriage right now.

I'm 20 and half of the girls in my graduating class have babies. I know they are struggling and I don't want to be like that. There is something to be said about being prepared, emotional & financially, for a baby. I realize that I'm not there yet.

The Grown Up Teenager said...

Woo, cheers to the not ready yet, Marla. I'm sure not, and I completely agree about not wanting to live like the struggling girls my/our age.

Glad to have another follower :)