Friday, July 27, 2007

Big money, no babies... STOP!

Like a sea turtle returning to the same beach year after year, it's time to make another timely blog update.

I'm terrible at analogies.

With one set of friends having a new baby (congrats, Taylors!) and another couple having recently initiated the process of mitosis (or is that meiosis? anyway, congrats, Griners!), I'm reminded of a conversation with my mother back when Hillary and I were in the late planning stages of our wedding.

I've known for ages that I don't want any kids. While I'm not actually made physicially nauseous by the thought like some of our friends, the notion of ever raising children seems is as alien to me as a trampoline would be to a hedgehog.

Again, analogies fail me.

When I casually mentioned this (and the fact that my soon-to-be-wife felt the same way) to my mother, it came as an unexpected shock. I'm pretty sure I saw the entire five stages of grief cross her face within the span of a few seconds. Well, except for Acceptance.

"Well, you've got plenty of time left to make up your minds, right?" Uhh, sure, Mom. To this day, I believe she's still convinced that we'll "come around" and decided to have kids. Lots of kids. A barrel full of them, even. She looks at it as Something People Do. Capitalization and all.

Now, it's not that I don't like kids.

Okay, let me start again. It is that I don't like kids. Or, rather, my tolerance hinges upon them being other peoples' kids. You know, the kind I can hand back to Mommy if there's an excretion malfunction. The kind that go back home with their parents at the end of the day. Those kinds are great. In small doses. When they're quiet.

Which is not to say that I'm not ecstatically happy for our friends. I can definitely see how having children would be a rewarding and fulfilling experience for some people. Other people.

I've already ridden the yodeling Price Is Right mountain climber over the precipice of "30 years old", and I'm not anywhere near being ready to give up the phase of my life that largely consists of "not introducing a new drain on my time, paycheck, and available attention". Ahboo already fits that role quite nicely, but at least he can be occupied with a chew toy for hours at a time.

The idea of us ever having kids? It's... it's like a midget in a sailboat factory.