They're the cutest little things!
By Maria Pascucci
(Originally published in The Buffalo News)
What's not to love about babies?
The way their faces light up the first time they kick their legs
up and discover their tiny toes. Priceless. Their devilish little
smiles and the way they crinkle those button noses the first time
they prance up and down their parents' kitchen floor with dried
baby food caked between their fingers, screaming, "No! No!
No!" Makes my heart melt.
But, if you catch me holding my niece or one of my two baby cousins
and you ask me for the umpteenth time if I'm planning on having
little darlings just like them any time soon, I may crinkle my
little nose up and scream, "No! No! No!"
Why is it that as soon as a couple gets married, people start
demanding to know when the babies are coming? I've only been married
a year and a half, but according to the world (or at least the
world according to my relatives), it's time to start procreating.
It's like I'm committing some matrimonial crime if I don't produce
offspring by the second year of marriage!
Society preaches that young women shouldn't become pregnant too
young, but as soon as we get that sparkly diamond with the matching
band, America starts preaching that our biological clocks are
ticking. Am I the only one who finds this annoying?
My 24-year-old cousin has a wife and two children, and much to
his dismay, a new minivan. He tells me over a round of Blue that
this "minivan thing" should be illegal for anyone under
the age of 30. My husband shakes his head and says that it should
be illegal, period.
I'm 25 years old, married and (gasp) Don't Want Children Yet.
I know what some people are thinking: My priorities must be with
my career. OK, so I am into my career but I resent the stereotype.
My priorities are also with my family. In a community where young
professionals pack their bags faster than I can careen down a
hill with my sled intact on a blustery afternoon, I remain because
of my family. Just ask my husband how many family get-togethers
of mine he attends in any given year.
Deep down, the thought of being responsible for another human
being every waking (and sleeping) moment of my life scares the
hell out of me. What if I'm not nurturing like my mother? What
if I can't kiss all the hurt away when he falls off his bike?
What if my daughter asks me to help her with her math homework
someday and I'd rather scrub my toilet with a toothbrush than
do it? What if I'm not cut out for motherhood?
Am I being selfish to wait? What if my children never know their
great-grandmothers? Sadly, they already will never know their
great-grandfathers. What if they don't get 20-plus years with
their grandparents? What if they don't get 50-plus years with
me? What if I decide never to have children and 20 years down
the road, I look at my brother and his family and realize that
I missed out on too much? So when is the right time to trade in
that two-door sport coupe for the family sedan?
"A few more years," my husband reasons. "After
we've grown up a little. Saved some money." Then again, he
wasn't there when I witnessed a toddler in the middle of a full-blown
"stand back and take no prisoners" temper tantrum and
his mother locked eyes with mine and said, with what I'd swear
was the utmost desperation, "Don't EVER have children."
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