I had a lot of baked treats left from the Vagina Monologues and I wanted to bring some over to Larry so he could have one and also take some back to his kids. I knew he was usually there in the mornings, and as luck would have it, two of his kids were actually there with him today, so I offered them a couple cookies while they were settling down on yoga mats to play DS (it was Presidents’ Day, which we apparently no longer get off :[ ). His oldest son, also known as the one who has a crush on me due to my ring girl shenanigans, wasn’t there, so I asked if he wanted to take one back for him.
L: If you don’t mind!
F: Of course not! I hope he likes it!
L: Farrah, I think you could give him a dog turd covered in chocolate and he’d still love it.
He commented that if I ever had kids, they would absolutely adore me.
F: Ah. Yeah, about that. I don’t want kids.
People tend to get kinda taken aback about how adamant I am about not wanting kids. If they’re my parents’ age, the next statement is usually, “Oh, you’ll change your mind” (my favorite response ever), but if they’re close friends/good acquaintances, what they usually say next is, “You’d make such a great parent,” and we end up talking about how Idiocracy is pretty much settling full-force into this world.
I think I’d make a terrible parent, but it’s nice of em’ to say.
I have a whole host of reasons for not wanting children, but first and foremost, it’s this:
- I find the entire concept of childbirth to be utterly terrifying. I have no idea how I’m going to survive my OB/GYN rotations other than to just uh, grin and bear it. My site director had the misconception that I was interested in OB for a couple days and I legitimately panicked until I’d pressed “send” on my clarification email to her. There is a slight chance that I may reconsider this whole “having children” business if I happen upon a surrogate mother who’ll birth the baby for me.
I’m all for honesty, so most of the rest of my reasoning is pretty selfish.
- I feel like I’ve worked really, really hard for my various degrees and to get through medical school, and if I were to have kids, I wouldn’t be able to work anymore since I don’t want to pass these hypothetical children off to daycares and babysitters–I’d want to be the one raising them. But to do that properly, I’d have to give up on my job, and I didn’t go into all this schooling and get into this much debt just so I could stay at home to take care of babies. It takes a special sort of person with a certain amount of patience/set of skills that I just really don’t possess.
- I’ve heard this a billion times and believe it to be true…your life ends when you have kids. Your life becomes your kids’ lives. If I find someone I love enough to marry (who happens to feel the same way about me, because let’s face it, it’d be kinda creepy and would never work if it were one-sided), I want to share my future with him.
- I feel like I’d be a terrible parent, or that I’d unintentionally mess them up somehow. What if I’m responsible for bringing a serial killer into this world? No thanks.
I think I’d be way better at being the cool aunt. With a whole lot of pets. :D
