The One Where I Don't Have Any Kids

So, today is not a stellar day for me. I had plans to have dinner with my sister, but they had to be cancelled. I thought D was coming home today, but he's not coming home until tomorrow. I was going to make myself feel better by going to a movie, but there's nothing playing I would be willing to pay 8 to 10 dollars (with my "valid student ID") to see. I'm thinking I'm going to go home and bake something. I still haven't made Mom anything for her birthday, which was last Friday, so I may be in the throes of baking a birthday present tonight.

I have found an interesting phenomenon in the blogging world, which I have fairly recently jumped into. I've kept an online diary (or whatever) for years and years and years, since before it was cool, but I have just recently reached out to other people doing the same thing and found community.

Out of the. . .82 blogs I follow on my Google Reader, a great majority of them are cooking/baking blogs, but a large majority of them are also what seems to be called 'Mommy Blogs.' I think the name is pretty self-explanatory. I have no issue with Mommy Blogs (clearly, since I follow so many of them), but it's hard for me, at least, to find a blog that doesn't have a theme (baking, books, etc.) from a woman who does not have kids. I came across two of them today, and was oddly excited about it. It was like. . .my God. There are people, women, still out there who don't have kids!

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a very small majority. Don't get me wrong. I love kids. Kids love me. D and I went to see "Babies" at this little theatre downtown, and I thought my ovaries were literally going to explode from all the cute. But that's where it ends. I like kids, but I don't want to take one home with me. I've had the "Do-I-Want-Kids-Or-Not" discussion several, several times, but I still just don't know. I'm going to be acquiring a step-daughter (two, actually, but that's another story in and of itself) when D and I get married, and that's kind of where I feel my extent is right now.

(I'd like to take a moment and comment that yes, yes, I'm aware the irony of talking about how I enjoyed finding blogs of people who don't always talk about kids, and I'm using this entry to talk about kids. But whatever.)

I don't have the deep-rooted urge to carry another human being around for 9 months. I had a conversation with D that I'm fairly certain scarred him for life a while back where I referred to kids as parasites.

That's what they ARE, though. The rough definition of a parasite is something that feeds off of whatever host it attaches itself to. What do you think babies/fetuses/feti DO for the 9 months they're in there? I guess it's because he has kids himself, but for me? I don't like the idea. I am not dying for the day when I'm walking around with that "pregnant glow," knitting booties, having baby showers, and painting nurseries. Maybe it's just not in my genes, I don't know.

What I've always said is that I'm too selfish to have kids, and I think I'm going to maintain that for the time being. I am just not willing to give up all the things I COULD be doing for someone else that literally needs me all the time. I've already conceded I'm never going to get to live in New York like I'd wanted to because D's kid is here in NC. OK, that's fine. But that's the extent that I'd like to concede to. I don't, right now, want to have to give up time that I could do something I want to do because I have to take care of someone else.

Self-centered? Sure. But you know what? I'm not even 30 yet. I still have enough time to get unselfish if need be. I feel like I'd rather accept my own limitations than be one of these people who pops out kids and then can't (or won't) take care of them. That's all.