I am coming to that age in my life where friends around me are starting to buy houses, get married and have children. I have done most things in my life pretty quickly and have achieved what I have wanted within the time scales I have wanted it in. I managed to get a degree somehow, I was engaged at 20, bought my first house at 22, got married at 23, started a career, got 5 cats, became very vaguely domesticated and now all that’s really left is to have kids isn’t it?!
I am the only child and with parents who had me a little later in life compared to my friend’s parents, I do feel the pressure of their desperation for grand children. I have no siblings to rely on to be doing this now and I certainly don’t want to be the one to stop my parents having the pleasure. I know they are not getting younger and are starting to age now, but I just don’t think I am ready for real responsibility. My mum had problems carrying children full term and I am terrified of having the same problems that I am just not emotionally strong enough to deal with. I have no maternal instinct, I can’t cook, I have no sympathy, I lack patience and am possibly the most intolerant person in the world to other people’s children misbehaving. Perhaps not the best combination to making a great parent.
My best friend from school will be getting married this year and I have the exciting task of being her Matron of Honour at the wedding. She then wants to have children and we have discussed many times that we need to have them at the same time so as they can grow up together and we can go and do things with the kids when leading our lives of luxury – coz I can really see that happening! Well it would be nice to have another mum to hang around with I suppose, without being forced to join some God awful mother and toddler group with the local chavs. But she has decided she would like kids in 2010. That means that whether or not I am ready, if she does actually go ahead and have them when planned, I will be feeling some immense peer pressure and some jealousy no doubt about what I could be missing out on. I don’t want my kid to be years behind really.
Holidays always make me feel broody and having been in Cuba recently I had seriously started to consider that maybe I would like to have children of my own after all despite having been uncertain for years whether I even want them at all. When you see the cute little babies in their all-in-one swimsuits and hats, holidays (and alcohol!) normally prompt me to have the conversation with my husband about please lets have children, we can start trying now. Fortunately he knows the broodiness will only last for 2 weeks and any accidents would lead to mammoth life time consequences. He doesn’t give in to my consistent harassment; he says he just prefers to practice for the really big day - whatever. But in the last month I did have a little scare and to find out finally that I wasn’t pregnant, was surprisingly disappointing and I thought I would never feel that way.
Some friends I used to work with have also just had a little boy that they are totally obsessed with and the mum was the most non-maternal person I had ever met in my life (after me). She would complain no end about her journey to work being held up by the “f-ing mothers taking their slimey snotty brats to school and blocking the road.” Then all of a sudden she was expecting her first baby after actually wanting one and trying for one. Maybe people do change their minds about this. I have a few more years before I really need to make a decision about whether or not to have one but it always seems years away and no need to worry. I am however creeping very worryingly close to 30 which I think sounds old and far too grown up for me. I am just a kid inside, I feel 18 and I still need desperate mothering both at home and at work. I can’t be responsible yet can I?!
I went to a close friend’s wedding yesterday that I grew up with. We were the best of friends as very young kids and we got into so much trouble it is untrue – enough to remind me that most children are like that and what the hell am I thinking to even consider having kids of my own. As children, Danielle and I were totally inseparable and very close. We share a lot of dirt on each other which will hopefully stay buried! Anyway she had a baby 18 months ago who was a ring bearer at her wedding. He looked absolutely gorgeous in his suit with his little waistcoat and tie. The dummy in his mouth reminded me of what a young and vulnerable little boy he still is and just how precious he is.
Then you hear the pregnancy and birth horror stories, see the tantrums, the fighting, smell the pooh, watch the nappy changing fiasco, get caught in the food fights (real evidence here!), find the damage to your furniture, witness the cats tail being pulled off and are put straight back into not having children land!
