trinityvixen | I love my family, I do

BUT WHAT THE F!?!

Three of my cousins are having babies within a two-month time span. Jesus. Two of the cousins having babies with their respective spouses are brother and sister, both of whom married young (Shawn was 24? 25?) and Valerie was 20. True, both have been married about two-three-maybe four (Val is shy of four, and Shawn close to three) years, but WHAT THE HELL!?! STOP HAVING BABIES GODDAMNIT.

Sorry. There was a discussion about babies. I admit to being a total sucker for my niece and loving playing with her (YAY I SEE HER THIS WEEKEND!), but I just...ugh. They're cute and then they're fucking kids, man. Kids? Are useless to me. They're a money, time, and happiness vortex into which all of your plans for yourself are sucked out of this universe. I know how shallow that sounds, but I don't care. It's freakin' great that you people who want kids and like them are going to have them and love them and shit. I'm so happy for you.

NONE OF THAT FOR ME, THANKS. Urgh. We're having a family reunion this summer, too. So all the cute babies of a few years ago when we got together for a bunch of weddings are now going to be useless, snotty, bratty, noisy children. KILL ME. And I have to be stuck in Atlanta. JOY.

I fully intend to return an alcoholic.

(Note: All who read this probably understand that I have a tendency to exaggerate because I have no gradations between "fine" and "awful." The following diatribe against family, people who are having kids and people who want to, and general hair-tearing over both should be taken as more of my usual. Nothing to see here.)

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Among my cousins, three of us were born in the same year, within a couple of months of each other. So my mom, her sister and her sister-in-law were all pregnant at the same time. Awwwww.

Well, I suppose it's nice that the little cousins will be of the same age but still. I find myself getting a little hysterical about being around so many pregnant people in a few months. Because goddamnit, that's ALL they will talk about. Babies, babies, babies. Either you hand me an adorable baby and provide me something to talk about or we focus on something else, people!

So wait, you're saying you don't like kids?
:)
At least you can go to the reunion and see all the family babies as an aunt or cousin. Meaning you get to hand them back to their parents afterward.
Personally, I have no problem with people who don't want kids. I wish more people were that way, actually--or at least that more who felt that way held to their convictions. We wanted kids, and we love our kids, though yes much of our own interests get back-burnered for years. But that's our choice.

Yeah, I'm totally crazy in love with being godmother to my niece, and I've threatened my sister many a time with tales of taking her to amusement parks, cramming her full of sugar, and then returning her muchly spoiled. Good times!

I think the important thing is not whether you want or don't want kids, it's that you decide and abide, as you say. Kids don't just go back in the bottle once you let 'em out...

And you were berating me for being annoyed at the people downstairs and their squalling brat? :)

I wasn't berating, really. I was just saying that I'm sympathize with those people. They probably hate the noise as much as you do. The kid is, of course, terrible.

And here we have the advantage to both Jethrien and I being the oldest cousins of our generation. Even if we wait a few years (which we plan to), odds are good that we'll still be the first ones to have kids. I don't have to deal with babies until I'm good and ready!

...of course, "good and ready" may also mean, "still scared shitless but at least financiually prepared", but you can't have anything.

Prepared in any fashion--emotionally, financially...punctually--is better than totally unprepared. No one is really totally prepared for kids. Even people who really, really want 'em and are gagging to have 'em. Better you should have as few hurdles to enjoying them (::sticks nose in the air:: if such a thing is possible) as you can.

Or, there's our family's solution to the problem--what cousins? My two first cousins are on my dad's side and hence completely out of contact; on my mom's side, I have some second cousins I don't know well (though I'd like to--one of my first cousins once removed was fun to talk to at my uncle's funeral, and I think it's his son that was the Princeton '96/UVA Law '99 grad.) The only one in my generation to compare to is my sister--and I have a long time before I have to worry about her thinking about kids :)

Correction: Princeton '00/UVA Law '03. I was subtracting 5 from my high school graduation year--d'oh.

It's starting to happen that way naturally as the cousins have started to have kids. It's just harder to wrangle them together and interrupt everyone's school, camp, sport, or vacation schedules. But my dad and his siblings (he's one of seven) have always been really close and they like getting together and they like dragging all the cousins together. I'm cool with my cousins and like most of them a lot (the rest I'm just friendly with) and I grew up with them because we had family reunions frequently.

So I like seeing my cousins and such, but my god we're being overrun by toddlers. Babies are fine. Pregnant women weird me out when I'm trapped with them (I hate riding the elevator in the one hospital building for that reason), and I dislike children. The threat of more of them has me in a swoon.

I feel you. The thought of having children even five years into marriage scares the shiznit outta me. I don't even want to think about them until I've traveled the world, oh, about a dozen times. And exhausted my ambitions. And done lots of other debatably productive but VERY NECESSARY things.

Yeah. Birth control, you'd better not fail me. ;P

Birth control is the bestest thing ever ::hugs pill pack:: Never, never leave home without it.

I wonder if I will ever change my mind. Something tells me not, but it keeps being raised as a possibility. ::shudders:: Even so not soon, nosir.

I love my family, I do

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