Change Your Own Diaper - Yes, I Would Make the Worst Mother

There is something wrong with my biological clock. It's not working. I don't hear any ticking. Nothing. Nada. Crickets. I might be the only living female who is almost 30, and not in the least concerned with having children.

To be perfectly honest, I would probably prefer to not have children. No one believes me. They think I'm lying or scared. My girlfriends call me crazy and brush off that statement as if I never really said it. Of course you want to have kids, they say, you're a woman. Every woman wants to have children.

And I tell them that I don't even like children. They smell, and slobber all over the place. And I have to pay attention to them, and play with them, when all I really want to do is watch some TV, maybe take a nap. But you'll love your own children. It's the most beautiful thing in the world, they insist.

And I tell them I'm not too keen on the responsibility. I like having my freedom to come and go as I please. What do you mean I have to PAY someone to watch it when I'm not around! This is worse than taking care of a dog, and I don't even have time for a dog. Dammit. And then my friends call me selfish. Selfish? Okay, maybe. But at least self-aware. And honest.

Why do you want to get married if you don't want kids, they demand. And I tell them that I look at marriage as two people who love each other and want to devote their lives to one other. Some choose to have families, some may be okay just being together without any additions. This for some reason evokes anger, as if I blew off the semester offering Being a Real Woman 101, when there was a waiting list for the class. Geez.

And to say something that will make most people gasp in shock and horror (and probably never read this blog again): I don't think pregnant women are beautiful. I think they look like they're pregnant. They look uncomfortable and swollen, and tired. They worry about their weight and their bloated ankles, the stretch marks on their stomachs, and the back pain that doesn't allow them to sit still for five minutes. These women do not look happy to me. And personally, I don't think a woman who looks like she's carrying a basketball under her shirt is very attractive. Waddling, hhhhmmm, not so nice. And unless that whole "inner glow" thing has something to do with the sweats after their morning sickness, I haven't seen much "glowing" going on.

Of course, this whole issue is premature, since I'm in no danger of getting knocked-up by anyone right now. Like my grandmother says, "First you need to find the donkey, before you can take him for a ride."

Unfortunately, all the men I meet want kids. And they don't want just one or two, they want a soccer team. And they expect me to stay home and take care of them. What happened to the good old days, when men viewed children as a burden, and only had them because their wives brow-beat them into it? Why can't I find a guy like that?

Men have it easy in the kid department. They get up, go to work, be intellectual, make money, talk to their buddies at the urinal, and come home to "Daddy, daddy, daddy!! I missed you! Look what I made!" while I stand in the doorway to the kitchen in an apron, covered in poop stains and magic marker, a spatula in one hand, and a baby dangling by its diaper in the other, my hair looking like I've been playing with electricity all day, matted with food that number three, the forward, thought would look better in my hair than in her mouth, while I watch the touching scene of my husband and number five, the goalie, unfold in my foyer. My husband plays with the future Pele for a little while, puts the baby down, eats his dinner, watches TV, gets his blow-job and goes to bed. Um yeah, I don't think so.

I think the only solution is to find an older man, divorced, with grown children. I could be the evil, younger trollop step-mother, after their daddy's money. The newer model, someone his ex-wife will call that "Chippy Bimbo." I could be a chippy bimbo. I could be THE chippy bimbo, as long as I don't have to have to kids.