NOTE: Starting now you will have the opportunity to read rants from some of friends. In the first ever "Guest Rant" here on Rant Rav!ngs, Bradley Reid Freeny II ponders the pressure society puts on young married couples to procreate.
Having a Baby
Don’t get excited by the title of this post. Britney is not pregnant. Neither am I. The purpose of this post is just to express my observations and experiences as someone in his late twenties and without child.
One of the first questions I receive from someone that I have not seen in a while is inevitably in regard to our plans to have children.
The conversation usually goes something like this:
Friend/Relative: So, any children coming soon?
Britney/Brad: Oh, one day. Not in the near future.
Friend/Relative: (shocked) What?!?!
Britney/Brad: Oh, you know, maybe in about four years.
Friend/Relative: FOUR YEARS!!!! You can’t wait THAT long! You’ll be too old!
Britney/Brad: Oh, well, we will go ahead and have one now and send him/her to you to take care of.
We don’t really say that last line. We don’t really know what to say.
My question is, who decides when a couple should have a baby? There is a lot of pressure from family and society in general to have them sooner rather than later. I believe you’ve got to do what is right for you, not what other people think you should do. If you want a baby right now and feel you are ready, go ahead, have one. If you aren’t ready, why is there this social stigma that is placed on you?
We are at a point in our lives in which we just want to enjoy each other. We want to do the things that we may not be able to do once we have children. Some people see that as selfish. I don’t see it that way. When we have children, I want to be ready. That means different things for different couples. For us it means our thirties. Or at least we think it does. It seems that in the eyes of society this makes us strange, weird, stuck-up, immature, etc. Why is this?
I am fully aware that things don’t often go as planned. As Robert Burns wrote, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.” If our plans gang a-gley, we are ready to welcome the unexpected blessing. But just because plans don’t always work out, that is not a reason to abandon one’s plan.
Don’t worry, Mom. We will provide a grandchild for you soon enough. And when we do, we know who to call to babysit!
Bradley Reid Freeny II is a highschool teacher where he opens young minds to the wonders of the Spanish language. He currently resides with his wife Britney in Clinton, MS.
It doesn't get any better after you have one either. Then it's, "When are you going to have another one?" Then they are appalled if you don't plan to have any more. I get that response about every other day. What is so bad about being an only child? It's not the end of the world.
And what an inappropriately personal question to ask someone, weather relative or not.
Posted by: Glenda Ratcliff | March 25, 2009 at 07:20 PM
Arghhhhh!
Posted by: Bradley Reid Freeny II | April 05, 2009 at 11:32 PM