This subject has come up recently in my personal life between me and my girlfriend as a result of having an increasing number of our friends taking steps into marriage and into starting families. Putting this under perspective, I am about to turn 22 in April and my girlfriend just turned 23. There is a rant there just about the inappropriateness of people making huge life decisions in their early 20s, but I'll spare you all from that.
It is my personal opinion that at this stage in my life, and moving into the foreseeable future, me having a child would be utterly irresponsible. It is not that me nor my girlfriend are crazy people. I'm about to graduate from college and become a high school teacher and she has a decent job working at a hospital. We aren't party people. We are financially responsible. Besides some of the craziness that enters into our lives by our friends, we are drama free types of people just trying to begin our lives the right way.
It would be irresponsible in the sense of what we would be bringing a child into. While me and my girlfriend have known each other for over three years have have dated for about two, we are still quite far from knowing if we are right for each other. I am still far from being in a position to take care of myself, let alone take care of another person. I'm not ready to put down my life, my dreams, my experiences right now. And until I'm willing to put that aside, it's really irresponsible to want to bring in a child.
Right now and in the near future, children freak me out too much. How in the hell I'll be able to support myself and my child financially. How it will affect my relationship and get in the way of sharing a life and a dream with someone I truly love and want to be with. How it will affect my plans to move to another state or travel around during the summers. I have no clue how to be a father. My father was distant, angry, and didn't want to be in my life. I'm not close to being ready for it. I look at anyone in my group of friends, and they seem less ready for it than we do based on some of the things they have ended up doing. And yet, they're getting married and beginning to start families already.
It also just straight up freaks me out in really irrational ways. I couldn't handle it right now or any time soon. It freaks out my girlfriend too, but more in the sense of the bodily changes and the pregnancy complications of going through it. Things that make sense. For me, babies just freak me out. I don't like holding babies because I feel like I'm going to accidentally hold it wrong or drop it or something. I don't have the patience for dealing with younger kids. I get frustrated with them too easily. Working in high schools, I'm pretty comfortable with teenagers because they are at least rational. But I have no idea how I would try to get a teenager to understand the world and the big picture of life? To see how protected and how different things are in the real world. Prepare them for the understanding of life and how to reach them.
I'm so freaked out about it that I've honestly never had traditional intercourse. I don't feel comfortable with it. My girlfriend is on birth control because of hormonal reasons. We have access to condoms and other contraceptives. But because of the possibility that sex might lead to a child and because we are both extremely uncomfortable with abortion, we just both have never done it. No other reason but that we're both that freaked out and couldn't handle it. And that even if it didnt freak us out, we still aren't at the point that we would be comfortable knowing that we could assure a good life for our child.
Maybe this will all change when I get older. People say always tell me and that "I'll change when I get older." But honestly, I don't think so. I'd be more than happy sharing my life with whatever wonderful woman I end up being with. I'll be far more content with that than wanting to enter into the unknown of a family. I know I do not want children until I am at least 35. I would hope by then that my life is stable. That I have done a lot of what all I want to do in my life. That I feel comfortable knowing that whatever relationship I am in will be stable long term and that we will me more than alright being committed to each other while raising a child for at least 18 years. Maybe then I will want to have kids. Then, maybe all my crazy fears and irrationality will be gone and I'll feel more comfortable.
But right now and for the next 10 years, anything dealing with pregnancy would be extremely unwelcome. And right now, at this stage in my life, I have a significant other who agrees.
