I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids QUOTES

1 " I finally understand that it’s okay to be a little afraid of things but that obsessing over them does not mean you have any more control over what you fear. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

2 " Invalidating a woman’s life choices by saying things like, “Oh, but you’ll regret it if you don’t have kids,” or, “I didn’t think I wanted kids either until I had one,” is like me going to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and telling the newly sober that eventually when they grow old, they’ll want to take the edge off with a little gin and tonic and that if they could only just be mature enough to control themselves, they could go on a fun wine-tasting tour in the Napa Valley. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

3 " I had no idea that marriage was only supposed to be between two people who wanted to get between the sheets and make more people. What ever happened to marrying for love— or to get on your partner’s health insurance policy, or for presents? No one was going to buy two people in their thirties a four-slice toaster if we just continued to live in sin. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

4 " If you put any effort into anything you do and have a strong sense of self to the point where you don’t even question your choices before you walk out of the house— you’re a fucking weirdo. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

5 " I can barely forgive myself for the time when I negged Billy from my improv troupe onstage. He said, “I have a gift for you,” and my first instinct was to say, “No you don’t.” The scene died right then and there. See what happens when I try to nurture something? I know it seems dramatic to relate destroying an improv scene to possibly destroying a child’s life, but improv and child rearing are not so different. Both are jobs that people volunteer for and complain about endlessly, and they bore everyone around them as they talk about the process. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

6 " I resent having to refer to my career as my baby in order to explain myself to parents. It suggests that as long as a woman has something she feels maternal toward, then she passes as a regular human being.
"She want to swaddle her career! So we'll make an exception and give her a pass."
Women don't have to have maternal urges to be women. My career is not my surrogate baby, just like my car is not my surrogate sex slave just because I turn it on and ride it.
Men don't call their careers their sons or daughters. A fireman without kids doesn't have to pretend his job is his baby replacement. "Oh yeah, when I walk up those forty flights of stairs fighting back the burning and falling asbestos, I just cradle the hose in my arms and think, 'this is my baby'. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

7 " Listen, it is scientifically proven that pregnant women get super horny, because it helps them hold onto their mate who impregnated them. If they weren't horny, their mate would just be living with an overweight pickle-eater who stopped shaving her legs.
Yet every pregnant woman tells anyone who will listen (I'm looking at you, Jessica Simpson) that she's, "eight months pregnant, and has never felt sexier or hornier!"
Guess what? If you didn't feel sexy or horny during your eighth month of pregnancy, you'd be crying in a ball on the bedroom floor, clutching a snot-filled tissue, and wearing your food-stained fleece pajama bottoms as your cheating husband walked out the door with your non-pregnant pilates instructor. It is not interesting that you are horny when pregnant. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

8 " ... I think that childfree by choice is the new gay. We're the new disenfranchised group. People think we're irresponsible, immoral sluts and that our lifestyle is up for debate. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

9 " Can we all admit that the sound of a kid squealing, even if it’s with joy, sounds like squealing? I can angrily press the button on an air horn or I can press the button on an air horn with a sense of carefree fun and either way it sounds like an air horn. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

10 " It's a weird thing society puts on us women. They tell us we can have careers (well, after they told us we could vote-they sort of said it would be ok if we wanted to have a career, as long as we agree to get paid less than a man for the same job), and then they tell us that we aren't real women if we have careers but no babies, and if we dare pick a career over a baby...we better at least talk about that career like its a baby in order to blend in and not call attention to the fact that we're selfish women who are not carrying on the human race. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

11 " tantrum. I don’t want to have a baby but sometimes I want to be a baby because it’s socially acceptable for them to cry and scream in public. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

12 " I have a stand-up routine I do about masturbation and the unwanted thoughts that go through women's heads when they put their hands under their sheets. I need a story to think about. I need a fantasy that makes sense. I can't just finger myself and picture Johnny Depp's face. It needs a sense of realism, like how did I meet Johnny Depp? He lives in France. I don't have a work visa. Besides, he has children and I've made it quite clear that I don't want to be a mom and I don't want to be stepmom either. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

13 " And perhaps the best reason of all: “Kids? What the fuck am I going to do with a kid? "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

14 " It’s not that I can’t cook. I just don’t enjoy cooking. It takes too long and you have to stand there monitoring everything, which doesn’t work well for me and my ADHD. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

15 " like as long as you’re cleaning up some living thing’s poop after age thirty, family members really respect that lifestyle choice. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

16 " The bottom line is that the choices we make often make sense to us but can confuse others. Somebody is always going to be disappointed with your life choice, and my rule of thumb is that as long as I’m not the one who is disappointed, I can live with that. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

17 " I THINK THAT people confuse a woman with empathy with someone who has the emotional means to raise a child. I’m not mother material but I’m a nice person, sure. And I’m a nice person because I’m usually in a good mood and I’m usually in a good mood because I’m not responsible for raising a child I don’t want. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

18 " I'd learned that you couldn't talk to kids about death or show them music videos of of men who sing in eyeliner. I possibly had turned one kid into an obsessive-compulsive with the urge to murder, and another kid gay. I'm not equating being a murderer with being gay, but from what I understand, either can be a difficult thing to admit to your family. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

19 " I’d love to be considered unselfish and Christlike, but as a woman it’s nearly impossible. Jesus had a penis, so he could feed a homeless person without the dude saying, “Hey, I know phones haven’t been invented yet but can I have your number?” Jesus could be nice to strangers without them getting the wrong idea and calling him a tease. And let me remind you once again that Jesus, aka the original Oprah, did not have children either. 7. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

20 " You know who does a lot of good deeds and doesn't have kids and totally understands what's important in life? George Clooney. Unlike me, he doesn't give a fuck what you think about the fact that he's not "selfless" enough to father a kid. He's not writing a book defending his position. He's having sex with a cocktail waitress and then saving Darfur. Both are noble positions. "

― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids