Home > Work > I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids
41 " You'd be such a good mom!" This statement is at best condescending and at worst patently false and potentially dangerous. It's like telling a friend who you know has a paralyzing fear of wild animals that she would make a great game warden. Seriously, she should just shake off her deep-seated anxiety and guide some poor, innocent family on a safari. I'm sure you'll do fine! "
― Jen Kirkman , I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids
42 " I envisioned the next phase of losing my friends to their children, which is when the people with kids realize that their childfree friends don't have any handy tips for them based on their own experience...so parents naturally gravitate toward other parents and they start to speak their own language. Nobody needs a childfree person there -- it wastes too much time to try to translate. I'm just going to come out and say it: this is the real reason lots of people end up changing their minds and having kids. They don't want to lose their friends. "
43 " She pulled the classic lie that every pregnant woman tells: 'I'm not going to have a cocktail with dinner because I'm on antibiotics. I have a cold.' You have a cold? Really? Why aren't you sneezing? Why didn't you cancel our date to go out for drinks if you had a cold? Why did you go to work today? No woman I know would ever listen to her doctor's warnings about alcohol - unless she was pregnant. If a doctor said to any of my girlfriends, 'Even one glass of wine tonight could bring about Armageddon,' they'd be like, 'Well, we've had fun here while it lasted. Can I get a pinot grigio? "
44 " Still, whenever someone asks me why I don't want to have kids, I think about how abandoned I feel when my friends get pregnant and that's usually the last little tiny little hint of a feeling that pushes me into the maybe territory - I just want my life to stay the same and keep my friends. Then I remember that losing sleep, picking boogers out of a child's nose, and having said booger maker wake me up every day at five thirty is not worth my bringing a human life into the world just because I could probably mimic the other parent chimps in the wild and manage to raise a kid without killing it. "
45 " Stretch pants and beach cover-ups are enablers. They’ll never tell you the truth like a pair of jeans that won’t go up your thigh. Stretchy clothing will accommodate you no matter how heavy you get, with no regard for your health. "
46 " One night Eli couldn’t sleep. He was talking as if he’d been reading a Nietzsche pop-up book. Right before I was about to turn out the light he asked, “Jen? Is there a God? "
47 " What if I were gay and someone said to me, “You’ll change your mind”? Would you agree and suggest that I say, “You’re right; I will probably stop being gay once I get this immature loving-the-same-sex thing out of my system”? Sounds stupid, right? Can’t people with children accept that we childfree people know ourselves? Why should I have to give in just to make them comfortable? The worst part is I tried that tactic. I’ve said, “Yeah, maybe,” and guess what? They don’t stop. The floodgates open and the next thing I know they’ve set a date for my baby shower. I can never, ever win. "