Pregnant is the new black...

Everywhere I turn, it seems people are procreating. I feel as though a boom started in Hollywood a few years back with people like Britney Spears and Katie Holmes and ever since then, every fertile woman of child-bearing age in America has decided to get knocked up. Maternity clothes are all super stylish now, and you can get all sorts of cute, designer baby clothes for your child to throw-up on and poop all over. Maybe I am just hypersensitive to this because I am at an age where many of my friends are beginning to feel their biological clocks start ticking. I have a couple of close girlfriends who will likely be "with child" within the year, simply because regardless of their situations, they've decided it's time. This is incomprehensible to me. I think I might be missing the "maternal gene". I've been on the fence for years, about whether or not I want to have kids. I'll admit, I entertained the idea when my ex and I were together, but I'm a bit of a control freak and I never felt stable or secure enough with him to go through with it. (Thank God) Also, to be perfectly honest, most kids annoy the crap out of me and/or scare me. I view them as tiny sociopaths. They have no concept of right or wrong and care very little about the consequences of their actions. It's unsettling. Of course, everyone I tell this to gives me the parenting tagline: "Oh, you'll feel differently when they're your own." To this I reply: "What if you're wrong?" One of my biggest fears is that I will have a kid and I won't like him/her. Then what? My understanding is, you can't return them. I just spent a week with my brother, his wife and my two beautiful nephews, who are 2 years old and 4 months old respectively. I will admit that I love these two little beings, possibly more than anything else in the world, but after spending a few days with them, I was exhausted. In my head, I multiplied how I felt by about twenty, and was suddenly aware of how my poor sister-in-law must feel every day of her life. I'm not sure I could do it and I'm not sure I want to. Parenting tagline #2: "Your whole life changes when you have a baby, but you get used to it because it's sooo worth it." To this I reply: "What if I don't want my whole life to change?" I like staying up until 3 a.m. and sleeping until noon. I like going out dancing and drinking and enjoy eating at nice restaurants. I like having perky boobs and good bladder control. I know there is a chance I will change my mind someday and decide I want to be "Mommy", but for right now I am perfectly happy being nothing more than "Aunt Jess".