Thursday, July 16, 2009

What Do You Mean 'I'm not ready?'

I'm starting to buck the normality of planning everything in one's life out down to a tee. Kind of funny really, since I'm a very practical person (perhaps too practical) - my parents were both bankers, what can I say? I've been raised to analyze, save money, prepare for the future, think ahead... But everyone's busy planning and preparing is starting to get to me a bit.

Sad story: Lady wants a baby. Her and her man decide to wait until they have a nice house. Wait until they have enough money put away, waiting, waiting, waiting for the "right time". One day she looks in the mirror and she's closer to 40 than she was to 30, and the clock is ticking. Her man loses his job - now where do they stand?

We've been getting pregnant for hundreds of thousands of years. We were CAVEWOMEN when we were getting pregnant - back when giant cats and animals were hunting us, and all we could really do was put pointy sticks together to protect ourselves, and hope that we would get fed sometime that week... So why is it now that before having kids, everyone HAS to have paid the mortgage, saved up boat loads of money and bought out BabiesRus? We've lost sight of the whole reproduction process and turned it into this big défit that makes babies The Ultimate Nightmare. Whatever happened to getting pregnant when you got pregnant and just being happy to have a baby...?
I guess my point is we've started building up all these standards of what wealth and security and responsibility is supposed to mean that we've lost sight of the essential - hundreds of thousands of years ago women were giving birth in caves, where they didn't have epiderals, or c-sections or a 10 year plan and look where we are today? We've overpopulated the planet?!?! Surely just about anyone can do better than pointy sticks and nooks in a cliff - so if you want a baby, just get pregnant already, and worry about the mortgage when you're 40 and can't have children anymore.