I have a male cousin who is quickly approaching 40 and his beautiful wife isn’t far behind him. We saw them at the Thanksgiving Feast and they gushed, cooed and ohhhhhed over my little princess. They don’t have children so they were subjected to the usual barrage of "when are ya’ll gonna reproduce" and "it’s ya’ll’s turn next" and "you really need to make your mom and dad into grandma and grandpa". Our extended family just loves little children and thinks that everyone should have 4 or 5. I got the feeling from both of them that they weren’t going to have children, even though they didn’t come out and say if they were or weren’t. Needless to say, they were harassed the whole time by everyone.

Later when my siblings and I converged back at my parent’s house cousin and beautiful wife showed up as well (what can I say, we are the fun branch of the family tree). The boys went outside to play on the tractor, or with the cows and chickens, or whatever it is that guys do while hanging around outside, leaning on the back of the pickups – come to think about it, the ice chest’s were in the back of the pickups, so that’s what the boys were doing. Shame on you boys, next time share your tasty beverages with us girls! Anyways, we were talking pregnancy trash, birthing techniques, constipation, sleeplessness and weight gain issues related to pregnancy and my 22 yr old niece said that she couldn’t wait to be a fat pregnant woman and that she hopes to gain 50 lbs whenever she gets pregnant. This is where beautiful (tall, skinny) cousin’s wife piped in and said that she didn’t want to get pregnant because she didn’t want to gain 50 lbs. What – you don’t want to procreate because you’re afraid of a little weight gain?????

After she left, we were sitting around talking about how we couldn’t believe she made that statement and how selfish she was if that was the only reason she didn’t want kids and what a shame that aunt and uncle weren’t going to be made into grandparents. We really drug her through the mud and I’m sure her ears were burning for hours after she left. As a mother of 3 very lovely children what she said really bothered me and I couldn’t get it out of my mind for several days. So I thought about it and analyzed it and thought about it some more. Then I heard about the woman in Texas who severed her 11 month old daughter’s arms off and I remembered Andrea Yates and then little Princess got a sinus infection and because she likes to put her fingers in my mouth while she’s feeding I also got one and I was having to take care of Princess while I was sick and she was waking up 2 -3 times a night and I’m 40 now and still have to get up and go function at work the next day while blowing my nose 50,000 times – enough that the end of it scabbed over and I was already using the tissues with lotion. Then oldest son’s hearing for 2nd offense of drug possession came up and I thought – hey, maybe she isn’t selfish after all. Being a parent isn’t easy and the handbook doesn’t come out right after the umbilical cord is cut.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my children and if I had to do it all over again I would have them and several more, but I have to applaud the woman who knows she doesn’t want kids, even if it’s because she doesn’t want to gain 50 lbs. Because if she didn’t lose that 50 lbs, chances are that she would end up resenting the child and the good Lord knows that we already have enough unwanted children in this world. So my point here is that being a woman I have the prerogative to change my mind and in this case I did. I no longer think that a woman (or a man for that matter) is selfish if they don’t wish to add to the world’s population – I applaud them for knowing that they don’t whatever their reasons are.