Say "No" to Babies

Interesting facts:
U.S.A. birth rate (2008): 14.18 per 1000 population (0.975%)
Niger birth rate (20008): 49.62 per 1000 population (2.878%)

Hmm, so the U.S. is not maintaining its population because its birth rate is below 1...and Niger is almost tripling its population!

Let's just put this out there right now: I do not want kids for at least another ten years!

Ok, so anyway, the subject of parenthood makes me so uncomfortable! It all started my senior year of high school (2006-2007)...

In order to graduate, every senior at my high school has to do a quarter (half a semester) of mandatory community service. Most people get assigned to local Head Start chapters as teaching assistants. We didn't really have to do much except keep the kids engaged, watch them on the playground and help them eat, but, by the time my shift was over I was so tired! THEN, after I graduated, I spent the summer before my freshman year of college helping at a summer fun program at Pearl Harbor. For four hours, three times a week I would stand out in the sweltering sun, teaching military brats how to play tennis. When I say brats, I mean it in an "I'm-convinced-that-the-stereotype-is-correct" kind of way. Those kids were so bad! Apparently they didn't see me as an authority figure, so they ran me and my teaching partner around the court--literally! The only reason I stayed around to the end was because I was getting $15 an hour to teach something I know a ton about. I've always known that I would like to have kids some day, but definitely not in the close future!

The thing about living and growing up in a place as small and confined as Hawaii is that you end up spending waaay too much time with family. When you spend this much time with your family, the subject of starting your own family is bound to come up sooner or later. In my case, not having kids isn’t really an option for me because of several factors. First of all, my grandparents are super Asian! They believe that we need to “pass on the family name” and have a lot of kids to take care of us when we get old. Secondly, my parents had a little trouble conceiving, so they absolutely love kids and have my parenting life all planned out. They want my kids to go to Punahou, come over to grandma and grandpa’s house after school and I’m sure they’ve already picked out wallpaper for their play room! Thirdly, my extended families are all Mormons. There are a couple things you think about when someone says “Mormons”: Utah, the raids on those child labor or underage marriage ranches and lots of babies! I have 24 first cousins, and because my brother and I are the youngest in the family by far, most of my cousins have babies of their own. I’ve given up trying to remember their names already, which makes family parties kind of awkward. Everyone around me expects to have kids and it has never bothered me because I was always so much younger and I felt like I had so much time left. Because most of my cousins got married straight out of undergrad school, now that I’m twenty, I’m beginning to feel a little pressure!

Part of me is really bothered by that pressure. I know I got pressured into going away for my first year of college, at a time in my life when I wasn’t ready to be independent, and I don’t want the same thing to happen with me and parenting. When it comes to kids, I respect people who have kids enough to know that I am not at that level yet. I cannot put someone else’s life ahead of mine and, although I would step in front of a train for my family, I’m not ready to sacrifice my career, future, plans, life, etc. for a defenseless little thing just yet. Maybe it is a good thing that I don’t find little kids cute or cuddly; I know they don’t like to be around me so it works out. All I know is that this is one area I cannot afford to make mistakes in. Having a kid is not like drinking too much or taking illegal drugs. Those things you do to yourself, and the damage, for the most part, is limited to your own life, but having a baby now would be the end of the life I live for “me,” and that baby would remind me of that one crappy decision. I can’t imagine how I would deal with the regret I would feel after I realized, post-baby, that I had lofty goals I didn’t even give myself a fair chance to achieve.