Co-worker: So....do you have any kids?
Me: NO!!!
Co-worker: Well good for you!!!!
Me: Ugh....thanks?
Since when did being 23 years old with a zero product of offspring become a bench mark for success? I ask this to not challenge those with children at the ripe age of 23, but to ask why would someone even ask me that?
Yes, I am 23 and completely capable of procreating but I have so much more to offer right? I mean I did the whole college thing, got good grades, travelled the world (well not the "whole" world but give me another five years), and I speak another language. All of this before the quarter of a century age of 25. Whatever your definition of success is (because honestly Webster's dictionary does not take into account the billions of people world-wide who all live completely different lives), how could someone just pat you on the back and say "good job" for something that basically is a standard package among most people my age?
I feel like I have done so much and it doesn't even begin to describe what I want to do or accomplish. I am in no way, shape, or form, interested in having children or giving up my goals in life for that commitment yet. I guess it is like one of those chapters you come across in a book. You read the first page of the chapter and decide you can come back to the chapter later because it has absolutely no relevance to the book. So you dog-ear the page and decide you can come back to it...if you really feel like it.
Call me naive, and call me shockingly out of touch with reality but REALLY? Although my co-worker is a wonderful person, why did it seem like such an accomplishment to not have kids? After (shockingly) being a sociology major in college, I forced myself to disect this reminiscence of a socially conditioned way of thinking from both my prespective and that of my co-worker. We could not be anymore different than we are. We think completely differently and our social cues are out of sync. How much more blunt can I be? You see, her social experiences have taught her that it is common and not out of the ordinary to meet other woman my age that have children. Where as my social experiences have taught me that it is almost taboo or an affliction to have child at my age.
Which view is better? No one will ever know. But I'll be damned if I use my status as having zero dependents as a unrealistic measurement to my success. Its not like I had to try to NOT have kids.
However, I now realize that as I get older and work my way up (or down) the ladder of "life" that these kinds of questions will become more and more commonplace. Do you have kids? Are you married? Are you divorced? Are you retired? Are you an alcoholic (actually, I prefer to answer this question at any point in life)? Isn't it funny how the 'kid' question precedes the marriage one? That will have to be discussed another time. Just pleeeaasseee don't ask me in 20 years if I have any grandchildren. I will kill you.
Thanks.
