Please don’t misunderstand. I love kids – the smaller the better. I love my nieces and my nephew. I’m looking forward to the day when my younger sister & her husband decide to start trying to create their own little mini-mes, mostly because I can snuggle them and smooch them and spoil them without ACTUALLY taking any long-term responsibility for them.

First and foremost, LABOR. I think we all know where this one is heading.

Most women endure the pain of labor under the pretense that they’ll be taking home a soft, pink bundle of sweetness they can cuddle and love and brag about to their friends because OH ISN’T HE/SHE ADORABLE? And for about five minutes, he/she is.

I seem to be lacking whatever biological element makes women overlook the fact that for AT LEAST six years FOLLOWING nine months of bloat and back pain and cravings that would normally make them wrinkle their nose they won’t have a life of their own (you know, until baby X goes to Kindergarten for a few hours a day).

I can’t imagine having a baby of my own. For starters, after watching Izzy for a mere eight hours or so (beginning at the watery light of dawn) I thought of how little sleep parents get to have. I love to sleep. Except for naps. Naps bug me. Naps make me feel like I’m starting my day all over again and needing another shower to rinse off the lingering grogginess. But solid, middle of the night sleep? I can doze with the best of them. Lazy Sundays are my favorite. If I had a baby, my Sundays would be spent entertaining the baby or feeding the baby or washing the multiple outfits the baby puked on. Not so fun.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, I feel like parents SHOULD devote all their time and energy to raising their kids. (I blame a lot of the problems with today’s youth on absent parents). When you have a baby, they SHOULD become your life. Your whole life.

Meanwhile, I like my life. I like sleeping in and taking spur of the moment trips (not that I do that very often – I should really take more trips) and having drinks with my friends and spending my money on lipstick and jeans instead of diapers and formula.

Maybe someday my priorities will change, but currently I can’t see myself becoming a mother. I have way too much respect for exhausted, selfless, actual mothers to count myself as a potential candidate.