A Thing That Happens to You When You Turn 35: Everyone Tells You to Have a Baby

So, I’m super naive, because I was not expecting this to happen. I’ve been 35 for a week now, and in that time, no fewer than five separate people have told me to have a baby.

Let me be clear: All of these folks brought this up out of the clear blue sky. At no time did I say that I wanted to have a baby, or that I was trying to have a baby, or that I wondered if perhaps I should have a baby. I’ve started baby-related conversations before and had people take it to the fertility advisement stage, and I sort of think that’s my fault. Or at the very least, it’s not theirs.

But I do think it’s weird that so many people care whether or not my uterus is babied up. This might be because I’m a jerk. I honestly do not give two craps about other people’s fertility decisions. It’s not because I have boundaries, because I don’t. It’s because I’m self-centered, and thinking about my own life takes up all of my time.

The interesting thing is how really worried many of the folks who talked to me seemed to be. It was preying on their minds. This is kind of nice, actually. Obviously, they really were concerned about my happiness.

What I really wonder is: When did we, as a society, get the idea that we get to have everything we want? I do want to have a kid, but for various financial, health, and life reasons, that’s not going to happen for a little while. I hope it happens eventually, but if it doesn’t, well, thems the breaks.

When I was in my early 20s, there were tons of articles about women delaying child bearing. Most of them made it sound like you could put it off til you were in diapers yourself. Then, when I was about 25, the articles changed. All of a sudden, the prevailing attitude seemed to be that your odds of getting pregnant after 26 were only slightly greater than your odds of actually morphing into a baby.

I know by writing about this, I’m risking having my lovely friends see it and think I’m saying that they’re … I don’t know, wrong somehow. And I hope I make it clear how much I appreciate the fact that people care enough to give me advice. You guys are the best. If I do have a baby someday, I will name it after all of you and insist that its elementary school teacher refers to it by its full name at all times.