in young women when the leaders would bring their babies in and pass them around and everyone would go gaga over holding them, i was definitely the one who in my mind was like, "can we please give the baby back to its mom and focus on the discussion here?"

i did babysit for families in the ward. a lot. there weren't a lot of YW and people were always saying how responsible and grown up i was. there were a lot of families i babysat for. i liked it. it was easy, i was good at it, and it was lucrative. but looking back, what i enjoyed was helping myself to a little of something good in the fridge. i enjoyed looking through their movies and picking out something to watch for when the kids were in bed. i enjoyed getting paid to sit around and watch movies at someone else's house. i knew how to be an authority figure but i honestly never, ever played with the kids. i thought it was really awkward and i knew i was bad at it. at the time i didn't even think about this, and didn't realize it was weird. i did not necessarily enjoy the actual watching and being with the kids the way some other girls would, when they would positively GUSH over them.

i am the oldest of my siblings, and the oldest on one side of my extended family and among the oldest on the other side. so this meant--yep--built in babysitter. and all around my family is a BIG family. growing up i enjoyed, again, not the being with the kids but the respect that came with being seen as responsible to a fault, dependable, and on a some-what grown up level. and i can't remember all the moments that led up to me realizing this, but i realized at some point that having spent all that time watching kids and with kids as a kid myself and then as a teenager, made me feel one thing very definitely: i did my time. while i was in college and i would find myself in family settings again i would always be thinking how much i didn't miss it. i LOVED being in college and being around all people my own age for the first time. i was suddenly aware of this odd feeling i was having, which was, at what point do i get to be an adult and do adult things and not spend time with kids? i chalked it up to being pissy and didn't think more about it.

so for a while after i got married i went through this phase where i thought babysitting my friends and family may have ruined me from having kids because i really, really was ready to just do adult things and finally, permanently, graduate to the adult table.

i went through this phase when i was a junior in high school when i would talk about how excited i was to be a mom. (weirdest socialization to give teenage or younger girls, but okay society.) i would go on and on to my high school boyfriend about it, which we both knew was weird because we also both knew even then that we would not stay together and end up having a family together. (i was also going on and on at this time about how excited i was to be married and finally have sex which was equally awkward because this guy was also not going to be my husband and we both knew it. so, take it for what you will.) around this time we watched a sex ed video in health and in my response paper i wrote all about how glad i was that it focused on families and the ability to have kids and how great that was.

then i went through this phase as like a freshman in college where i was convinced having kids was the worst/best thing because i would be bringing them into a scary, broken world and it is hard to be alive and i would be the cause of their being alive, but this phase was short.

then i got married and almost immediately we realized how terrified we were of having kids and that we were both realizing we didn't want them right away and it became this hilarious joke. then we got comfortable with that and started realizing we might not want them for a long time.

it wasn't until a few months ago when i was listening to this interview with kate kelly (must have been mormon stories, but i just don't remember) when she said that she and neil are childless by choice, and how they realized that neither of them had ever felt very strongly about having kids and they decided to dedicate their lives to other, worthwhile pursuits. before that moment, i had legitimately never fully thought about and understood that you could just choose not to have kids and that was that! there was nothing wrong with you and people felt that way and it was okay.

i once saw an interview with lily allen where she talked about how much she had wanted kids and how much her family meant to her. i've long admired how she talked about her kids privacy, etc., but i loved what she said this time. she talked about how her family wasn't really close-knit growing up and she didn't always know if they would be there for her. but when she sees her kids and her husband, she knows, "these are my people." that was the simplest and most beautiful way i have ever heard someone describe family. like, here is someone who really should have kids and really does a seriously kick ass job at it. and in that moment i also realized that i feel that--ardently--for my own immediate family but have never felt that way about having kids of my own.

i have never talked about this except with my husband and on here. it's a really weird way to feel and a hard decision to make. i have friends who are struggling to have kids. friends who can't wait to have kids. i have friends who are worried they'll never have the opportunity to have kids. i worry about them and think about it all the time, and it gives me a lot of pause and heartache to objectively think of myself sitting here like, "yeah it's just not for me." my mom once started a discussion about birth control with me by saying that she and my dad got pregnant "just from breathing on each other" (thanks mom?)--it was that easy for them. and if i inherited that, then who am i to be the woman that's like, "nah," when others pray and hope and wait and cry?

and now i am getting more sure and also getting ready to go to law school and put in the hours that my first job and that an eventual law career will require and wishing for a more permanent solution, but what if we change our minds? what if my family found out? i don't know if they would ever accept this; how easy would it be to go a permanent route and then cop out of telling our families, like, "oh, we just can't have kids"? how many of their private prayers and fasts and hopes would be wasted? what a lie to live. it would be so easy. and so bad. and is this in general a decision i would ever be at peace--with myself and with others--about?