"You're married now. When do you plan on starting a family?"

If you ask me that question, you're most likely going to get a dirty look and some silent venom. I don't need to be married to have kids, and I certainly didn't decide to get married because I wanted kids. Kids are a topic Plosk and I agree on and have the same feelings about. But children are not my main goal in life and neither was getting married.

Humans like to think they are so different from animals. We explain with pride, 'we aren't simply put on this earth to procreate and die.' We're so superior. We can achieve great things, like language, books, paintings, theater, advancements in science and anything else you can imagine. So how come the main goal in many people's lives is to have kids, buy a big house and live out the rest of their existence. Where is the personal passion that is supposed to motivate this "individual" favored country. What are parents having children for? To simply further the species? Or are they putting kids on the earth to possibly do something different- create great art, discover something new. Or perhaps it's more selfish than having to do anything with the species. But if the main goal in life is simply to have children, then we are no different than animals. We have no other purpose than to perpetuate the cycle of life. Our brief visit to earth is then to simply cause another life to live just as briefly as ours and then die. Why not do something different while being caught in this cycle.

Perhaps I'm missing something- the joy of parenting. It's very possible since I'm not a parent. Maybe people just want to have the pleasure of raising a child. I'm not ready for that particular pleasure but it's one I will eventually experience. However, it is not my main goal in life. It is merely a part of an elaborate tapestry that contains all things that are important to me. My writing, my schooling, my marriage, my family, travel. All of them are connected and I couldn't imagine one without the other. But just because I'm married does not mean I now should have a child. A life where marriage and children are my only passion would be for me an empty life. I would ask, where are my goals? And what do I even have to offer a child or husband if I first didn't follow my own path? What kind of mother or influence would I be if I didn't have a life of my own combined with a life with my family.

In any case, before you ask, there are no children on my immediate horizon. Expect a book and a degree first.