Baby talk

I won't lie. I get baby fever often. C and I have discussed many times when a baby will join the family. However, every time we do, it's painstakingly obvious our lives aren't ready just yet. 

We both want things out of our lives before having a kid. I feel like that's a good thing. A healthy thing. I want to graduate and work for a bit. Save some money, pay off some debt, go on some trips. 

I think people forget that those things really are possible before having a child. You just have to work for it.

I get so sick of hearing from people, "If you wait to be ready to have a kid, then you'll never have kids." 

Today, C responded to that with,

"I think that statement is completely delusional. You can absolutely be ready to have a kid. Only people that aren't ready to have kids think otherwise. I mean we can look and say, 'this is where we want to be when we have a kid,' and we absolutely can get there."

I mean, how true is that? How does that not make perfect sense to everyone? You have control over when you have a child. You have control over other factors in your life, too (finances, debt, stability, etc). 

Sure, unexpected things come up. Things you can't control happen. That's not the point. The point is, you can structure your life in a way to handle those things. I mean, if something happens to your car and it's going to cost upward of $500 to get it fixed and you can't handle that... then the truth is you probably can't handle a baby without large amounts of help from other people. 

I don't mean that to sound harsh, I just mean it to imply you can have a cushion of 'emergency' money put back to handle... emergencies. You can have a fund of baby money put back to handle baby items. You can have a sum of money set aside for unexpected healthcare needs. You can build up your finances to handle some of these things that happen unexpectedly before you have a baby. You might not be able to handle it all, and there might be things happen bigger than anything I've mentioned, but at least you'd be on the right track to dealing with the surprises life throws at you. 

It's like a generational stereotype that you have to have kids in your 20's. Not to say that I won't, because I probably will have my first kid in my 20's. It's just frustrating to hear all the excuses and pressure to have a kid right now. 

I like deciding at 9 o'clock in the morning that we're going to drive to St. Louis and go the zoo. Or deciding at 10 o'clock at night that we're going to run to Walmart and get ice cream. I like going to the movies and going out to eat. I like hanging out with our cousins or close friends for like a whole day on short notice. I like planning big vacations like orca snorkeling. 

Not to say that you can't do all of these things when you have kids, but anyone who says it isn't harder to do these things with kids is not being fully honest. A lot more planning is involved and you have to sacrifice a lot of things to earn a good parent status. 

Here's where I go way off into the conceded deep end. My hypothetical, future baby is already put first. Because, I am already structuring my life around making sure that it's the best it can be to greet a baby. We have a lot of time left to have kids. I'm not in any rush.