I had a conversation today with a good friend – we’ll call her A. – about some other friends who are trying to get pregnant.  And it led to the discussion of having kids.  And A., who I sometimes feel I know better than myself, surprised me by saying that she wanted to have kids.  That she wasn’t ready yet, but that it was just something that she knew she would do “somewhere down the line.”

It left me thinking that I’m one of three women I know who really has no desire to have kids.  All of my friends say to me, “Oh, that will change when you meet the right guy” or “Don’t worry, you’ll get the mommy urge soon.”  But really, there’s just no nothing.   My biological clock is NOT ticking…at least not when it comes to kids.  So, of course, after this conversation with A. today, the inevitable questions start rolling over in my mind.  “Is there something wrong with me?”

It’s not that I don’t like kids.  I think a lot of “kid people” interpret people who say they don’t want kids with meaning they don’t like kids.  That may be the case for some people, but not for me.  I adore children. But I just don’t want any of my own.  It’s not the responsibility that scares me or anything like that, and I know I’d be an okay mom.  I just don’t have this “urge” that everyone keeps saying I should have.

It makes me sad sometimes.  I think about what will happen when I’m old.  With no kids, when I’m in my 50s and all my friends are going to their kids houses to celebrate Christmas, will I have to celebrate by myself? When I’m 85 and in a nursing home?  Who will come visit me?  And yet, even that thinking doesn’t change the fact that there’s nothing inside spurring me towards having kids…

Promise you’ll all come visit me?  So I’m not alone?