Ever since I got married…no scratch that…ever since I got engaged, I’m constantly bombarded with questions from others if we are going to have kids or WHEN we are going to have kids. And every single time that topics is brought up to me, I instantly start sweating and get anxiety. It’s not a topic I take lightly. I don’t just say to myself, “Yeah, let’s have kids! That will be so fun and everything will be great!” No. I think through that kind of stuff. Because kids are forever. They don’t just go away. They rely on you to raise them, to wipe their bums, to help them become upstanding citizens. And at 28 years old, I’m just not ready for someone else to rely on me. That may be selfish, but I think selfish is the best thing to be until you are truly ready to become a selfless person who puts yourself second. And I’m just not there.
[powerpress]
When I decided to make this a podcast episode, I wrote out a pros and cons list to having a baby. So here’s the quick rundown.
Pros
- My husband would be an awesome father
Cons
- You have to grow a child inside of you then birth it – and all the body and gross stuff that goes with it. I’ve worked very hard to become comfortable with who I am and how I physically look and it’s scary to lose some of that
- Fertility issues – I’ve seen so many friends go through it and it looks so incredibly challenging both mentally and physically
- Financially – children are expensive AF. Finally being able put money into a retirement account and feel more stable for the future is so great and it’s scary to let some of that go.
- You don’t get to sleep much with children
- Lack of sleep leads to a tough relationship with your partner
- Lack of sleep leads to issues with cortisol which can lead to weight issues
- Lack of sleep just really sucks
- Less working out
- I know this is a sketchy subject, I have just seen most of the people I know who used to workout religiously just not care as much about working out anymore. When they have the choice of working out or going home to their child, they obviously want to see their children. I know you can make it work, I just so often see people do the opposite, so that scares me.
- Changes to your relationship
- I don’t personally know any people whose relationship has gotten stronger since they had children.
- Stress to the relationship and different opinions about disciplining your children
- I work all the time and my husband does too – not sure how we would change that. Because I don’t want to work less and I don’t think he could. Which leads to more financial stress to hire a nanny.
- It’s your duty to raise an upstanding citizen, while not knowing what the hell you’re doing yourself.
- What if you raise a serial killer?
- What if they get in with the wrong crowd?
- What if they don’t get their sh*t together and live with you FOREVER?!
I know this comes off as a really pessimistic way to look at things, but I’m just being realistic about it. I think it’s smart to think through these things because so often people just have children and the children aren’t raised in the best environment. I want to feel ready, be ready, and have way less on my cons list. I think more people should really think this sh*t out. Think how different our world would be if they did.
At the end of the day, who knows if I’ll someday want children. If I don’t, I think I will have an awesome life. If I do, I think I’ll have an awesome life. But in the meantime, I just want to hang out with my husband, save money, and do cool sh*t. But next time you’re about to ask a person if they are planning to have kids, remember that they may be going through these things that I listed above and it may not be something they want to talk about with you, let alone think about. So think before you ask.
Next week is another random questions episode so if you have any questions you’d like answered, no matter what the topic is, let me know! Just leave a comment below or on social media!
Episode 10 Transcription:
This is Juli Bauer from PaleOMG and you are listening to PaleOMG Uncensored.
Juli Bauer: Well hey there guys! How you doing today? Right now, I don’t know when the hell you’ll be listening to this, but for me this is the day after Thanksgiving. So I have still plenty of work to get done. But you know, I’m feeling like it’s the day after Thanksgiving, and I don’t want to f*cking do anything, ok? That’s how I feel today. But the show must go on. Sadly, the show is not going on, because I just failed really hard with muffins, because I forgot baking soda and baking powder. So they’re just blocks of thick goo. I mean, they’re still edible, but I’m going to try to stay away from them, you know, since I just ate Thanksgiving food yesterday, and I don’t need to be eating globs of sticky goo. Get my sh*t together.
So I hope your Thanksgiving was great. I hope that last weeks’ episode; we talked about how to eat healthy while traveling and during the holidays; I hope that helped a little bit. I think I personally kept my sh*t together pretty well. I only was a little bit full, but not crazy overly full. I just hate feeling overly full. You know when you feel like you can’t take a deep breath in; that is one of my least favorite feelings. So, I think I kept it together rather well. I did a workout in the morning yesterday, and a workout this morning. Combat it because I finished it with Thanksgiving leftover. So I don’t really know if that was pointless or not; whatever.
But Thanksgiving was good, and I hope yours was wonderful, and I hope you feel good afterwards, and you’re still kicking ass at life because; why does Thanksgiving need to be that time where you just feel awful? Nobody needs that. Nobody wants that, right? Right?!
Ok, let’s get into this today. I was going to say; that’s what I always do. Before my podcast, I’m kind of putting it off, and so I get on Facebook. And I don’t get on Facebook very often; like, my PaleOMG Facebook page. I tried to kind of skim it just in case there were any questions on the post that I posted; but I stay off of it pretty much because the trolls. Literally the worst trolls come out; come out of their little hidden troll world and out into the light. So I kind of stay away from Facebook, but of course I was putting off doing my podcast, and didn’t want to go do the laundry and didn’t want to vacuum; so I got on Facebook and then started reading. Some lady was just; she was on a tyrant. She was not happy about me posting a jacket photo. She was very, very unhappy with that fact and wanted it to be known. It’s just so strange. I don’t understand why people get so upset when I post something that’s helpful to others. It’s like; “Hey; do you need a new jacket? I found one that I love. Here’s an idea.” “Hey, do you need free recipes? Here’s 650.” Just always get so riled up on Facebook; it’s like the devil world. Do you think Facebook will ever go away? I don’t see it go anywhere, but I really wish it would. I really wish it would.
Anywho. She; I don’t think she had a very good Thanksgiving, because it was right around Thanksgiving. Her name was Breezy something; hopefully Breezy is back up and up, girlfriend. I hope you’re doing better. I hope you’re thankful and grateful for the world around you; not necessarily my post, but everyone else that surrounds you, hopefully in a positive way. Or I just hope you go away and not come to my Facebook anymore; thanks.
Anywho. Ok, this topic is just totes something I personally wanted to talk about, because it’s something on my mind all the time, mostly because of other people; thanks other people. But, it’s weird when you get married, people ask you all the time when you’re going to have kids. Or if you’re going to have kids, or if you’re pregnant. Those questions seem to get thrown around a lot. Especially at my gym, because the people at my gym know that I’m so not interested in that, and they know that it annoys me so they just bombard me with those types of comments and questions all the time, so it’s really quite lovely. It’s lovely.
But you know, what happens is you get married, and people think it’s ok to ask you questions about having sex and making a baby. People think that’s totally cool. I think it’s just people don’t know what else to talk about, so they just ask you that. It’s never like; “Yeah, you just got married. You have money; both of you are getting money, together, are you going to go on cool vacations? Are you going to do fun sh*t?” No. it always has to do with kids.
So, I’m going to kind of do that topic today. It’s more so of a therapeutic session; and it’s always nice when I get to talk to people who have gone through, or are going through, or feel the same way that I do, because I think society is a norm that you’re just expected to have kids and that’s what everybody did. I mean, obviously our parents did it, that’s we became people on this earth. So it’s just something that’s always thought about. I mean, I grew up thinking; I was like, ok, I’ll get married, have kids, and that’s that. Because that’s what I saw my parents doing.
But as I got older, I don’t really feel that way anymore. So society taught me something, and I don’t really feel like I have to follow society. As you get older, obviously, you feel that way. You’re like; “Oh, well my mom used to tell me I had to do this and I don’t actually have to do this. I can decide it on my own.” So as I grew up; I mean, thinking about myself, I hated childhood. I did not like being a child. It’s not like I had a bad upbringing; my parents were awesome. I grew up in a really amazing community, and I had great friends. I just did not like being a child. I wanted to make my own money, I wanted to live on my own, I wanted to do whatever I wanted to do. That’s how I always felt. I think I thought, “Oh yeah, I’ll have kids.” when I was a little kid.
But then as I got older, I was like; god, I just want to be an adult. I just want to be in my 30s, because 30s seemed like the coolest age. That’s what it always looked like to me. And I still feel that way; I can’t wait for my 30s, I think it’s just going to keep getting better and better over time; at least it has. So I just wanted to be an adult, and as I’ve gotten to become an adult, I’m like, “F*ck yeah, being an adult is awesome. You can do whatever you want. If you want something you can make it happen.” If I want to buy something, I will make it happen. I will make the money to buy that something. I can just do adult sh*t and I don’t have to tell anybody anything; I just do whatever the f*ck I want. It’s awesome.
And I was so awkward growing up; I hated school, I hated feeling awkward, I hated being made fun of. All those stages that a teenager has to go through; I think most teenagers go through; f*cking suck. They’re just the worst. School; I hated tests and I was always better at like hands on things, and I hated taking tests. I just didn’t like being a kid, so I couldn’t wait to grow up, and then when I grew up I was like, “F*ck yeah, this is awesome!” I kind of was like, ok well I’m probably not going to have kids, but who knows? I’m always like, “Who knows?” Because I also didn’t think I was going to get married, and then I met my husband, and boom, we’re married. So I’m never say never.
But when I first met my husband, when we were just dating, I told him right away that I didn’t know if I wanted to have kids, so if that was a big deal to him, I wasn’t the person for him. So I told him straight up right away, and he was always like; you know, I think kids would be awesome but I could see why not having kids would be great, too. So he can see it both ways. He’s 7 years older than me, so I think I feel that stress of like; well I don’t want him to feel like an old dad, but I know plenty of people who had kids later on in life and they don’t feel like old dads. But I just never wanted him to feel like that, so I made sure that if he wanted to have kids then he knew that I wasn’t the perfect person for him. So that was something we talked about right away, and he knows that now.
To me, all of his friends; because he’s 7 years older, all of his friends already have kids. Some of them have kids who are like 7 or 8. They have kids that are growing up faster and faster, so he just sees that as a normal thing. For me, none of my friends, my aged friends, I’m one of the first ones married, and a lot of them, most of them, don’t have kids at all or aren’t married. So I don’t feel in any sort of rush. My womb is not asking to have children. There’s no internal screaming for a child inside of it; it’s quite fine with just the internal organs it has.
So I don’t have that want. I don’t feel ready for it. But people constantly ask me, and they constantly mention Brian. They’re like, “Well do you think Brian…?” I’m like, ok, remember, he is my husband, not yours so it’s kind of something you should lay off of. But I get the question all the time, and it’s just people making conversation but it still gives me a lot of stress.
So, in a couple of podcasts back, I told my little love story with my husband and our kind of ups and downs, and I talked about our pros and cons list. So if you didn’t listen to that one, go back and listen to it! Come on, start from the beginning. Who starts from the top and then works their way down? Come on. Come on man. I do that sometimes, but whatever.
So I talked about our pros and cons list with my husband, with our dating, with relationships. We talked about our pros and cons with each other, and we worked through and see if we could get through all of those cons. If we could work through those cons, and it was a huge relationship building mechanism for us, and it made our relationship so much better, and it’s been f*cking awesome since then. We still have our little fights, but the communication is so much better and we worked through all those issues.
So I was like; ok, maybe I’ll put together a pros and cons list. And it was really for this podcast, but I can keep this on my computer, and then go back to it if my womb ever calls for a child; I can say, ok let’s weigh out the pros and cons. And then I can figure it out there. And I wish more people would do that. Obviously, there are a lot of children born into this world, and people don’t really think about all the pros and cons, and think about how hard it’s going to be because, you can say whatever you want, but we all know raising a child is really f*cking hard and it’s really demanding. So you have to be completely ready for that. So more people should write out their pros and cons, and should really decide and look into every single facet of it; so that’s what I did. Yeah, let’s talk about it. I hope you like these pros and cons, because you most likely want. But don’t eat me. No, you can say whatever the f*ck you want.
Ok, pros. Let’s talk about the pros. Actually, it’s one pro. You guys I have one pro on my pros and cons list. And it is, Brian would be an awesome dad. And honestly, I would probably be a really good mom because I would love it so damn much. I never liked dogs, and then I got Jackson, and I would do anything for this dog. Thinking about that I’ll only have him for probably 15 years aches me to my core; and it’s a dog, you guys. It’s a dog. So if I had a child; oh my gosh, I would be probably an awesome mom. But Brian would be an awesome dad. He’s just so great and he loves kids; he loves his friends little kids, and he’s a cool guy, and he loves outdoor sports, so he would be so awesome. But that’s all I got guys. That’s literally all I have. That’s all I have for you.
Let’s go on to the cons then, because that’s two pages. So, ok. Starting with the cons of having a child. You have to grow that child inside of you. Obviously there are other options; you can adopt, you can have someone grow it for you. But we’re just saying, this option. Growing a child inside of you. First of all, that’s a real f*ck of your hormones. If you haven’t seen; oh my god, yeah recently there was a women. I heard this on the news, on the radio; a woman who was 5 months pregnant and poured boiling water on top of her boyfriend’s head because he was not paying enough attention to her. Sure, that b*tch is already crazy, but hormones really f*ck a person up. So not only does it f*ck up your mind; because based on my birth control experience; no need to email me and tell me about birth control alternatives or whatever, that’s fine. But birth control sent me in a spiral once, and my poor husband who had just married me, poor guy, was freaking out. But never once did I pour boiling water on my husband’s head. Because I know how to utilize my brain correctly.
But anyways, hormones really f*ck you up. And they also change other things. It ages you differently; your skin changes, body changes. So a lot of people get stretch marks. Most people their skin stretches out, because hello you’re growing a child. So then you have this little extra skin. And I know you’re like; you know, you just don’t care. And I get it, you have a child and you’re like; “F*ck yeah, I grew this child inside of me. This is a huge deal, I don’t care about this extra skin.” But me, who was incredibly, incredibly insecure; out of f*cking control insecure, and is just at 28 years old in the past year or two been able to control those insecurities and not felt insecure. Taking 10 steps back, when I’ve been working really, really hard to change my body and change my perception on myself; that’s really scary to me. So I get it, that you just maybe don’t care once you have your baby; you don’t care about those little scars, or those stretch marks or whatever, but that to me is really scary.
And I mean, what about scars? Like a C-section scar? You’ve got to go in a for a C-section. And I get it; it’s small, it’s hidden, whatever. But nobody loves scars. And then, hello?! Don’t act like all vaginas are the same. I talked about this; I talked about this maybe on my first episode, when I was listening to; what is it, Anna Farris, Unqualified, I think that’s her podcast. And she was talking to Olivia Munn, and Olivia Munn was saying maybe she didn’t know if she wanted to have kids, I think, and she’s talking about her friends, and her friends are telling her what their vagina looked like afterwards, and that’s a really scary thing, you guys. Nobody talks about this sh*t, and they were saying that it looks like there’s another vagina on top of the vagina.
Let’s picture that for a second. Take a moment; if you’re driving, pull over. Don’t get in a car accident. Just picture that. That’s very scary. And nobody talks about that. Yeah, sure, vagina is a muscle, it goes back to normal. But does it? Because nobody is going to admit; “Oh my vagina is disgusting now.” No, nobody says that. Hello. People keep that sh*t to themselves. But that’s scary. Just saying.
Another thing with having a child in the beginning; dying in childbirth. I know, this is rare now a days, we have modern medicine. But recently, just this, pretty much the same day as my wedding in April, one of my friends who was supposed to be in the wedding, but she got pregnant, what the hell, she wasn’t even thinking about me; b*tch. So she almost died in childbirth! Crazy, crazy fluke thing, and we almost lost her. And she lost almost all her blood! F*cking crazy sh*t. She had to be flight for lifed; insane. That’s really scary. She’s fine now, but that’s really scary, ok.
Oh my gosh; this, I can’t even believe I wrote this one down, but we’ve been talking vaginas freely, we might as well talk about the penis. So, I just never really even thought about this, but I was watching the HBO show, Shameless, and if you haven’t watched that show I don’t know what the hell you’re doing with your life, you absolutely need to, it’s f*cking awesome. I love that show so much, I really don’t like watching any other show on TV. If you don’t like my cussing here, you will not like that show. It’s out of control, it’s awesome. But there’s like a 14-year-old kid on there, and he is talking to her girlfriend, and she says how she doesn’t want to mess around with him because he’s not circumcised and it looks different than other ones. And he’s so bummed, so he goes and he gets circumcised himself, and he’s pissed that he wasn’t circumcised; whatever, whatever. So I just never thought about that; that was just something that was completely unknown, because I’m a girl, and I don’t have brothers, and I’ve just never had to deal with that thought process, thank god.
So I started to ask my friend, who just had a boy what she did. And then she starts talking about how they can always mess it up when they circumcise a child, and they can always decide later if they want to; but it’s better in sex, and all kinds of different things. And most people aren’t circumcising their children anymore; it’s like a thing of the past. I don’t know! But oh, what a pressure, to decide if your child is circumcised or not, because what if they hate you for it later and they have to get circumcised as an adult? That’s a lot of pressure, man. That’s a lot of pressure on you in deciding your child’s penis fate. Yep, that’s on the cons list.
Ok, so let’s talk about financials. First of all, how much does a kid; what does a child cost over 18 years? And honestly, I would want to pay for my children’s college, so 22 years? That’s a lot of f*cking money. A lot of money. And that’s not even including probably big trips. My friends just went on a trip, and they have two kids; wife and husband, and they spent probably over $10,000 to go to Disney World or Disney Land or whatever the hell the difference is. That’s so much money! So much money. And I get those are vacations that you’ll never get back and the memories are amazing; but holy sh*t, that’s a lot of f*cking money! And then you have to do clothing, and school, and presents, and sports, and everything on top of that. That’s so much money; I honestly don’t get how people have multiple children and pay for things! I don’t get it. And everybody says, “You just make it work. It all works out, you make it work.” And it’s like; well, that’s a big financial burden.
And I get it; you love your child, I get it. I’m not putting people down who love their children, but it’s just something that I think about when I finally make money for myself with my husband, and then it all goes towards diapers! Someone’s just sh*tting in it! That’s hard, right? That’s a hard thing. And then, of course, I personally want to pay for college. You don’t have to do that for your children, but I think it would be awesome to at least pay for part of it, or all of their college, if possible. If you have more than one child, that’s pretty hard depending on your financial situation, you know? So financial stuff is really scary.
And I get this; I actually have heard this multiple times, and even my friend said it just maybe yesterday or the day before, when kids have come up, and it’s like; well, you know, I’m scared. Or they’ll ask me; “who’s going to take care of you when you’re old?” Why would I even think that? I’m going to have children so somebody can take care of me and wipe my ass when I’m old? No, I’m not going to have children for that reason. That’s a really f*cked up reason. But I can say that if I don’t have children, I can save a lot of money to put myself in awesome old folks’ home when that does happen. So, balance it out here. Balance it out.
So here’s another one; the child relies completely on you. And you don’t get much sleep when you have one. So they cry a lot, which means you don’t sleep, and I talked about weight; it’s scary with pregnancy and how your body changes, and sleep plays a big role in your cortisol levels, which helps regulate your weight. So when you’re f*cking up your sleep schedule, you can’t really lose weight, and your having a harder time with your weight; that’s scary! And you don’t really think about that. You think that you’re not sleeping, but I think about it as like; this isn’t good for my overall body. And you’re just not yourself. Yeah. And kids are really dirty. We moved into our new gym space; and at our old gym he used to let dogs in, and then he made a no dog rule, but the gym owner has two kids. I know sure as f*ck my dog is cleaner than those two kids. I can tell you that much. Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. Kids are dirty.
Ok, we’re keeping going guys. Here’s another scary thing, because this is my total life; less working out. Sure, I’ve had so many women in my gym who worked out their entire pregnancy, and have been awesome, and then after they have kids they’re not able to as much because; say you work all day, and you either can go home to your child, or you can go to the gym. People are going to pick their children, duh! You want to hang out with your kids. And so I get it, you just have to make time. I’ve just seen so many people who used to be hard core gym people just really take a step back from the gym, and I don’t want to lose that. That’s something that I strongly believe in, and I’m really scared to lose that, because that’s really important to me. So I guess you just make it work, but I’ve just seen so many other people do the opposite. So that’s hard.
Another thing that’s huge for us, and everybody’s situation is different, but I work all the time, and that’s my job is constantly online, it’s constantly on my phone. My husband works all the time, too. He works Monday through Saturday. He’s always at his job. He travels, I travel, and I don’t know how he’d be able to change his schedule to work less, and I would have to hire a nanny to take care of the child so I could get my work done at home, and then I would feel guilty about paying someone to take care of my kid when I could still make it work, but not really. And one of my friends; she has a 2-year-old, and she has twins coming later this year. They were telling us that their daycare bill is going to be $3800 a month for those three kids. That’s $46,000; almost $46,000 per year. That’s easily someone’s salary! That’s so crazy! And that’s just for daycare. So I’m guessing she’ll be forced to be a stay at home mom, to save money, but how do you keep your sanity too? I could just never watch a child and get all my work done, and my work is really important to me and I love it so much. So that would be a hard balance act of him working all the time, me working all the time, us both getting our workouts in. and people do it; I get it. People do it. It’s just scary when you’re really content and happy with your life.
Another thing is like, it’s your duty as that parent to raise an upstanding citizen. And that’s an intense thing to take on. Children are forever; you can get out of the house you live in, you can get out of the relationship you’re in; whatever, you can get out of your job, but children, they are forever. Forever. And I was just listening to a podcast called Sword and Scale, and they just have; they have really f*cked up stories. But this one was about the Craigslist killer, if you guys remember the Craigslist killer. His parents were completely standing by him; they were like, no way did he do this. And he killed a person, and he almost killed others. Oh doggie has to go out. This guy. Sorry about that, he had to use the restroom.
So what if you raise a serial killer? Or just a killer in general, even if they just killed once. Like, hey-o, that f*cking sucks. And then you have to live with that for the rest of your life and then wonder what you did wrong. This kid was engaged, he was a medical student; nobody would have guessed. And then he killed people. What the f*ck! You have to live with that forever as a parent. It’s terrible. So I’m always kind of scared that I’ll have a serial killer as my child. But you know, maybe it’s not even your fault. Hopefully. Kids get in with the wrong crowd. There are many times in my life where I was hanging out with the wrong people. Luckily, I was never in too big of trouble, didn’t make too big of sh*tty decisions, but it’s so easy to get in with the wrong crowd and do the wrong sh*t. and yeah, that’s your child, even though you raise them a certain way; hey, they made bad decisions and they have to live with it now. That sucks. And you have to live with it; not just them.
And then, you know; kids don’t always just live with you for 18 years. I know multiple people who have had to move back home after college, and hang out there for a while. So what if you have a kid who is just not motivated, either? What the f*ck? Scary. And I always get really scared about school systems. Not scared, but we just don’t have good school systems near us, so it’s like; do you have to move, and move to a better school system? I know my parents did that when I was a little good for a good elementary school, but then I had like a sh*tty high school. I turned out ok. I think most people think “Ok.” Some people disagree with me on Facebook, but you know, “Ok.” But then it’s also scary; think about illness, or accidents, or just those scary things that I’ve seen people lose children. That must be the worst feeling that you could ever feel in your entire life, and that’s really scary to know that that could happen to you one day. So that really scares the sh*t out of me. I can’t help it; it just does. Those are just all the few minor things that run through my head every single time someone asks me if I’m going to have kids.
Oh, and! I didn’t even mention infertility. I have friends going through IVF right now, and they’ve been trying to have kids for two years; and before, they didn’t even know if they wanted to have kids, and then they were like; fine, let’s do it, let’s decide to have kids. And then they wanted it to so bad, and spend 2.5 years of not being able to have a kid. And going through all that hard, hard stuff; not only on you, but on your relationship. And even if you have a kid, all the relationship ups and downs. I know that me and my husband would discipline a child differently. And not that either one is correct, but I just know we’d have different opinions about that, and that’s hard on your relationship. I get so many questions; people asking me when I’m going to have kids, and these are from people who have kids, but never do they have amazing stories about how awesome having kids is. They say it’s the most love you’ll ever feel in your life, and I 100% don’t doubt that; it must be such a f*cking crazy feeling to adopt or have your first child, and that is your child to take care of. It must be the most heartwarming feeling; and I get that.
But so often, more often than not, I see people very unhappy being in that life. And they ask me about it, and I’m like; you just told me the worst story about how your kids are sick and they were throwing up all night, and then you’re probably getting sick. All those not fun stores, and then they’re like; so when you are going to do it? I’m like what? How are you trying to talk me into this, and it just seems like the worst all the time. And relationships have a hard time. My husband and I just got married, whatever, 6 months ago; why would I want to change that relationship any time soon? It is f*cking awesome, I don’t want to change that.
I think I just need to come up with a better tactic of how to answer that question. Maybe make people feel really bad with my answer. But it’s just an inappropriate question. Maybe I’ll just say, hey we’ll figure it out. I don’t know; I don’t know. Just say; you know, the lives we’ve made together just isn’t good enough yet, so we’re just going to make it better. I don’t know; some sh*t like that, where you’re like, I’m just going to keep saving my money and do cool-ass sh*t with it. Who doesn’t want to do cool-ass sh*t, and you just can’t always do that cool-ass sh*t. you can’t just get up and leave because you have a child there. Whatever, people make it work, but I’m a pretty stressful person, so I don’t know. I just don’t know! It’s just crazy.
If it weren’t for other people, I would never even think about this kind of stuff. It wouldn’t even cross my mind, because my husband and I are in such a great place. We got married, we bought our first home, we have our first dog, we’re getting a hot tub soon, we’re planning a trip to Costa Rica. We have cool sh*t on the agenda, and I know more cool sh*t is going to come up as we age, and more opportunities for other things; we can travel to so many places that we want to at this point, so why give that up. I’m not saying you have to give that up, it’s just you have to make changes that you wouldn’t necessarily have to change if you were not having babies. I just like what I’m doing now. I don’t know, that’s how I feel. It just sucks to have to feel that way all the time. Because my husband is not getting the same amount of questions that I’m getting, that’s for f*cking sure. I’m getting all the questions, and it doesn’t stress him out. He doesn’t have to house a child inside of him. He’s like; yeah, cool.
If I was like, “Hey, should we have kids?” He’d be like, “Sure. Whatever. That’s cool.” That’s how chill he is. To me, if he’s like, “hey do you want to have kids?” “Here’s my cons list, it’s 2 pages long hun. Read through it and get back to me.” That’s what I’d have to say to him.
So anyways. That’s my visual on having kids, and you know, I think more people should keep that in mind when you’re asking someone if they want to have kids, I just found out friends have been trying for even longer. My other friends have been trying for even longer than 2 years, and she’s not fertile. You would never know that unless you ask that or unless she gave that information up, but you pressuring; like, “When are you guys having kids?” And then she has to be, struck with that thought again. That’s really rude. So I think people should be more conscious of those questions, and keep that sh*t in mind, because you have no idea what people are going through mentally or physically. Or in their own household, either. So keep your f*cking thoughts to yourself, people! Dammit.
That’s all I have to say about that. I wish it was all butterflies and fairy tales, but I’m just f*cking realist over here, just putting real thoughts into the world. And maybe then other people with think about things, you know. Maybe you’ll think about; “Hey, maybe we should make a pros and cons list,” and, “Oh, maybe we’re still on the cons side, so maybe we should wait another year until we bring a child, so we can bring him into the best environment possible.” Right? You want to raise your child in the best environment possible. And have the best relationship with your child, too. F*ck, that sh*t is stressful. I’m just stressed out now, guys. Post Thanksgiving stress going on.
So that’s all I have to say about babies. I hope some of you can relate to this. Or some of you can; I mean, there’s nothing you can really do to help me out with this topic. But you never know; maybe in a couple of years; my owner of my gym did bet me that I’ll be pregnant a year from now. A year from Thanksgiving. He bet me $100, so I’m going to win that f*cking $100 that dumbass. Because this vagina is not turning into a double vagina any time soon. Please and thank you.
So anyways, that’s all I have to say about that. Next week I was going to do some reader questions. I did this on the 5th episode. I did just random reader questions, so whatever it was. So maybe it was fashion related, fitness, anything; I let people ask questions. So I’m going to do the same here. So if you have any questions, just go to www.PaleOMG.com. That’s where I share all kinds of sh*t; I share this podcast every week on there, so you can just click on this episode and leave a comment there. But you can always reach out to me on social media. Please don’t Facebook me, because you’re probably a troll. But you can totally reach out to me on other social media, like Instagram, because that’s just nice people hang out. You know, just nice people! So reach out to me there, and any questions you have. They don’t have to be baby related. You know, I’d actually prefer them not to be baby related, because I have no answers for that.
But if you have any other questions, whatever it may be, even if it’s like, “Hey, do you like Serial?” Well duh, I’m a f*cking human being, of course I like Serial. That was a bad example, but random questions, whatever you have. Please ask them, because I like doing those episodes. I think they’re really fun. And they bring up a ton of fun topic conversations that wouldn’t have gotten brought up if I didn’t ask that. So I’ll see you guys next week. I hope this topic has been therapeutic for you, because it didn’t really do any therapy for me. But you know, I’m still kicking it. Still kicking it in this house that we bought and putting savings into our 401K, or whatever the hell retirement is since I don’t get a 401K from www.PaleOMG.com, but whatever it’s called.
Anyways. I love your little faces, I can’t believe you even listen to my podcast. You’re the greatest humans ever, and it’s been real. It’s been wonderful this week. Somebody recommended that I do a podcast with Claire and Joy from Girls Gone WOD, and I f*cking love that idea because they are such cool human beings. So that’s probably the only people I’m going to record with. But, someday, maybe I’ll record with others. Until then I’ll just be talking about topics that nobody else will actually talk about. Like double vaginas.
So it’s been real guys. I hope you have a wonderful day. Do something cool today; do something nice for others. Leave a nice comment on social media. Do not be a negative; oh my god, you guys, wait one last. I’m sorry I’m talking about trolls, but it just always weighs heavy on my mind when it happens. This woman the other day on my Instagram was talking about my weight. Let’s first off; I clicked on her profile, I think she had two daughters, and this grown woman is talking about another woman’s weight on social media. What a great; oh man. Those poor children.
But she was talking about my weight, and saying that she missed when I was heavier; when I was like 30 pounds heavier when I was competing in Crossfit, and she hates that I’m “skinny” now. But remember, guys. Talking about someone else’s weight is something you should never do. We always think thoughts in our head, but use your brain and hold it in there. Don’t talk about someone’s weight.
This is what I’d like you to do. Go on to social media, and someone you follow, thank them for something they gave you; maybe a recipe, or inspiration in a workout, or fashion inspiration, or they gave you maybe baby food. If you’re a person who likes children, and they gave you a baby food recipe you could make at home. Thank those people; give them positive comments because you have no idea what they’re probably getting that you don’t always see. So share a positive comment with someone; spread the positivity, no matter what it is. Just be nice, and be a good influence to your children, if you do have daughters, especially. Do not comment on someone’s weight; in person, online, no trolling allowed, no matter what. Am I right, or am I right? Bullying is the worst. Adult bullying is the worstest.
So anyways. That’s all I got today guys. I don’t know if I ended it on a high note; I think I ended it on a pretty shitty note. But remember, leave your comments or questions on www.PaleOMG.com. I have a tone of recipes there if you’ve never been to my blog. I share my recipes, I share my workouts, and I share my fashion there. So I share all kinds of fun stuff with you guys, and I’m always coming up with new fun stuff, and it’s all free stuff to you. So come support me over there, and I’ll support your little cute faces and squish you and give you little kisses because you’re cute! Ok, that’s it, that’s it. I’m ending it. It’s been real guys. Hope you have a great day. Hope you kick ass at life. Go spread the positivity. X’s and O’s. Ok bye!!
I tried commenting a few weeks ago but our wi fi was being dumb. I’m totally in agreement with this. I can’t have kids and don’t really want any at this point. I have 3 stepkids and people seem to think I’m a terrible person because we aren’t having any of “our own” (Well, and maybe because I cuss all the time and say exactly what I think) I actually guest posted on a friend’s blog on it. Anyhow, a lot of my reasons were the same as yours. I’m gonna make my husband listen to this!
So I’ve been following you for a while – because I love your brutal honesty haha – cracks me up, just listened to your podcast – I’m dying! I have 3 kids but – totally get all your cons – I mean I love my kids to freaking death, but I’ve also been a mom since I was 16! I’ll be 30 this year! Anyway just had to tell you I found it hilarious! I grew up with 6 sisters and I had the first boy…. talk about a shocker! All the questions on what the hell to do with a boy, and his parts!
I say travel, live your life, do what you want and if you get that baby fever then jump on the baby train. You’ll know when you are ready!
THANK YOU so much for this! I totally understand your feelings (I’ve been married for 5 years and I’m 34 so I’m old AF), especially the anxiety that surrounds “that” question. What I really hate is that I find myself spouting out excuses and trying to justify our decision to not (yet) have children, and then I spend the rest of the day riddled with anxiety and wondering if what I said was “enough” or if I got them to truly understand our reasoning so that they’re not just judging for being “selfish.” Your podcast reminds everyone that this is SUCH a personal topic and questions about it are insanely inappropriate. I had a woman once tell me that I’m “missing out on the best part of life.” Quite a presumptuous statement. Just because it’s great for some people doesn’t mean it’s the right thing for everyone. My husband and I are Ironman triathletes, very invested in our careers that require us to travel constantly, and we’re not ready to give any of that up (maybe ever). And if that’s selfish, so be it, because life is short, yo. Would it be better for us to bring children into the world when it’s not what we truly want? Anyway, bottom line, it’s a personal and incredibly involved decision that is no one else’s business. Do you, girl. And society, stay out of everyone’s uterus. #pleaseandthanks
i feel the exact same way. it’s hard to give up the things you love and what helps you thrive. i’m sure motherhood is absolutely awesome, but other things are absolutely awesome too. and ps you’re totally not old AF at all!
Ditto to all of this!! Just listened to this podcast and literally I have the same thoughts as Juli on having children. Why we (as a society, people in a relationship, etc., ) just enjoy where we are at at the moment?? And, realize that not one thing is great for everyone!! (aka having kids) …I’m 99.9% sure that I don’t want to have kids…and I’ve felt this way since I was about 16 years of age – I’m currently 31. I’ve had people say all kinda of rude and mean things to me about not wanting to have kids – that I’m being selfish, I’m missing out on the “greatest thing ever,” that it will “completely change me as a person…” I mean, a. I wasn’t even married at the time or in a stable relationship so, how am I supposed to support this “greatest thing” that has ever happened to me?? I’m pretty certain that I don’t want kids so, It’s like telling you to paint your living room neon yellow when you fucking haaattteeee the color yellow. You wouldn’t do it, so why would I have kids? I think that people need to be more accepting of others views (politics, sexual orientation, religion) and if you don’t agree with someone’s point of view, keep your mouth shut. At the end of the day, you aren’t changing anyone’s opinion on any of that stuff, or having babies. Go have your own babies and be happy 🙂 B. I could go on and on but I have a job and things to do and Juli has already summed up my thoughts on having children. Be more self aware – that applies to everyone. The End.
I just appreciate how you were so respectful of people who want children in this discussion. I for one, do not want kids. My husband does and it is something we struggle with on our own. I had agreed to have one but the closer we get to starting a family the more I want to revolt. I just get more frustrated when other women directly or indirectly put you down for not following the narrative of just popping kids out. As if having children is a status symbol. Anywho, not meaning to be a Debbie downer on this I just love that you did a pros and cons list and I might be using it for myself in the next coming years. Thanks!