Written on time, Posted a little late

“I felt trapped, but then I fell in love. Marriage, psh. Kids, hell no. You really think I’m going to put my life on hold to have a crying, pooping baby? I’m going to go to school and become someone. I’m going to be a powerful person someday. Go through nine months of hell to push a baby through my vagina? I don’t think so. I can hardly take my boyfriends penis! Let alone a full grown baby! If I ever get pregnant on accident, I’m having an abortion.

That’s what I thought about marriage back in the day. Then I started noticing the children with their parents on the train. Some kids would scream and cry, which would deepen my earlier sentiments. Yet, others would sit quietly, holding their mothers hand, the mother leaning over and tickling her daughters ear with a bright purple feather they must have gotten from a craft store. The little girl’s laughter seemed to echo in my mind, drowning out the quiet chatter of the other bus riders and the rumblings of the bus. How adorable. How wonderful, that look in the mother’s eye as she smiles at that piece of herself. That look. That’s the look that made me want to have a child. That’s the look that made me feel like I had just understood something great, something important. That’s the look.

I found that this look wasn’t in all parent’s eyes. Some parents had hate, resentment, and fear in their eyes, and you could see it in their children as well. The kids looked sad, dejected, or sometimes even livid as they’d thrash about in defiance as their parents struggle to control them. Control. As I thought those words I began to wonder, perhaps that is the allurement of children. Control. Those who usually focus on careers are essentially looking for control, control over others, over their employees, over their company. Control.

My boyfriend and I always see misbehaving children and think, our kids would never do that, our kids will be well behaved. I bet everyone thinks that though. Everyone believes their child is the best, the cutest, the smartest. Our kids won’t ever get into drugs. Our kid will be a good kid. What is the difference between these parents who make it as a “good parent” or a “bad parent”? Does keeping your language PG around the kids keep them from being a bully? Does giving them milk instead of soda at lunch really make them a calmer individual? If only I knew.

I guess everyone feels that way. “If only I knew”. I bet that’s what the orphans mother said when the condom broke. I bet that’s what the doctor said as he performed the abortion of a baby who would have become the man to discover the cure for cancer. If only I knew what I was meant to do in this world.

Evolution says that that is our purpose. Reproduction. Yet, so many people strive to break out of nature to become “civilized”. Why has nature become enemy number one? If only I knew.” Sharon sat back into her computer chair. She scanned over her work, stretched out her legs underneath the desk she had been sitting at for hours. She looked over at her husband, playing with their son on the living room carpet. Her husband looked back at her and smiled. She knew.