Saturday 6 August 2011

First Words

Hello.  Welcome.  It’s nice to see you here.

I’m Kate.  I’m 31 years old.  I work in London and live just outside of the city, in the suburbs.  I got married earlier this year.  These are all things that people seem to want to know.  Your name.  How old you are.  What you do for a living.  Where you live.  Whether you’re married.

Whether or not you have children.

We don’t have children.  Not yet.  For some people, I’m apparently “leaving it a bit late”, for others, there’s “no rush yet”.  We’ve thought about it and talked about it, and I’ve never been maternal or broody in any way.  But I also don’t want to wake up 30 years from now and think, “Oh bugger, probably should have got round to that.”

My husband would be happy to have children – but I think he’d also be happy for it to be just us.  We can see the positives of staying childfree so clearly – we could potentially retire in our 50s, travel all over the world, live a comfortable life.  The positives of having children are less tangible.  OK, it seems nice when they cuddle up to you, but does that really make up for the sleepless nights, the screaming, the dirty nappies and the fact they’re inevitably going to be teenagers one day?  Who hate you.

So welcome to my blog.  Over the next few months, I’m planning on writing – hopefully with humour – about our decision-making process (assuming everything biological is working OK).