www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19762056/site/newsweek
My Turn My Turn Stop Setting Alarms on My Biological Clock If I'm ever going to fulfill my dream of becoming a mother, I'm going to need some better role models. Puppy Dearest: 'I love children and plan on having them. As her young son squirms out of her embrace, she slips her hand under my shirt. She's touching my tummy with her cold hand and asking me, in a concerned voice, "Why aren't you pregnant yet?" I smile, break free from her touch, and head to the food table to fill said empty belly with her brat's birthday cake. Maternal instinct is oozing out of my pores: I've infantilized my dogs; I've gotten down on my hands and knees at the park with babies I barely know. My marriage is wonderful and solid, and we are both blessed with good health. I've taken childhood-development courses solely for the purpose of someday raising happy, balanced children. It may seem like ages ago now, but you weren't always like this. You, too, were sneering at the obnoxious parents who brought their infants to fancy, adult, nighttime restaurants or R-rated movies and let them carry on, ruining things for other patrons. You've been terrible advertising for the club that you so desperately need others to join. If you want me to join your ranks--and you've made it clear with your cold, clammy hands on my stomach that recruiting my uterus is of paramount importance to you--I need to set some ground rules. First, please stop asking me when I'm going to get pregnant. For all I know, I cannot have kids, as I have not yet tried. But imagine how painful this line of interrogation would be if I had submitted to all kinds of procedures, only to come up empty-wombed. Yet ever since the day after my wedding two years ago, I have fielded this question from the eye doctor, the dental assistant, my yoga teacher, the bagger at the grocery store. Next, don't completely abandon your own life and passions. You're setting a bad example for aspiring mothers-to-be like me. I recently expressed my happiness over an achievement I had at work to a mother-friend of mine. She said, dripping with condescension, "Well, you don't know happiness until you've had a baby."
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