Shooting Down the Stork
I really want to have a child, but it’s not a good time to have a child. So we won’t be having a child.
Now I realize what people are talking about when they say that springtime brings out the urge for children. My wife sometimes jokes with me about becoming parents, because I half-jokingly, half-seriously said let’s try to make a baby on the first night of our honeymoon. But now that we are eight months into our marriage, and no one has chased the other out of the new house or out of their hearts, I’ve really been thinking about the joy and closeness that our first son or daughter would bring.
But my mortal enemy, graduate school, is blocking this fantasy in all directions. I need to finish my master’s, so we can’t have a kid. She needs to finish her doctorate, so we can’t have a kid. Then she needs to find a stupid job, so we can’t have a kid. I swear these degrees are burning me at every turn.
Everywhere I go, cute babies are looking up at me like “you should be in on this party, chief.” And I really want to be. I don’t care if it’s not manly to say you want a kid. I want a kid. I want to be able to care for a little guy or gal with the person I care about most in the world. I want to look forward to the day where screaming and crying doesn’t get on my nerves at church and at the grocery store, because the noise will be coming from my flesh and blood. Of course, I won’t be one of those parents that annoys everyone else by pretending I don’t hear it and staying put, but I want the option very badly these days.
But these days, we’re more likely to get a visit from Larry Bird than the stork, so spring will come and go without me and my baby making a baby.