On having kids -- or puppies, as you might call them

I always always assumed I would not have children. I met your dad when I was 15 (which is about two in dog years). We started dating when I was 21 (which is about three in dog years). When we started dating I declared, “I never want to have kids, I just want to get married and travel the world with my husband!” He was on the same page, which is about all you can ever ask for as a 21-year old in love.

As I progressed throughout my twenties (which would be age three-ish for you), I remained indifferent to kids. Forcefully opposed, even. You came into my life when I was 24 and I was super into you. Ok. I’m lying. Listen, I want to go on record saying that I love you very much, and I miss you every day, but puppies –- while cute –- are basically the worst. You were exceptionally cute, and exceptionally the worst. Perhaps good behavior is inversely proportional to cuteness.

It was difficult for me when we first brought you home (I’ll tell you the whole story another time. Short version: you’re from a puppy mill.) You were wild and weird and hard to train and you peed everywhere and potty training you was hard because you came to us in January and it’s cold in Chicago in January and you, even in later years, refused to poop or pee outside in the cold. Needless to say, being home with you for a few months in a row was taxing on me to the point where I ::gasp:: lamented to your dad that I didn’t want you anymore. I know! It’s terrible!

We ended up keeping you. You lucky pup. But if I had given you up, adopted you to a loving family with a farm and other dogs, it wouldn’t have been a travesty. In terms of me missing out on the joy and love you bought to my life, yes, but it’s not the same as giving up a kid after spending three months with an infant and being like, “Nah, this isn’t gonna work, take it away.” You can’t do that with kids.  And I knew that.

At 25, I got an IUD. The copper one. I know you don’t know what that is, but remember that fateful day in the summer of 2010 when we brought you to the vet and they did…something… to you? You were asleep and there was a knife and when you came home you could no longer make puppies.  Well, the IUD is a less permanent way of getting the same result, but for people. No puppies for the forseeable future.

A note about that day for you, your dad was very upset that we cut off your parts before you could have a chance to bone another dog. But isn’t that the interesting part? Dogs and other animals don’t spend time deciding when to have kids. They don’t have to think of the financial factors, or the impact to a woman’s body or career, or whether or not it will negatively impact their marriages, plus the whole “what if the kid is evil?!” thing.  If we had not taken that step for you, you would have knocked up another dog without thinking about it at all. So we basically denied you your biological directive. Admittedly, any puppies you spawned would have been super cute.

Now that I’m in my 30s (about age 4 for you), the kid thing is coming up again. I’m not with your dad anymore, not married anymore, but now it’s like well – do I, like, have to have them? I like my life as it is, I like my time and my money.

But I also understand that I have a pretty cool perspective on life, and it’d be interesting to impart some of this hard fought wisdom on a small human. You know what small humans are, remember? You hated them. I think you were personally offended that anything could be close to your size or cuteness level that wasn’t also another dog. You were embarrassing, actually. No one should have to apologize because their dog barked at a toddler.

Dogs also don’t have to worry about who their partner is. Any bitch that’s willing will do, and not raising your puppies isn’t socially and morally reprehensible like it is if humans don’t raise their kids. There are no deadbeat dog dads.  I have to think about that. In fact, I think about it more than most people because I grew up without my dad. It took a lot of effort and therapy and more effort and pain and understanding to get to a point where I grasped how that impacted my life, and my relationships.

I’m not alone in this thought, I know that. But the thought of not choosing the right dude to knock me up is truly terrifying. Sure, I’d be fine, and rock out as a single mom because that was my example (my mom used to say that you were so ugly that you were cute – to which I took great offense, but she’s a good mom).  As a human, choosing who to have a child with is maybe the most important decision you can make. I guess choosing who to marry is also important, if marriage is your thing. We can go into that another time, I guess.

So here I am now, at 31, IUD firmly in place having just passed it’s 6-year anniversary in my uterus; it’s lived in my uterus longer than I have lived in any apartment in adulthood. It’s got history in there. And now I’m thinking about if I ever want to take the thing out. And I still don’t know. I do think babies are cuter now than I did when I was 25, and am more amenable to it. My boyfriend would make a good dad. He can fix things and is kind and sometimes makes lame jokes.

I usually make decisions pretty well. Not too big on hemming and hawing. I don’t have a middle. When we got you, I saw you, watched you play for 30 seconds, then picked you up and ordered, “We’re taking him home.” Then I did not put you down again. It was simple. Maybe if I could see my baby first? Like check it out, assess if it’s cute enough to be worth the trouble? That’d be dope.