My friends just recently had a baby. Now by recently I mean about three weeks ago. We just visited them tonight for the first time since the birth.

I admire anyone who has the confidence and commitment to raise a child. However, I cannot imagine that I am old enough to have one and have it be socially acceptable. Many people I know have children or are pregnant, but I can’t begin to envision myself as a mother. I feel like I might just not know what to do with a kid. Do you play with it? Do you talk to it? How do you not let it bore you?

I just want to put this question out there: What reasons do people have for having babies? I understand that the reasons are as widely varied as the parents, but I would really like to understand this. And here’s why. I feel, on the one hand, that I am getting to the age where people are going to start wondering when I will have babies. I don’t feel any want or need thereof, though. And I wonder if I am abnormal for this (nevermind the debate about the word normal). It seems like every other person I know who’s in a stable relationship either has children, is pregnant, or is planning to get pregnant soon.

So if anyone is reading and cares, please help me understand why some people want kids and I don’t.