I Want To Kidnap Giovanna

Shalom. I totally get how you feel your biological clock is deafening. At 37 I'm becomming increasingly concerned it may not be my karma to have a family much as I htink I want one. I mean, it's hard to tell if it's what I personally want, or just societal conditioning making me think I want it. Would like a legacy and to raise a buncha kids up improving on what I feel were misteps and msitakes from my own upbringing like. (I see the typo but it's a good one given the word hehe.)

I stress pretty easily though. And I just know I'd be a stifflingly overprotective father. Watched "Twilight" recently, and the scene where Edward wants to official introduce himself to the father, the town's chief of police and he's cleaning his shotgun and snaps the barrel closed is totalyl how I just know I'd be about a daughter's boyfriend. "Sure I'll meet the boy (and put the fear of G-d into him.)" :)

And also, raising children is a lifelong commitment, isn't like owing a pet where if it proves too much you can get rid of it. Not that I ever did, just saying. :) I honestly don't know if I'm that disciplined. I like playing computer games and loosing myself in some alternate reality like. Timesinks like that would take away from time I know I should spend with the kids, and that'd make me feel guilty like so I just don't know.

I think a lot of what I think I'd enjoy about a wife and family is the knowledge of being loved. Always hope for lovers to be as in love with me as I am them, and surely one's own children would give parents that kind of love. I'm ok being alone, but there are so many times I just dream of having a wife to cuddle up to in bed late at night and children to see smiling and laughing and opening presents on their birthdays and xmas (secular holiday though I'm Jewish hehe.) Have a recurring Norman Rockwell sorta fantasy of the wife and I in our robes sipping cocoa watching the kids tearing open their presents. :)

I'd much rather be happy than right any day.

C. Use this opportunity to be a sensible and responsible sexual being. Talk to this girl about menstration and reproduction. If she is receptive, move on to transudation in her vagina and 'tingly' feelings she may have in her breasts/nipples. Let her guide the converstaion and absorb the information. Ask her mother to be with you. Mom will most likely appreciate a mother-daughter talk that is truly meaningful. DO NOT proceed faster than the child. My son teaches 2nd grade. Its important to teach, not preach.~Tom

Email: knave789us@gmail.com

Skype: tom.penry

thank you for letting me know that I'm not the only one with a deafening biological clock and the kind words of advice.  I have that same Norman Rockwell fantasy.  And I have this Jewish mother thing about feeding people that I can't shake either.  I just want to bake apple pies and prepare turkey dinners after shooting sex ed videos all day....total flip side here.

I feel much better today because I realized that what I'm feeling is like a sense of mourning for the life I could have but haven't chosen to have...do you know what I mean?   It's like I'm was standing at the crossroads, chose to go left, and can't help but feel the loss of not going right.  I may be a bit melodramatic but I am 36 years old and there is a window of fertility that definitely closes.

I know that I could adopt and I may but there is something about carrying a child inside you and being part of that biological process that's so romantic and almost instinctual.  God damn you, hormones! :)

Shalom. I had a marked desire to bake cakes and cookies and other treats when I was still in my teens for neighborhood kids. Not so much now being more health conscious hehe. But providing some joy for one's community is I would hope, a common aspiration.

These days, never say never about having kids. As was recently demonstrated, even a 60 year old can have a baby. :) And of course, the mother of us all Sarah had a late start too :) Like the idea of a natural birth myself as well. Have numerous fantasies or dreams about a wife and our baby. Lying in bed together and having her start and be like, "Jeff! Feel here!" And she places my hand on her tummy to feel the baby breakdancing or whatever. :) Knowing she and I had made a new life and it's right there inside her would be pretty amazing. Would start referring to "her" as "you guys" and other things that I yearn to do. Jokingly ask "ever have the feeling someone was following you?" ...I dunno, it has been remarked I have a sense of humor. :)

I don't think it's melodramatic or anything else like that to give voice to thought and talk about something probably hard-wired into all women like having a baby. Would think that you have these thoughts says you would make a great mother. Hope my own mean the same thing. And if it's simply not our fate to become parents, there's other areas these feelings can be applied towards. Education, day care, things like that. No shortage of children in the world who would benefit from doting would-be parents.

I'd much rather be happy than right any day.

Fate is not something most people want to leave their future up to, but sometimes Fate can bring some pretty nice things. You might not get a baby girl to raise, but if you decide to have kids, Carlin, you might end up with a beautiful child regardless of its gender. Someone you can teach love and tolerance to, Your child will be the light of your life. Getting a girl baby will be a plus if you have a child. I just hope you have a healthy happy child who is blessed with you who will love him or her for sure. I have a twenty-one year old son who is severely mentally and physically handicapped and I would not trade him for anything. I expected a perfectly healthy child and it did not happen, but I could not imagine my life without him. Carlin, Life will give you the perfect child; it may not just be on your terms, but seeing what you wrote, you will be a good mother to him or her.

Dear Carlin,

How you feel now might differ markedly from how you will feel when becoming a parent. I don't think I romanticised parenthood as a young man and was fairly cool to the idea of parenting. But I've always liked children and once the idea had settled, I started to feel as broody as many women. After my daughter was born (she's now 19) I fell into fatherhood incredibly easily - a wonderful surprise - and was a single parent for a few years too.

By the same token, your desire to have a baby girl (specifically) may very possibly change once you actually become a parent and I'm sure then that the gender of your child will make very little difference. I'm fairly convinced that, though I'm usually happier around women, I would have been just as euphoric if I'd had a son.

As a man, I can only vaguely imagine how much pressure the biologoical clock exerts and I believe many women and men put off parenthood because they're waiting for the perfect partner/situation/financial state or whatever to be in place before taking the plunge. But it seems to me there is never a right time and that any time is a good time.

Very well adjusted people are often not brilliant parents (though many of course are) and many people with hopelessly chaotic lives are still excellent parents. It's said that age helps - in terms of experience and maturity - but I've noticed that many very young parents are as competant, or more so, than their older counterparts (I don't subscribe to the view that young single mothers are inherrently worse off intellectually or unable to be good mothers). 

So I suppose I'm saying that it's not necessary to agonise over parenthood and probably a bad idea to romance it up. It's a fabulous adventure, an amazing responsibility and much, much more demanding, and often much easier, than one expects. The thing is, you can't predict how you might feel at the time and you can't predict the circumstances that may or may not be right for you and your child. So it seems there is little point in waiting for the perfect situation - particularly if there are issues still raging around your own role as a daughter and sibling; issues that may never be resolved to a perfect conclusion - life's like that and so is parenthood.     

Best wishes

Chu