The benefits of not having children....

First of all, let me say this is not a rant about children nor am I anti-children. Some people are made to have children, God bless them, and some people aren't.

It's just such a sensitive issue to everyone but me I think.

My childless friends here always complain that they get asked a million questions by people who have children and they feel that even though they are successful, they are downgraded because they don't have children.

Then the women who have children often say they feel they lost out career-wise because of children.

This issue came up today at my work because (to spare you the details) we had a disciplinary hearing for a receptionist who has verbally assaulted everyone in our small office, including me this past Friday and I refused to take it (this isn't the first time she's freaked out on me).

Anyway, her only comeback of why she attacked me was that I'm a "chatterbox" and that she doesn't want to hear me talk to my work friends about how much fat is in veggie burgers, where we are getting our next haircut and where I'm planning a trip next.

I've been blessed to have a job that has flexible hours and a generous vacation policy, so I've been traveling a lot more than normal.

But, I also know I've been able to travel precisely because I don't have children.

Children are freakin' expensive and they take all your time. They become your first priority, while is the way it should be. Maybe I'm selfish but there's so much out there I still want to do and see. I want to know how to do everything.

I want to always keep learning and don't want to have to talk about diaper changes and teething (although in all fairness, I think I've subsumed this maternal instinct into talking about my dog and what she's up to throughout the day..)

I feel sorry/shocked when my friends (both single and married) tell me they are questioned for their decisions whether it's to have kids or get married.

Nobody really asks/harasses me with these questions although I was a little bit salty when my aunt by marriage told me I got married "later in life" because I waited until I was 30 and completely sure rather than marrying my 24-year old boyfriend, quitting my career and popping out kids like her daughter did.

But only a little salty.....besides, I'm off to Panama, Chile, and Argentina in 2 months. Oh yea, and Toledo, Ohio (which my husband just informed me that Betty White in the new sitcom "Hot in Cleveland" refers to as the Paris of Ohio!)

Why oh why did I teach my husband how to work this?

Let me start off by saying I LOVE Netflix--not only does it satisfy my lame desire to always be getting something fun and interesting in the mail, but they also carry all the Britcoms and other independent movies that the regular video chains don't carry.

When I travel, I usually just load up 2 or 3 movies that I know my husband will like and which, previously, I had just been bumping back down to the end of the "queue"(how is this British word gaining in acceptance nowadays--what, we're too posh to say the word "line" now)?

His pics tend to fall into 1 of 2 categories---war movies (any decade, any war) and car movies--he finally wore me down enough last year to see Smoky and the Bandit--yes that's right, Smokey and the Bandit from the 70's. Like Burt Reynolds when apparently he was hot. I wouldn't know. Sigh.

He does through in an occasional movie about Cuba or Miami, just to spice it up apparently.

However, when I went to Brazil earlier this year for 2 weeks, I decided to take pity on him and show him how he can log in and choose movies as well as how to put them in order.

BIG MISTAKE. HUGE MISTAKE. CATASTROPHIC MISTAKE.

I looked at my "queue" yesterday and now it's sprinkled throughout with movies such as "Cocaine Cowboy" which arrives Monday; Two-Lane Blacktop which features one of the members of the Beach Boys as a "drag racing drifter"; and Empire of the Sun, which is about the Japanese Army invading Shanghai during World War II. Now this movie won tons of Academy Awards and all that, but please--it was made in 1987 and is 2 and a half hours long!

Personally, I think it's all a subtle and rather cunning plot to torture me. All I can say is paybacks are a bitch :D

Although in all fairness, he has sat through some real stinkers that were "Kristin pics"....