I thought I had heard it all. Apparently not. I met a woman at the party of a friend of my child’s. She has two children, both boys, and they are at an age that they are playing with each other and therefore no longer need their mum to play with them. She is bored and feels this is a great reason to have another baby: to keep her busy again. I can’t claim to understand the urge to keep procreating, but this just seemed odd.

Some women have babies because they don’t want to work any more, some women have babies to keep their husbands happy, some women have babies to keep their families and friends happy, some have them because they just think it’s the thing to do. There are all sorts of reasons to have but seemingly little reason not to.

Well, here’s your first list: reasons not to have a baby

1. Do I need to mention the carbon footprint issue again?
2. Unless you’re single already, there’s a very big chance you will end up that way.
3. Your childless friends can’t identify with you anymore.
4. You can’t indentify with you anymore.
5. You have to go to school events and be nice to everyone.
6. Certain considerations need to be given to any kind of sexual activity in the house (although I believe this is reversed in the teenage years).
7. Quiet contemplation has to be done at 4.30 in the morning to beat the wake-up call.
8. Snot.
9. Vomit.
10. Every time your child is away from you it feels like you have allowed your heart to go walkabout and you will never survive if it doesn’t return.

Conception may be quicker than a trip to the mall to check out the latest offerings by designers but it seems it is treated with less value than adding the latest trend to ones wardrobe. Having a baby is the defining moment to begin a rollercoaster of defining moments for decades to come … how then can having a child be based on a selfish need such as a desire to be kept busy? Normality is as foreign a concept to me as it is to anyone else … but, come on!