Procreation

It is easier not to have kids. After kids, your life changes. Corning-ware replaces your fine china; the pearls in the dresser make space for plastic beads strung on a piece of elastic; and you find yourself reading Time for kids in the powder room (if you get a chance to read at all).

Nothing transforms you the way kids do. You learn to cajole, bribe, threaten, and blackmail all in the same breath. You learn to manage your time better, and you learn to answer questions ad nauseum. And you re-learn your teenage idealism. In attempting to create responsible citizens you are forced to think about what it means, and how your life reflects it.

Parenting tests you, your relationships, your assumptions, your reflexes, and much more, in ways that nothing else does. This is one test where there are no second chances.

In some ways, raising kids is like battling cancer or fighting a war. Only it is not.

One does not often choose to battle cancer, or fight a just war, or engage in other heroic tasks. One is thrown into those situations. Many do, however, wish to be a parent - enough to go through a lot of trouble to conceive/adopt.

There in lies the mystery of life and procreation.