Strollers, Stanley Cups, & Close Calls

Watching what might have been wheel by.

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Central Park, May 2023.

Learning by example is a privilege. Watching your friends do something first, thereby teaching you what to do and what not to do—it’s life’s little unspoken buddy system and perhaps my favorite aspect of blooming at the pace of an aging tortoise. In many ways, learning by example is the reason I don’t have children.

Three major moments stand out to me as my Child-Free By Choice awakening. The first was the film Waiting For Superman, which I watched at age 28 and I think we can assume the public school system hasn’t since improved. The second was dinner at age 32 with a friend of mine and her ten-month-old baby, which gave me more anxiety than any meal I’d taken before or have taken since. Our conversation took place in ten second intervals broken up by moving things out of a baby’s reach, picking things up off the floor, feeding the baby, comforting the baby, or admiring the baby. I don’t think either of us completed a sentence at any point during the meal. We didn’t “catch up,” we survived. And the last, if I’m honest, is recurring. It’s the visual experience and physical discomfort I absorb watching people travel with children. I owe my future to many things, but TSA vs Families gets a medal around its neck.