Guest Blogger, The Digital Diva
"Sure I have a biological clock. It's just digital."

Tags: single, married, motherhood

Potential mothers-in-law beware—I’m the one they warned you about. I’m the woman who becomes your daughter-in-law but will not fulfill your expectations for grandchildren. If your son is lucky enough to end up with me, the best you’ll see is a grand-dog or grand-cat.

Ever since I was a child, I never felt the pull toward motherhood. I didn’t enjoy babysitting and one summer as a full-time nanny nearly did me in. It’s not that I dislike children; I just can’t imagine spending that much time with them.

Traversing through life sans children is a difficult concept for child-centered persons. Well-meaning friends and complete strangers just know you are missing out on the joys of parenting and seem to have no problem soliciting your reproductive plans. But most of the time, they aren’t ready for my answer. Case in point—recently, a new coworker, who knew me all of 24 hours, decided that my biological clock must be ticking and that I better get off the pot and do something about it before, as those cautionary tales go, it’s way too late!

Here’s a flashback:

Me: Welcome to the team! Glad to see you back for your second day of work. You’ll find all the necessary client data in the team files.

Mr. New Coworker: Wow, I can’t believe that you don’t have any kids!

Me: Hey, let’s keep the focus on the files for now, OK?

Mr. New Coworker: I mean you’re like 30, aren’t you? Time’s running out! What are you doing working? You should be working full time on starting a family.

Me: So, what’s your point?

Mr. New Coworker: How can you take it? I mean your clock must be tickin’!

Me: I don’t hear anything. Maybe it’s your stomach that’s ticking. Did you miss breakfast?

Mr. New Coworker: Come on, I can’t believe your clock isn’t ticking. Before we got married, my wife’s clock was ticking so loud it was keeping her up at night.

Me: Well, my clock must be digital—it doesn’t tick. Let’s get back to those files.

Mr. New Coworker: Oh…

Apparently my coworker was a newlywed who’d bought the “my clock is ticking” line, which led to a rushed pregnancy, engagement, and then marriage. Since he accepted this rationale, he assumed the rest of the female population felt the same as his fiancée. What a great way to begin a marriage—proposal by threat of ticking clock! The marriage was rocky at best.

The real danger potential mothers-in-law should be warning their sons about are women like Mr. New Coworker’s wife—ones that put on a full court press to have a baby outside the commitment of marriage simply because they feel it’s “their time” to have one. While I’m sure some of those high-pressure situations work out, many do not.

But alas, these women are not on society’s watch list. Rather, women who don’t heed the clock are pitied, and those of us with the digital model are misunderstood.