Babies shouldn’t be ruining your friendships at all

Sitting across from one of my oldest friends over dinner, | found myself staring at yet another ultrasound. it was my friend's third baby—and ninthin our friendship group —tidily completing the family life that also comprises a three-bedroom house, a cockapoo, and a husband, Our lives couldn't be more different, as she pointed out, | felt her tone shift: “Do you ever think about wanting any of that?”

- Olivia Petter

A part of me wanted to bite back. No, the part replied, all stink-eyed and Medusa-haired, I'm too busy trying to pay my rent and find someone to date who isn’t completely awful. | don’t have time to think about if | want “any of that” because “any of that” is a fantasy so far removed from my reality I can’t even imagine what it feels like to want it. | won't let myself. How rude. How entitled, How smug.