At the age of 36, many of my peers are settled with children while I’m still single. I’ve spent the past decade or so agonizing over the decision to start a family, and I’ve learned a few things. First, the pressure to start a family for people in their 20s and 30s is real. I can easily see many people who may not be as strong give in to the desire to start a family in order to “go with the flow”. I think this is overall a dangerous mindset and can lead to disappointment down the road. Second, the decision to have kids is black and white: you either have kids and invest the time and energy into raising them, or you get all that extra time to do something else with. The question is, what would you do with all that time? I think most people don’t have a good enough answer to that question in order to not have children. Most people need children in their lives to have a sense of meaning and purpose. I don’t think I’m one of those people, and I’m starting to learn that that’s okay.
To answer that question of what would I do with my life, I would go into the arts. Without the responsibility of working tedious, high salaried jobs to support a family, I would pursue my true passion. If I had a family to support, working in the arts would be completely impractical. This path is by no means better than starting family, but it’s no worse either. A life lived in pursuit of love in all its form is a life worth living. After all, I don’t think the world is in need of more children. Despite our shrinking population and declining birth rate, I somehow sense that this planet would be better off with fewer people. After all, some of our ancestors believed that the most human thing one can do in his or her life is to die, and what better way than to pass into the next realm than without a lineage ahead of you.
The Ivory Tower 
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