Go forth and multiply

[Fragony]

I love kids, I want to have tons of them but really not at the moment. Being single makes the decision easier. Maybe when I am 40.

[GeneralHankerchief]

I think it comes down to the fundamental question of whether you want to make the necessary changes to your lifestyles in order to experience all that comes with raising a child. I'm not even going to attempt to give you advice, as you're a successful, worldly 31-year-old lawyer and I'm a 19-year-old college student who is currently attempting to scrounge up enough money to buy a cheeseburger. However, I do have an anecdote:

This summer, I worked two jobs. One of them was the night shift in a tollbooth. Eight hours a day, five days a week. Not too bad, but not the ideal way someone my age wants to spend a summer. But for three weeks, I doubled up, returning to a 5-hour-a-day camp for three weeks. This meant I was working thirteen hours a day, and I very quickly realized that I would need to empty my reserves in order to survive the three weeks.

It was tough. The weather was hot, the kids were as bratty as usual, and for those three weeks I had absolutely no free time. But at the same time, it was rewarding. I befriended a kid who was far from in the best physical shape, but always tried hard whenever we would get an athletic event together. I gave him a nickname, "Terminator", which he enjoyed. We talked about things together, and near the last day of camp, we put together a contraption designed to keep an egg from breaking as it was dropped from progressively higher distances.

On the last day of camp, I was looking forward to a celebratory meal, followed by sleeping for the entire weekend. But right before I left, the kid came up and gave me something. It was a piece of paper, the tough, pretty kind, with two pictures attached to it and a bit of artwork. They were of our contraption and the unspoiled egg. It said "Patrick and GH, 1st place, egg drop."

Was it taxing? Yes. But was it worth it? Absolutely.