With the population boom, I don't think I need to help

I would like to start off by saying that this is in no way a personal judgment on anyone with children or planning to have children. This is a topic that has come up for me quite regularly and I thought I would write out my thoughts on it.

I've been married for almost a year now, and since the day I became engaged the question that almost immediately would follow was: "when do you plan to have children?". Our initial response was usually "about two years" or "when we're ready". Much like the rhyme from childhood (First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby...), that's the natural progression of things. But what the rhyme leaves out is what comes after the baby, and that's often what I think about. For the past few years I have worked in retail, and I have seen some very unhappy mothers with children in tow. Each time I would see someone in that situation I would shrink back and think to myself that I don't want it to be me. I don't want to be the soccer mom grudgingly dragging her children from one activity to the next and living only for the children. To be fair, I have seen some very happy mothers, and seeing them gave me the warm fuzzy feeling that my friend calls "the baby oggle". In that moment I see the happier side: playing with the child, and bonding on hiking trips etc. The happy ideas have yet to overcome the unhappy ones. I'm told that one day my biologics will over ride my brain and I will want a child no matter what; I don't know if that is true or not, but what I do know is my brain keeps screaming no every time a small child starts to cry. There's more to it than that.

At this point in my life, I have to ask myself if I really want someone that dependent on me and my time. I still want to travel the world, I want to learn, I want to be able to take off to the beach at a moments notice because I can and not have to worry about the responsibility yet. On top of that, children are expensive. Financing someone else's future is really something that I won't take lightly and I know that if I want to bring another life in to this world our financial status will have to change.

It all comes down to two things: maturity and financial readiness. Neither are present in my life at the moment, so then having a child isn't really an option either.