Matrimony and Baby Making

Originally run on 21 September 2009 for the Opinions page.

Matrimony and Baby Making:
Why People Under 30 Shouldn't Get Married

I’ve noticed a recent, horrifying trend on the Facebooks and rumor-mills surrounding high school acquaintances of mine. I’ve noticed that far too many of them are getting married and having kids. It’s awful. I’m twenty-two and I’d like to consider myself fairly level-headed and I can’t even begin to comprehend marital vows or spawning a brood. I don’t get it any more than I get quantum physics or the mad scrawlings of a homeless man, written with his own filth. In every single case of these people getting married, their decisions seem to have two causes in common: Stupidity or religiosity. Or both.

I’m not here to harangue religion, though, that’s hardly any fun. I’m fairly certain that God doesn’t want any part in these marriages. He created the moon, the sky, and the seas, so why would he want to lower His batting average with marriages that are as certain to end with arbitration as it is certain that Oedipus is going to get ruddy with his mom? Maybe He’s just got a better sense of humor than I do. He did create the platypus. And the manatee. And the Irish. It’s a distinct possibility.

The best example of someone who shouldn’t get married at this age is a fellow I went to high school with. His name was Chaz and he could easily be described as a guy that looked and acted like someone named Chaz. There was never a more perfect Chaz than this one. He had the kind of effulgent demeanor that caused many people to ask him if he was high. He never was, which was almost worse, because if you’re stoned, you can sober up, but there’s no amount of time that can keep you from being a desert of personality.

When we heard that he was expecting, my friends and I laughed it off as an insane rumor, drummed up by a sick mind. There was no way fate was cruel enough to let someone as un-ideal for parenthood like Chaz have a baby, much less the twins he was rumored to be expecting. I wouldn’t be comfortable letting a guy named Chaz hold my baby, much less actually have one. Well, as it turns out, he married the gal he knocked up and they’re on Facebook. The once funny rumor is now a chilling testament to human mistakes online.

I think there’s a few more guys from my high school class with bastards running around, but they’ve at least got the good taste to obscure any progeny they accidentally made. You’ve got to cover that up, brick it up in a wall, and burn the evidence, too. It’s one thing to ruin your life by not knowing proper pull-out procedures, but it’s quite another to dress your mistakes up and take portraits of them at Sears.

Children. Marriage. Ugh. No thanks, I’ve got shit to do this decade. Marriage and having babies can wait. Or it can at least wait until I’ve got my own and I stop caring about what people from my high school do with their lives