Daddy dilemma

My fiancee is 70 percent against kids. The clock is ticking, and it's up to me to convince her to do something I'm not sure about either.

Editor's note: This story is excerpted from Salon's new anthology, "Maybe Baby: 28 Writers Tell the Truth About Skepticism, Infertility, Baby Lust, Childlessness, Ambivalence, and How They Made the Biggest Decision of Their Lives," edited by Lori Leibovich. Based on Salon's popular series "To Breed or Not to Breed," the collection inlcudes 24 original essays from writers including Anne Lamott, Rick Moody, Kathryn Harrison, Alisa Valdes-Rodriquez and Rebecca Traister.

By Larry Smith

Read more: Love, Parenting, Children, Relationships, Dating, Life

April 6, 2006 | Was life so perfect before the Margarita Incident? Sometimes I think it was. It was a life less examined at least. And that can be a good thing. The Margarita Incident involved -- as those moments in life that somehow mean a lot often do -- tequila. And a small child. And my fiancie for the past eight years, Piper.

Piper and I were having a particularly good time trading funny faces with a super cute two-year-old in a Mexican restaurant in the East Village. We were riding what was up to that point the perfect buzz available to two people with dual incomes, decent rent, and no need to be home by 10 p.m. to pay a babysitter, when she looked at me and asked: "You're not going to turn 42, freak out, and leave me for some 27-year-old eager to be a mom, are you?"

Good question. If I did turn 42 and despaired about not being a dad, a logical solution would be to find a younger woman who wants kids -- there always seem to be a lot of them around. But I'd prefer to avoid that situation. This woman is the love of my life. She took long enough to find. I'd prefer to live out my life with her. Here's the deal. We don't know if we want to have children. I'm about 65 percent for procreation; she's about 70 percent against. As we both slip into our mid-thirties, my own personal daddy dilemma has quietly taken on an urgency that I frankly didn't expect. I know that if I'm cutting out of work early to go to a soccer game, I really don't want to be the oldest guy passing out the orange slices, or worse yet, have my ass kicked by some young dad during a bout of sideline rage. We don't need to breed tomorrow, but we can't wait another eight years either. I think in decades, she thinks in days -- and now, more so than her, I think it's time to figure this stuff out.

You know that illustration with a stylish woman talking on the phone, saying, "Oh my God, I forgot to have children"? I don't want to look up in 2015 and realize I'm a version of that woman (albeit one wearing a worn Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt). That noise I'm beginning to hear is the sound of my sociological clock ticking.

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From as early as I can remember, I've been told I would make a good father. My mother repeated this mantra often. For her it was a statement of fact, backed up by the care and interest I took in my little sister. (As a four year old I would declare, "Don't you drop that baby on the floor" whenever someone held her; this delighted my mom and made my dad quite nervous.) If she and my father have raised me right, the idea of starting a family should be an attractive option. They've done their part to continue the great cycle of life. The pattern continues with me. So it was decreed. Or at least presumed. That was the plan. The Smith family name would continue.

We may have the most common surname in the U.S., but our stock is special. The first Smith was my grandfather Morris, who died three years ago after an excellent run that began in the tiny Russian town of Minsk and ended 91 years later in a tony suburb of Philadelphia. Upon arrival, his family was anointed "Smith," a loose translation of the family name of Blacksmith, an irony not lost on the generations of Smith family men more comfortable at the racetrack than the metal shop. Morris became known to one and all as Smitty, a nickname you don't hear nearly enough anymore. Smitty had two boys, my dad, Louis and his brother, Uncle Ralph. Lou had two girls and me. Ralph got married to Kathy, with whom he shares a blissful, travel-full, kid-free existence. This makes me the only living male in my family still realistically likely to father children. "It's up to you," the first Smith said wistfully ten years ago at my sister's wedding, as my then-girlfriend looked on in horror. But a funny thing happened on the way to the birthing class: I started dating a woman who could imagine a life for herself that did not involve children. We were still young and the pregnancy craze among our friends was still years away, but the germ of an idea was planted. Maybe I didn't need to spread my seed. Taking a pass on parenthood was an option. Who knew?

- - - - - - - - - - - -

She knew.

I met Piper in a dive breakfast joint in San Francisco nearly a decade ago. She was a girl who was used to being chased and good at rarely being caught. I eventually tricked her into dating me and have held on tight ever since. We've moved from the West Coast to Boston and finally New York, surviving deaths in the family, layoffs, landlords, legal troubles, terrorism, and all the other things that they if don't kill ya make ya stronger. Now eight years into this thing, we've found ourselves with good jobs, great friends, and 10,000 songs on our iPod. The only things to keep alive are a couple of plants and a couple of cats. It's the perfect bohemian yuppie existence. Why mess with a good thing?

For an I-don't-want-to-grow-up guy in his twenties -- which is to say, myself and most everyone I knew when I met her -- Piper was a dream girl. The Vows column of the New York Times might say: "A child actress who grew up in Brookline, Mass., friends say Miss Kerman exhibits the same comfortable ease munching on chicken wings and watching the game with the guys as she does preparing complicated Indian meals and discussing the latest article in the Atlantic Monthly with her Seven Sisters college alums. She loves wide-open spaces and horseback riding, yet has performed decorating miracles in her tiny New York City apartment. She's as at home in an organic garden in Berkeley as she is at a sample sale at Barney's. She has never considered diamonds to be a girl's best friend and was shocked when he presented her with seven gold rings and asked her to be his life partner. Although her many years of babysitting have afforded her a winning way with children (not to mention the ability to change a diaper with one hand in eight seconds), what Miss Kerman really hopes for, she says, is a puppy."

Next page: Her dream was never for a man to whoosh her off her feet, shove a rock on her finger, and start making babies