Biological Clock

Over the weekend Lance and I gossiped a little. For whatever reason, many of our friends are still single, although we are all in our mid- to-late-thirties. We talked about why this might be so, and who might be getting close to settling down, and who was a lost cause, and so on. And it got me thinking about what our children will be doing when they are in their mid-to-late-thirties.

I proposed this hypothetical question to Lance:

"Which would be worse: that Vivian marries her high school sweetheart at 19, or that she is still unmarried at 38?"

We couldn't decide. Neither one of us want her to get married young, and miss out on all the life that happens in the years from 18 to 30. I would be worried that the person she loves at 19 may not be the right person for her at 35. But at the same time, I wouldn't want her to miss out on having children. I wouldn't want her to be lonely. So I wouldn't want her to be single at 38.

Once we agreed that there was no way to answer that hypothetical question, I posed another one to Lance:

"Okay, same question, but this time with Isaac. Which one do you pick?"

And of course, we both said: "Without question, better for him to be single at 38."