When’s The Right Time?

Baby’s, Weddings, Engagements… how do we know when the right time is? (And how to not feel left behind.)

By Sophia LaRocca

Published, August 4th, 2024

Credit to Google and HBO

Remember the episode of Sex And The City season one where the girls travel out of the city for a baby shower of an old friend? Carrie thinks she might be pregnant, Charlotte’s baby name gets stolen, Miranda is ever so cynical, and Samantha is rubbing in everyone’s face that she’s not pregnant? Good.

It’s the perfect example of what I’ll be talking about today.

I think that episode sparked fears in every single twenty and thirty something girl for multiple reasons. Maybe it’s the fact that you’re not pregnant yet, not married, not engaged, or maybe the fact that one day you’re going to wake up and have to suffer a life of mediocre Motherhood and crave the days when you could get up on a table and dance topless. Who knows!

Each of the four had their own fears in the episode much like all of us.

But I think the fear we all have in common is, well, when? When is the right time? When is it the right time to settle down? If any!

It’s a question given to women since birth. Where are you going to college, do you have a boyfriend, are you engaged, when’s the wedding, where’s the baby, what about your job? It’s an endless vicious cycle that I want to talk about.

Much like Charlotte, I had a name stolen from me once, and it sucks. But the funny thing is… I’m not even sure if I want kids.

It’s a daunting thought and when you tell it to someone, they gasp and stare. But much like Samantha, I crave a life that is dedicated to me and my career.

In your twenties, this is when you start thinking about this stuff.

People around you are going to start getting married, and, getting pregnant, and graduating, and moving on. And believe me, it could be daunting. As someone who still lives with her parents and is in her first year of school, trying to balance a blog, books, and a fashion media major, I can’t even think about those things. And it makes you wonder if you’re doing things right.

I just got back from cousins beautiful baby shower. It was wonderful. She somehow looks even better pregnant. Had a smile from ear to ear the whole time, just an absolute stunner. She’s always been beautiful, but the baby really makes her impossibly more gorgeous. She’s a year older than me, and I was so happy when she told me, but the night after, that’s when those thoughts started to hit.

Oh my God my cousin is pregnant. Oh my God she is the first of my cousins to have a baby. Oh my God she’s a year old then me and happy she’s pregnant! And that’s when this earth-shattering thought hit me, I wouldn’t be. If I was in her situation, it would be very different.

And that’s when I realized, I don’t want kids.

I couldn’t even think about it, the thought would make me nauseous. I’d start to itch, run into the bathroom and hyperventilate. Life really hits and you realize you’re growing up when someone gets pregnant.

Watching everyone graduate, and get pregnant, and married, and move on is like you sitting on a carosal that just keeps going around and around and won’t stop. And you can’t get off. Why?

And I’m in my early twenties, I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like when I get older.

So coming home, I opened my laptop and got to work on today’s article. A last minute one, but I had a lot of inspiration.

I was sat at the table and ordered a Cosmopolitan at 12:30 in the afternoon and looked at oddly by the waitress before I was told there were no drinks allowed in the room. Understandable of course. (Does drinking at 12:30 in the afternoon autimatically make you an alcoholic?) I’ve never felt more like Samantha Jones my whole life. So I sat with my coke and new Tiffany glasses, looking around the room. I was amazed by the fact that I didn’t feel out of place but also that I didn’t feel…envious.

I’m extremely happy for my cousin, but not once in my head did I think, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to have my own baby shower!’ And I didn’t feel shameful for it either.

It’s a scary thought, it really is. Children.

And it is a hard topic for me to talk about.

But I’m going to do it. Raising a child is not for everyone, and I’m not sure it’s for me. I have three nieces who I adore, but my own… I just don’t know.

But now that my cousin is having one, I know one day, the expectation will be there. And I don’t know if I can.

I so desperately always wanted to go down the beaten path and do everything I’m supposed to. School, graduated, get a job, get married, have a baby, buy a house. In that order. But I don’t know if I can. I’ve never been normal, I’ve never wanted to be. So now this is what I have to deal with. Starting school late, having little to no friends, living at home with my parents, no boyfriend. And somehow I’m not fucking miserable.

All the girls in the episode of Sex And The City were all thinking different things at the baby shower. Samantha wanted to shove in everyone’s face how happy she was not pregnant, Charlotte was envious, Miranda was bored, and Carrie was uneasy.

They all represented a different woman at the baby shower and I’d say I’m the most like Carrie because I just watch. I’m polite, I talk, I give a gift, and I think. And I come home and write!

I don’t want a baby like Charlotte, I wasn’t bored like Miranda, and I wasn’t sneaking alcohol like Samantha.

But there is a shame not following the beaten path, there is. Not having a baby, not getting married. Not going to college, even if you do all of it but one, you’re not doing it right according to somebody.

And that’s always how it will be.

I think that’s what we have to come together and realize. The beaten path is a trap, everything society has taught us about women is a trap. The babies, the marrige, the wedding, even college! It’s something I still struggle with till this day, I do regret not going straight to college after High school, I do. But Covid hit, and I didn’t know what the hell to do. I lost two years of High school because of Covid and I was lost.

But if I went to college straight out of High school, I wouldn’t have published my book, become closer with my best friend, I wouldn’t have met two of my nieces, and made money, and have this blog! I wouldn’t have realized that I wanted to be a fashion media major or author. I would have just done what everyone else was doing.

And what’s the fun in that?

But as women, we’ve been taught that the clock is ticking and it never stops. On babies, on aging, on beauty, on our bodies, everything. And notice how men don’t have to worry about that.

You don’t want to be an old Mom, you want to get the job of your dreams early so you look good doing it, you want to meet the right man to have the perfect wedding at your perfect weight so you look good in your wedding dress. You want to graduate a certain time because you know for a fact, those hot young interns are going to get the job before you.

These are the standards that society has put on us. But just as much as society has put them on us, we’ve put them on ourselves.

In our twenties is he time we start to ask ‘when’s the right time,’ and I’m sorry, but I don’t have the answer. Maybe there is no right time. We’re going to feel left behind, its a part of life. But maybe we just have to do things when they feel right.