Bear with me. This is going to be a very personal post.

Now that I’m 25, and have been in a long-term relationship for 3 years with Allan, I’m getting sick of people asking me if I want to get married and have kids.
To be honest, it’s a totally intimidating idea. My answer is always the same: Yes, I want to get married eventually but not now, and I’m pretty sure I never want to have kids.

The look is always the same, too. Utter shock and surprise. Is it really that bad that I don’t want to have children? Does that make me some kind of cold-hearted robot?

Yes, Allan and I have talked about marriage… but we both want to wait for the right time. We’re both in the middle of our careers and we want to pay off some debt before we start a new life together. Also – to me marriage is about making a commitment and working at it no matter what happens. It’s a big deal. 3-5 years away would be a good timeline. I’ve seen a lot of couples jump into it too early and end up unhappy. Basically, I’m not in any rush. I’m still young. I love him, and I love our life together right now.

Having kids is a whole new different ballgame. I like our lifestyle. I love being able to go surf and snowboard and go on trips whenever we want. Is this selfish?  I love being able to go out during the week or the weekend and not have to worry about a babysitter. I can see the attraction behind having little “you”’s running around… little surfers and snowboarders and someone to take care of. But I don’t think living vicariously through them, wanting to have clones of yourself, or having kids just to fill a gap in your relationship are the right reasons to have children. What are the right reasons, anyway?

We both want to keep working full-time jobs in the video game industry. I can’t imagine having a child and not staying home with them. I feel like it would be difficult to provide my children with the type of life I’d want them to have. How could we possibly have kids and pay for education AND still go out and do all the activities we love to do. It’s a big sacrifice.

I know several couples who have decided not to have children and they are now in their 50s and they are living it up! They have no regrets (as far as I can tell from talking to them) and they are incredibly happy with each other. And totally not stressed compared to the parents I know.

Still – a lot of people say having kids is the best thing that has ever happened to them. Sometimes I wonder who they are trying to convince… me, or themselves? And a lot of people say NOT having kids is the best thing that has ever happened to them! So confusing.

So, it’s out there now, on my very public blog. Dear Mom: Don’t kill me.

So, what do you think? Am I a bad person for not wanting to have kids and get married right away? Is this an age thing where I’ll change my mind later (I doubt it)? Are you a parent? Was it worth it? Do you want kids? If so – why? If not – why not?

Yes. It’s finally done.

It took a little while to edit this all together because of all the different cameras, the length of song, the amount of footage, and how busy I’ve been lately. It isn’t the best edit I could have done, but I think how fun the snowboarding trips this past holiday were comes across, and that’s what matters.

The HD snowboarding movie is cut to the song “Kids” by MGMT. This song was blatantly ripped off from Travis Rice’s That’s It, That’s All.

There’s two parts to the clip… the first is Christmas Day at Hemlock Mountain, and the second takes place over New Years Eve (and Day of course) at Apex Mountain in Penticton, BC. We had great conditions and lots of pow despite the sparse coverage for both trips.

Highlights include Christmas breakfast, lots of powder boarding, some jumps, some noobie boarding by yours truly, some great boarding by Allan, J, and Trev… the New Years Eve countdown, and lots of funny dancing. Oh, and keep your eye out for “The Zoidberg.”

Check out the video on Vimeo. You can also download the full video there to your harddrive if you don’t like streaming video. Let me know what you think!