Someone remarked to me the other day that they were semi-surprised at my strong desire to have children. They thought that with my concern about the future of the environment that adding another person to the planet would be a faux pas for me. While I understand that every person creates more strain on the Earth’s resources, I also believe that if we all lived a little lighter and consumed a little less that we’d be in a much better place than not having kids just to save the environment. photo credit: p.Gordon I’ve thought sometimes that it’s almost selfish to want to have kids, but I think the way we raise our children and teach them to respect the Earth and its resources that perhaps our children will use less resources than other Americans. Also, our children may be monumental in influencing others to live lighter and respect the Earth. I do think that creating another human being consumes a ton of resources over their lifetime no matter how lightly they live. On the other hand, what would happen [...]

Mr. Money and I have babies on the brain.  Despite the obstacles we’ve occurred, we’re determined that we will be parents in one way or another.  One of the reasons we waited to try to have a baby was because we wanted to wait until we were financially secure.  I understand now that you’ll probably never truly be ready to have kids, but we wanted to be as prepared as we could be.  We really wanted to make sure that we were student loan free.  That was something that we didn’t want to negotiate on. Now we’re student loan free and working on trying to have a baby.  It’s so exciting, and it finally feels like the time is right.  I can’t help but wonder if maybe we’ve waited too long now, though.  I’m 26 (I know, young!) but Mr. Money is 33.  What if it takes years to get pregnant?  Yikes.  I do think there are many benefits to waiting to have children, but I also think there are some drawbacks. Pros to having a baby when you’re older [...]