Twizzlers and Crackers

Today on the way to the beach I stopped to get gas at the cheap station ($2.06) and as the guy was filling up my car this really old, thin man with huge glasses and gray hair stepped out of the garage where he was waiting for his car to be fixed and walked around my car. My sister said to me, "look at all the Twizzlers in his pocket," and there in his front shirt pocket were about 10 Twizzlers. He came up next to my window and said to the attendant, "When is gas going back down to 25 cents a gallon?" I smiled at the remark because it was funny, but also because he had no front bottom teeth. Then he said, "These girls are killing themselves just to get a ride!" I smiled at him when he looked at me since I'm polite like that, then he told me that when he was younger gas was only 25 cents a gallon, then he asked me if I liked Twizzlers.

I know, I know, never take candy from strangers. But I was the one in the car, and I'm also pretty sure I could take him if it came to that. I mean come on, he was like 90 pounds and had no teeth.

So he gave one to me and said, "Here, give this one to the little girl next to you." Even though my sister is 17 and many people think she's older than me.

Then he offered up his peanut butter crackers. I declined at first, but he insisted, so now we have two Twizzlers and crackers on the counter in my kitchen.

That story has just stuck with me all day and I don't think I want to forget it.

Everything But

So I'm beginning to wonder if women can ever really have it all.

With the talk of couples who at 20 have been dating for three years and the soon to be wedding of one of my closest friends, I started thinking about having kids. Now, the thought of having kids scares the crap out of me right now because once someone has kids they are pretty much living their life for someone else, and at this point in my life I'm being very selfish and doing things for me, which I should be doing. I work to make money for myself, I'm going to school for myself. But once you have kids, that all changes. And with more women going to college and not only getting bachelor degrees but masters and ph.d's, they want careers. They put so much time and money into getting educated for these careers, and by the time they really get going in them they're already in their late twenties. Sure by then they may have met someone and gotten married, but most women then want a family. And a career.

So what happens? Working at a day care which was thought of as being nice and respectable meanwhile teachers lied to the parents and the managers stole money, I've seen mothers drop off their babies at 6 weeks old and head back to work. They drop off their kids when they're sick, and some would be there for 12 hours a day. Sometimes it wasn't even a question of if the mothers wanted to go back to work or not, they just had to to make ends meet. It was really heartbreaking, and it's exactly what made me decide to never put my kids in daycare. Because although this place was highly regarded and VERY expensive, these kids were still not treated as well as they should have been for the money their parents paid. So if I don't put my kids in daycare, then I'll have to stay home. I'll have to give up the career that I trained in school for for four years, then eventually worked very hard in the actual field, and stay home. Sure I can go back, maybe, after several years when they're all in school. But if it's anything that makes me not want to have kids, it's the idea that I'l have to give up something I haven't even accomplished yet.

I'm sure there are many mothers that do it, they raise a family and have a career, but they've made sacrifices. It's sucks that at some point most of us will have to decide which one we want, and the other will take a hard hit. We work so hard now, and we all have some sort of dream of a career we want, but what if we have to give that up for another dream? I don't think I can have a educated opinion on this obviously, because I'm not at the age I want kids, and I'm sure then I probably won't mind sacrificing things for the sake of a family. But it just sucks that at one point, I'm probably going to have to pick one.