The Don

All men experience a period of dramatic self-doubt during the “middle years” of life, as a result of sensing the passing of youth and the imminence of old age. Essentially what happens is that the man trades in all of his possessions for a newer model of the same. He will trade his old car for the newest model Porsche. He will trade in his wife for the newest model…errr… ja, well model. And so it goes on.

Today I am convinced that women also go through a similar event in their lives, although at an earlier age. The period that this happens in is between the age of 25 and 30. At this stage of a woman’s life it becomes evident that a woman’s biological clock is fitted with an alarm… and there is unfortunately no snooze button.

During this troublesome period of self loathing, your average woman starts talking profusely about procreation. Conversational topics are dominated with this issue. Topics that get addressed are:

Likelihood that procreation will transpire -
• “I’ve decided that if I ever have kids I’m teaching them to rap Tupac’s Changes.”

Suitable mates-
• “I want to have kids with a guy I see myself spending the rest of my life with. Not just someone who can help pay the mortgage, although this factor should not be overlooked.”

Hate speech against their own children-
• “It will be especially funny if I somehow manage to have the ‘white’ kids.”
• “Even if I ended up with a white guy, any biological kids I would have would come out a creamish colour.”
• “I couldn’t help imagining my kids as being some off colour Bart Simpson lookalikes.”
• “I’m just giving you more ammo for your blog aren’t I? I’m just gonna shut up now. “

Hate speech in general-
• “You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you? Wouldn’t it be awful if my cream kids ended up inhering white ppl’s inability to dance and coloured ppl’s naughty hair?!”

With the female form of this self-doubt crisis, they too feel their youth fading. They are no longer able to go out till the wee morning hours. They become more easily inebriated. Rather than accepting that they can now get drunk for real cheap, they complain about it non-stop.

• “Today I feel like the walking dead. The worst is that I didn’t even drink (had two ciders, no kak)“

Perhaps the loss of tolerance towards alcohol and “The need to breed” go hand in hand? Perhaps the female body evolves in a way that causes her to become inebriated much faster, thus causing her to make poor decisions, and ultimately leads her to have an unwanted- (but actually wanted) pregnancy?

Ultimately what this self-doubt crisis results in, is a great panic to all woman who are still single at that age.

• “The search for Mr I-can-handle-your-irrational-outbursts isn’t going swimmingly.”
• “I’m 26, single with no kids, and with no sign of either changing anytime soon.”
• “I wanted to meet the love of my life, get married (tres cliche I know), and have a bunch of kids while maintaining the inner tension of my va jay jay (don’t pretend that you’ve never been worried about that decreasing after childbirth).”

I am even aware of an extreme case of this crisis, where the subject actually falls for a younger guy! If he weren’t as smart and attractive, this would surely have been shameful!

All quotes are by real people.