Family (5)

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I'm going to be an uncle.

More accurately, my brother is going to be a father.

More accurately still, his wife is pregnant.

Here we have two highly intelligent, extremely busy people, who agreed that they'd much rather have careers and a relationship than a marriage and a family - on the grounds that:

(1) There's no good reason to get married, not even purely financial.
(2) They have no silly romantic notions that marriage will make their relationship more "real".
(3) They have no silly romantic notions about making babies either.
(4) They know perfectly well that producing offspring would mess up their lives.
(5) There's no familial or social pressure to become parents.
(6) Neither feels the need to breed.

So what do they do? They have a romantic wedding, wait a sensible three and a half years...and breed.

I'm sure the baby will be adorable, and I'm sure they'll be excellent parents, and in 20 years time the baby will have become an admirable person largely free of hangups.

It's just a mystery to me why this has happened.

I, of course, would be an absolutely terrible parent. But students and young relatives tell me I make quite a good uncle.

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