Single and childfree by default

I’m at that life stage where the majority of my friends are getting married and having kids.

And there’s an invisible script that once you hit 30, people feel like they need to wrap their 20s in a neat little bow and become “adults.”

Step 1) Find a partner and get married

Step 2) Buy a house with a white picket fence

Step 3) Have 2.5 kids and live happily ever after

I don’t see anything necessarily wrong with this life. But why is this everyone’s goal? And why achieve it by some arbitrary age?

I’ve seen people in my network rush to check all the boxes only to break up with their partner right before their wedding, or less than two years after.

Luckily my friends didn’t have kids yet before they split. But I saw my parents go through a rough divorce that impacted my siblings and me forever. It sucks for everyone.

So what’s my gripe with this magical life?

Having everything “figured out” by 30 (or any arbitrary number) is a dumb goal.

For the record, I don’t blame my friends, or more than 50% of marriages that end in divorce, for their decisions. I simply believe our culture has brainwashed us that we need to have X and Y things before Z age.