Got kids? No? Congrats. This Workout Wednesday’s for you.

Soon after the unsuccessful infertility treatment that I now understand caused me great bodily harm and made me get fat, Hot Firefighter Husband and I shared a cathartic moment.

We decided that if our greatest burden in life was the inability to reproduce, then we were damn lucky people. We had a great marriage, big loving families, lots of nieces and nephews, and life would be good. I made a list of immediate goals that included buying a sports car and a horse and traveling to Europe.

We bought the sports car. We began building our dream house by the ocean. My mom and I agreed to go on a walking tour of Italy.

Then we decided to adopt children and stunt all opportunities for personal and financial growth. This month makes nine years since we filled out the first adoption-related paperwork. If a palm reader had told me then that I’d eventually have three children under the age of 9, I think I would have chopped off my hand. But here I am and I’m happy with the way things turned out.

You know what, though? Had it turned out differently, I still would have been happy.

I’ve thought of this recently on two occasions. The first was when my married-and-childless friend Jay posted something on Facebook about spending a quiet Sunday reading a good book at the beach. I thought, “Really? You get to do things like that? Because I mostly read books by Eric Carle these days, and there’s not much plot.”

The second occasion involved my friend Bee, who has been married for 20 years and has no children. Someone was telling her she should have kids because she has really beautiful eyes to pass on to a baby. The person continued on with the regular spiel: there’s nothing like it, life will change, it will bring great happiness — all the stuff they say about crack cocaine, really. It’s actually quite similar. Both become lifelong obsessions that ultimately lead to financial ruin and premature aging. We strive for this?

Anyway, this person was painting such an elaborately fabulous picture of family life that I had to interrupt and say to Bee, “I think you’ve made a wise decision.”

It’s not that I regret having children. Of course I don’t. I love my three little dervishes madly, unreasonably, like a cow loves her cud.

And yet.

There’s an essay I once read called, “Welcome to Holland,” about a woman’s journey raising her Down’s Syndrome son. The author, Emily Perl Kingsley, compares having a disabled child to planning a trip to Italy, then landing unexpectedly in Holland. She always had dreamed to going to Italy, she writes, but eventually, she realizes that Holland is a wonderful place.

I think the same could be said of the differences between having children and remaining childless: it’s like traveling to different places. Both journeys offer exciting, harrowing adventures, though honestly sometimes I feel like I could have gone to Tahiti but I’m stuck in Kokomo, Ind. Also there’s a lot of drool and urine in Kokomo.

I don’t know if my friends made conscious decisions to remain childless. But if they did, don’t look at me to tell them their lives have less meaning because of it.

Sure, there’s nothing like having a 3-year-old blow chewed-up cookie in your ear, and words can’t describe the smell of a little boy’s sweat.

There’s also nothing like a long beach walk with the dog, a cold beer, sex and a nap. My subconscious currently thinks that only happens in movies.

People without children don’t lose themselves in playgroups and science projects. They don’t ever have to taste Easy Mac to see if it’s too hot. They never run out of baby wipes at crucial moments. They don’t contemplate whether certain measures of discipline constitute child abuse. They can focus on who they are and their place in this world, and I don’t see anything wrong with that. I’m jealous of it, in fact.

Do I think childless adults miss out on something? Yes, I do.

But hey. It’s a trade-off. I’m missing out on a few things, too.

WORKOUT

Before I had children, this was my favorite way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Go to the beach. If you don’t live near a beach, find a state park or scenic area with lots of hiking trails.

Set your timer. Start walking at a nice pace to warm up. After 10 minutes, take it to a jog.
Jog for 10 minutes, then slow to a fast walk for the next 10.
Continue with the 10 minutes walking, 10 minutes running routine for an hour. If it’s summer, you can occasionally stop to take a dip in the ocean.

When you’re done, go home and drink a really cold beer. Then drag your significant other into bed and have sex. (If you have kids, you may have to rent a hotel room for this part of the workout.) Then you’ll obviously take a nap.

When you wake up from your nap, you’ll already have had a perfect day – workout, sex, beer and nap – but make it even better by going out for dinner at a place that doesn’t serve Mac & Cheese. Then shoot me a message and remind me of what that’s like.