None of Your Beeswax.

I don't mind people asking if I have kids.  It's a normal question, like "Do you live in the city?" or "Who's your favorite member of Menudo?"  But I do rather mind when people ask why I don't have kids, or press me about when I'm going to have kids.  I also mind when people say, "Oh, that's too bad," or treat me to a long lecture on the many reasons why I will not be a real, grown-up, unselfish person until I have kids.   

My reasons are my own, and since I am the only one who has to answer for my life, I consider it ill-bred to interrogate me about them (although I realize that the questioners usually don't see it that way).  But if there is a way to answer these questions without sounding rude and defensive myself, I certainly haven't found it.   As much as I would love to reply with something like, "Last time I checked, it wasn't compulsory," or "That would require a uterus," or "Because I am married to a writer 20 years my senior," or "Insanity runs in my family," or "I'd probably forget a baby in a taxi," I fear I am doomed to smiling and saying, "Not everybody does."