The Stork neither Twitters nor Tweets.

"I didn't have kids to make friends!" is a quote my mother is very famous for saying to strangers as they gawked at a woman holding a screaming baby while simultaneously keeping my brother and me from killing each other (we had a thing for throwing cans) in the middle of a discount food store.

I often wonder if my mother would have Twittered if she could have while we were growing up. I feel like the thing about twittering that makes it so addictive to me is that it gives me a chance to express myself and what is going on in my life. Like screaming into a pillow, I need to tell someone, let someone know what's going on.

For instance, when I'm texting Sam, I don't really twitter.

And I can't imagine anyone more desperate for a release valve than a young parent.

I love kids. I LOVE them. They're precocious and funny and innocent and, most charmingly, simple. They have the simple blessing of being the emotional basic tool set from Wal-Mart. They don't need the socket-wrench when all you do is poop, eat, sleep and cry.

That being said, I'm not a huge fan of infants. They're cute, but the interaction is rather limited. They're basically a miniature great-grand-parent only they don't smell like cats/frustration and hide their racism better.

For my money, I like the 18-month olds and up. Right when they're talking and they're still a little fun to play with. They're walking and learning every curse you can slip out of your mouth. Kind of like writing in ink and hoping you don't sneeze. Its exciting!

We all hit that age where people start getting married and everyone comments: "Oh, they're rather young, aren't they?" And then, somewhere after undergrad and the end of grad school you hear the comments about upcoming nuptuals shift from "Oh that's so nice!!" to "Well, damn, its about time" to "Dang, I thought he was gay."

And then finally, your peers begin to have babies.

I don't have any idea how to process that thought.

I love my parents. They are wonderful, beautiful, charming, loving, kind and good. But as I begin to pop the pills of perspective that life prescribes for me, I see through dilated eyes more than I have before who my parents are. My dad is awesome, but he has a temper and oftentimes lets it cloud his judgment. My mother is one of the most brilliant women on earth, but she forgets to put both socks on sometimes.

And they have four children.

I often wonder where people get off having children. I think it takes a special kind of arrogance/confidence (or both) to think you have the ability to raise children in a world rife with drugs and peer pressure and money problems and cancer and Enron and rapists and heartbreak and the Twilight books.

And that's assuming you are a good parent. My parents were a tag team and perhaps the biggest reason for any success I've had or ever will have.

Their unconditional love, wisdom and contumacious insistence on putting my needs before theirs are my biggest blessing in my life.

What about those of us not blessed so? In the course of my job and life I've met souls from homes I can't fathom. Angry split parents playing "gotcha" on the battlefield of their children's hearts. Parents who insist on being their child's best friend when they need someone to give them structure. Parents who say hurtful things and judge too harshly. Parents who try to live vicariously through their children. Or even worse, parents who treat their children as though they were new Fendi bag that goes out of style all too soon.

Octo-mom.

Growing up you think of parents as perfect shelters. It is quite the shock when you realize that parents are really a lot like people. Imperfect and broken. So where do we get off having children?

Are they the consumation of love between two people as I was raised to believe? Are we lonely and just want someone who has to depend on us? Are they your chance at finally achieving some sort of glory on the football field/golf course/chess team? Or are they the miraculous result of sugary drinks with exotic names hidden behind cute umbrellas and veil of deniability? Sometimes I just refer to them as "proof of sex."

Or maybe all or even none of the above?

I want children someday. Maybe. I think. But when I say that, its like me talking about the dog I've wanted for the last 3 years but, upon a moment's reflection realize that I have a hard enough time making it back to my own bathroom without crapping my pants (it comes on me quick, friends) without trying to manage something else's poop schedule.

It's one of those things in which the goodness sounded in theory doesn't echo so much in practice. Like wearing the "Green Man" suit to a bar in a hot Texas summer... especially when you sweat more in some areas than others.

But then again, Children are a fad with staying power. People have been doing it for a while and it is definitely not stopping anytime soon. One is born every 5 seconds and in every country in the world. Can't beat that for popularity.

Its a scary idea. But for every Hitler, Mozart, Curie, Einstein, Khan and Piccard, there's a million "normal" people. People raised by people raised by people. Loving, wanting, hurting and living.

Maybe children are what the cliche's say they are. Maybe they are a chance, a shot in the dark that they can be a little something better than we are. I love the idea of being so in love with someone that I want to place a bet that the potential bad in me could be mitigated by the good in her in our progeny. That, and there'd be proof I had sex at least once.

At the very least, I'd have an excuse to Twitter more often.