My 12-year-old self would’ve told you that she’d be married and have kids by age 30. I believed it so deeply that I felt compelled to tell Chris mere weeks into our relationship. I was 27 then; three years seemed to be enough time to date Chris, marry him, and get pregnant by the big 3–0. That way, I could (almost) ensure I’d produce healthy babies and have my second child before I turned 35. Forget traveling and writing “that book" — or, in Chris’ case, building that company. Parenthood was the endgame.

But what my 12-year-old self or even my 27-year-old self didn’t consider was that embracing motherhood at 30 would likely consume the years when I would just be starting to sink my teeth into work I believe in.

Now, let’s consider the not-so-unusual circumstances by which I arrived at my conclusion that 30 was the year to make babies. In the late '80s, my parents feared that sending me to public school would mean that I’d spend more time avoiding bullies than getting good grades. So despite my dad’s meager salary as a hotel room-service waiter, they mustered up tuition money and sent me to the nearest private school in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn — a Catholic school for kids in kindergarten to eighth grade. For a decade, I took part in all the teachings offered by a Catholic curriculum, until the age of 14 when I finally went to public high school (where, it’s worth noting, I did not get beat up).

Most of my elementary school friends’ parents had them in their early 20s. (My mom, who had me at 30, was on the older end of this spectrum). Also, when you attend Catholic school, they really talk up priesthood and sisterhood; altar boys get special treatment — mainly, they got to skip class to prepare for mass. It’s no surprise, then, that I came to this conclusion: If I was not married by 30, I would become a nun. Kids have funny ways of making sense of the world.

Even as I attained adulthood and realized that I didn’t have to become a spinster-nun, I could never shake the feeling that turning 30 was a bit like waiting for the Rapture: It’s all fun and games until the world ends. Still, I can’t blame the Catholic church for my naiveté. There are plenty of people who look at 30 as the finish line — beyond it, the doomsday trifecta: “real life,” responsibility, and miniature human beings who absorb all of your life force to keep themselves sustained.