“Kids won’t make me happy.” I’ve heard that statement, or statements to that effect, thousands of times. Enough that I should, by now, have a response prepared. But when a guy said it to me a few days ago, I fumbled the answer. I failed him.

“I don’t know, man. Don’t get me wrong: I think it’s cool that you’ve got kids and everything. But, personally, I just don’t think kids would make me happy.”

That was his comment to me as we stood out in the cold, him smoking his cigarette, me secondhand smoking his cigarette. Maybe I just wanted to go back inside. Maybe I didn’t feel like having this conversation. Maybe I judged him for his selfishness. Well, I did judge him for his selfishness. I shouldn’t have — it was pretentious and arrogant of me — but I did. Whatever the reason, I offered a nonsense response…