You see it in books. You see it in movies. But I never thought it would happen in real life. Especially not to me.

I was asked by my extended family why I was still single.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, my cousin, who is five months younger than I am and has been home schooled since second grade, announced her engagement to her first boyfriend and is getting married this spring and then graduating next spring. Her father, my uncle, has seen three other weddings from his three older daughters, making my cousin's his fourth. From those three marriages, he was blessed with ten grandchildren. So while I was watching football with the rest of the family, he looks at me and tells me what a wonderful blessing it is to be married and have children. I politely nodded my head and listened to his liturgy, praying that he would eventually shut up. Thankfully, my aunt brought out the pies, and I made my escape.

God bless pie.

Then, when I went to get a drink, his second oldest daughter sneakily followed me to the cooler where all the sodas were.

"So, have you had any boyfriends?" She asked casually. I gave her some major side eye and dug my hand in the ice chest.

"Ha! I don't need that kind foolishness right now!" I exclaimed.

I knew where this was going, but didn't want to be a jerk and tell her to buzz off. Then she went on and told me about when she was my age and how she felt she needed to give some sort of guidance to navigate my twenties. I politely told her that I was happy where I was, without a boyfriend and with an awesome internship in the spring.

"Oh, no. You know what the feminist agenda says right?" She gasped. Oh great. I nodded my head, keeping my smart mouth shut.

"They want women to ignore their biological urges and have careers. I never knew how unfulfilling my life was until I started having children!" I inwardly cringed but smiled nonetheless.

"But I'm not really interested in a guy right now." My cousin sighed and looked at me seriously.

"You know I don't support homosexuality, right?" I almost dropped my drink.

"I'M NOT GAY!" I exclaimed, a little too loudly. My cousin sighed a breath of relief.

"Oh well, that's good. But remember what I said."

I don't think I can ever forget what she said.

Later that night, I was ranting to my mom about what happened. She sighed, not surprised that it happened to me.

"Just because your cousin is married doesn't mean you have to go find some random guy right now."

I threw my hands to the sky. Everything that was said to me that night went against my moral code. I have gay friends. I have friends who are career women.

My mom pointed out that my uncle and his wife started dating in freaking middle school and married when they were in college. Not that there's anything wrong with this, mind you. My parents, however, met when my dad was in his thirties and my mom was in her late twenties and had me when they were both well into their thirties. I also lived in an area where this trend was the huge majority of most of my classmates.

Which got me thinking:

I'm in no hurry to meet a guy.

I want to spend my twenties expanding my future television career and traveling the world. If I'm married in my twenties, I'm not going to be able to do any of that. I'm going to have to stop what I'm, doing and raise a child. Later on, I'm going to want to have a baby and then go back to work. To quote Beyonce, "Strong enough to bear the children, then get back to business."

According to the United States Bureau of Labor, about 70% of the labor workforce is made up of working moms and moms are willing to work. If every woman in the world were to stop their professional careers to raise their kids, the global economy would come to a screeching halt. Not to throw shade on those who choose to do this. Gloria Steinem, the most well-known advocate for women's rights, advocated for homemakers and caregivers in a 2004 speech.

"But I think at the same time we are beginning to understand that the work that is done in the home has to be counted as productive, important work in the world and given an economic value. 40 percent of the work in this country is—the productive work is done in the home and it is completely invisible in the gross national product. "

So as I sit in my parent's kitchen, pondering this rite of passage, it hits me how monumentally women in the workforce and women at home are. We all have a place in this wonderfully, unpredictable world. I know if my uncle and my cousin didn't love me, they wouldn't have felt comfortable with sharing their opinions with me. I'm grateful to have parents who support me unconditionally and respect my choices. So, now that I've experienced this phenomenon once, I'll be more prepared at Christmas when my Italian grandmother asks me, "When will you give me a great-grandchild?"