I spent several hours today with friends of mine from college, and their two small kids. We had tea rolls and Vietnamese coffee and then we went to their lovely house with a big lawn and large cats and overstuffed couches. Afterwards I came back to J’s apartment, ate some ice cream, watched a documentary, and thought about my intentionally childfree life.
Today I was looking at some photographs for sale, by a local woman, and I thought of my perpetual plan to do something with my pictures. There are so many things I want to do that depend on having my own space and time, on being able to control that, as much as anyone can. In addition to knowing that I don’t want the life that comes with motherhood, I know I don’t have the wherewithal for it.
Babies are gross. And sometimes charming. A (the 9 month old I saw today) makes these growling sounds that are kind of awesome. When I growled, she’d growl back at me, which made me feel gleeful and accomplished. JT, my friend and the mother of A, astounds me with her calmness and ability to multitask. There was so much going on at any one moment that would make me nervous and suffocated and anxious and itchy and fill me with an unbearable longing for quiet and aloneness. I don’t doubt that JT has moments when she loses it, but still, I thought, you really, really have to fucking want this. And then, even if you do, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be good at it. If you don’t have the mental or physical ability or desire to sustain the adventure of parenting, and to roll with the demands of it, it seems that you can only get so far. My own mother is a great example of that: I’ve never doubted that I was a wanted and a loved child, but her fragile mental state, the result of years of financial, familial, and physical stress, couldn’t sustain the reality of being a parent. I wasn’t the daughter she’d bet on, for better or worse.
One of the most annoying things people say when they find out that someone (usually a woman) doesn’t want children is, “You’d make such a good parent.” In the first place, a person doesn’t have to do something just because it’s possible, and in the other, why is it completely implausible that someone who seems to have the ability to be a good parent might want to channel those abilities into something else? For the three hundredth time in my life, I wonder why our view of everything is so narrow.
Even though I intend to remain childfree, I will probably always be thinking about this. It won’t go away, because my friends will have/keep having babies, and people will wonder when/if I’ll change my mind. There will always be the assumption that my life is incomplete, which I will of course internalize, because that’s how this sort of thing works. Women who don’t have children are blamed for not fulfilling a biological destiny, and women who do have them are castigated for not doing it “right”. I always think about Gloria Steinem, who shocked a lot of feminists when she got married, and was once asked by a reporter if she regretted never having had children. Another feminist writer, in an article about that interview, wondered if Steinem had had children, if she would have been asked if she regretted that.
From Chanel’s blog, I Diverge.
Of course no one asks women with kids if we regret it. There’s an automatic assumption that we never, ever do. I wouldn’t say I regret it by a long shot, but I do understand why there are species that eat their young.
As for pondering your childfree state, savor it. Enjoy it. Cackle with glee that you’re the cool aunt who gets to give the kids back when they’re being turds.
~like~
and what Marie Anelle said.
I’m still pondering this myself – seeing this first hand of friends who have children and other friends who remain child-free.
It is cool to hang out friends with the kids and play (oh I love to colour-in), especially when it looks like they really need a break and some adult company and conversation.
By the same token, it is lots of fun to do hang out with childfree friends and do the kinds of things that being a parent would inhibit.
I just wish that whatever decision women make in relation to children woundn’t become this double edged sword, where you are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
Ditto Marie Anelle and Mackey’s comments!
Also, let’s remember that not every woman who has or does not have children is that way by choice. Life is a complex journey, and we often end up where we least expected.
I so agree with Marie Anelle. Any mother who would tell you she hasn’t had moments when she wants to eat her young is lying. Even if you really, really want them, kids will push you to your physical and emotional limits and that’s if you have reasonably healthy, average ones. So I really admire people who are up front in saying: “You know, I couldn’t handle that—no thanks.” Informed decisions are always best, but there are so many forces pushing us to have children, that even an informed decision can be tough to stick with.
@Ms M – being deliberate in family planning choices is definitely a privilege (and one that I am grateful for).
Regardless of choice in relation to the issue of child-free or not, it still reminds me of the need to ensure that there is good quality and available community support especially for primary care-givers of the young, and that there is a lot of work that still needs to be done in the community at recognising women as human beings, along with equal pay, paid parental leave conditions, child care, elder care etc…
I’m a little late to the party, Chanel, but thanks so much for sharing this!
I, too, will likely remain a non-parent, because of material resources, practical life issues, and because of my partner’s strong opposition to being a parent herself. Yet I’m comfortable with children, on the whole, and get the, “you’re so good with children!” comments … which I try to deflect because I really dislike the essentializing view of young people they perpetuate.
These days, I feel more pressure from folks to go on in academia/be a teacher than be a parent … and like you say, it’s amazing how automatic the assumption is that if you’re “good” at something you’re obligated or naturally would love to do it. And the only thing keeping you from it is lack of confidence. Uh, no. I’d be a fucking GREAT parent. I’d be a DAMN GOOD teacher. But that doesn’t mean I’d be happy or content or healthy or at my most productive. It doesn’t mean I’d have the best life for me and my partner.
I was lucky enough to grow up without the “get married and have kids” pressure from my parents or grandparents. Both my dad and my maternal grandmother were really open about not having wanted kids (which was pretty painful for us, but still, useful). I wanted kids, but by the time I met the guy, it was a) too late and b) he never wanted to be a parent. So I’m the cool aunt, which is really good — *and* I get to have nice long Saturday mornings in bed with my guy. I did get some blowback from my really “straight” friends — the ones who got married young and had kids and needed all the rest of us to conform so that they’d know they did the Right Thing. That was annoying, and I lost a couple of friendships over it (the conformist pressure, not the kids thing), but overall, I’m really happy. Not torn up with regret. And I’m a really really cool auntie so those girls will come visit me in the old people’s home (also, I’m saving all my money).
Nice article. I can not even begin to relate the pressure my husband and I have had by family and friends to reproduce. We have been married for 15 years and have actually tried for the last 5 years. I just found out that I have severe endometriosis and had to have surgery. Now it’s physically impossible for me to have kids. But in those 5 years of trying and with miscarriages, my sister called me “heartless” for not “trying harder”. My mother in law came to my house in tears after MY miscarriage saying how she needed and expected grand kids. I someday may have the nerve to tell them that with family like them, why in the world would I arrange my life to have more family?! But seriously, my husband and I have a full life together, full of love and mutual hobbies. I can’t say my heart doesn’t sink a bit when I see a tender moment between a mother and child on TV on occassion, BUT there are so many ways to have love in your life. I just so wish family and friends could be supportive.