Cross-posted from the feminist librarian (my personal blog). foureleven read the post in its original form and suggested I think about cross-posting here at Harpyness. So here it is. The original post is part four of a planned thirty part series on turning thirty and how my values and perspectives have changed (or not) over time. I edited the original text slightly to make it more free-standing. Otherwise, it’s identical.
I’ve had a hard time finding my way into this post, and while the reasons are several I’m going to use my allotted space this week to talk about one in particular: the odd and unexpectedly liminal space I find myself in these days regarding parenting and childcare. I want to talk about my own feelings about childcare and potential parenting as they’ve evolved over the years, and I want to talk about the network of relationships and examples that have created the context in which those feelings have evolved. I’m specifically thinking here about my own desires and abilities to conceive, give birth to and/or adopt and raise children as a primary caregiver. I’ve already written lots in the past about the importance of incorporating children into the human family and how I think our culture falls down in this regard (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here … I really gotta make a separate index page for these things). Today, I’d like to talk in more personal terms about what the decision to parent or not parent means in my own life right now.
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| At age three, I thought I’d grow up to be Nora (Helen Reddy) from Pete’s Dragon. Lighthouse keeper and adoptive parent – what could possibly be better? |
In the manner of most children (at least I assume this is so?), I imagined that growing up to be an adult meant more or less growing up to take on the sort of responsibilities my parents and the other adults around me had. And that meant, in part, the responsibility of being a parent. I was an oldest child (and daughter) who positioned myself in my pre-adolescent and early adolescent years as someone who both liked parenting and was good at it. Younger children seemed comfortable with me. I was comfortable with them. As a girlchild I obviously got tons of positive social reinforcement for this behavior. (To be fair, my brother was also a nurturer, did childcare as a teenager, and today teaches middle school … so this wasn’t a completely gendered phenomenon. But I’m willing to bet I was meeting gendered expectations on some level.) Childcare also, actually, gave me an easy “out” when it came to socializing with my peers — something I felt generally awkward about. With the exception of spending time with close friends, as a child and adolescent I was pretty much constantly on the lookout for opportunities to ditch my age-mates in order to hang out with grown-ups (I wanted to be one) and smaller children (caring for them gave me an adult-like excuse to avoid my peers). Caring for children was a legitimate role. And I did genuinely like the wee ones I was responsible for.
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| When I was five I wanted to be Maria from The Sound of Music. If you’re going to adopt, why stop at just one? |
In that context, to the extent I imagined being an adult, I imagined being a parent. My best friend (coughcough childhood crush coughcough) and I had a long-standing fantasy about adopting lots of orphans and raising them together. As I went through puberty I developed a massive obsession with the physiology and sociology of pregnancy and childbirth (thank you Our Bodies, Ourselves and the other literature of the women’s health movement!). I had very concrete ideas about what sort of pregnancy and birth experience I wanted when it came to having kids — however, whenever that happened. As the realm of possibilities for family creation expanded my sense of how I might parent (and with whom) shifted, but I never entirely dropped the idea of being a parent someday. During my teen years and early twenties I learned some things about myself, including the fact that I wasn’t really interested in parenting in the context of a dyadic relationship in which I would be the full-time hands-on caregiver. At the same time, I remained committed to the sort of out-of-the-mainstream parenting that had been my own childhood experience. The only way I could see that sort of parenting happening in conjunction with my personality would be to have co-parenting with probably more than one other person, either in a co-housing or communal setting, in a committed poly marriage, or some other heretofore unspecified situation.
Because such a situation was so difficult to imagine establishing successfully, I started re-evaluating my assumption that being an adult me would involve parenting. I was lucky enough to have family members who didn’t pressure me to settle into a heteronormative family and start popping out babies, and also lucky enough to be surrounded not only by folks who had parenting radically (the homeschooling/unschooling community) but also by some really kick-ass single and non-parenting adults — notably single and non-parenting women – whom I could look to as models for what it would mean to be a not-parent. My father’s sister, for example, is not married with an adult stepson, but spent the majority of my childhood as a single female academic pursuing her PhD in theology and an M.S. in Social Work. A close family friend who was likewise single for years used to have dinner with our family regularly and provide childcare when my parents needed a break; being without children himself did not seem to impede his ability to be close with us or with his nieces and nephews. In college of the six female professors who I’d identify as the most influential in my academic career, three were single when they had me as a student and four were not parenting. All four of those women were living examples of how to be a whole person and build relationship networks without a marriage or children.
I took some flak from a couples’ counselor a year or so ago for starting to answer her question about whether I did or did not want children (Hanna’s immediate answer: “No”) by providing all of this background. Hanna pointed out to me later that the therapist — being unfamiliar with how my mind worked — probably thought I was evading her query. I wasn’t, but I honestly didn’t know how to answer her in any other (more succinct) way. Because my current location on the parenting continuum is a result of all these experiences, and that location is situational. Unlike people who experience bodily knowledge about their desire to parent or not parent, I am comfortable in the in-between space of offering my skills as a caregiver where and when I am called upon to do so.
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| Gwen Cooper and Baby Cooper (Torchwood). This is how I picture Hanna’s parenting would be (sans pink). For the fucking win. |
This frightens Hanna sometimes, the fact that my resistance to being a parent isn’t as complete as hers. We’re still working out how to negotiate that. While I don’t need (and for a number of reasons don’t actively want) to be a parent or primary caregiver, I also don’t experience the passionate rejection of that role that Hanna and some of our close friends articulate. I want to stay open to our lives and desires changing. Not because I think being a parent (or more specifically a mother) is something we need to lead fulfilling lives as women, or to have coherent and meaningful identities. But because I, personally, have a very difficult time taking any possibility off the table permanently. Closing and locking doors frighten me, make me feel claustrophobic.
I also want to stay open to the accidental parenting. Obviously, the chances of this happening given our collective anatomical make-up are incredibly slim, but I still want to stay alive to the possibility that at some point in the future we may be called upon to parent in some way: the children of friends or relatives, for example, in need of a temporary home. Gods forefend anything so traumatic happening to the people we love — but I live with the knowledge that shit sometimes does hit the fan, and I want to be there for the vulnerable survivors if it does.
All of this leaves me in what feels like a bit of a no man’s land when it comes to the current state of our cultural assumptions about parenting. In a landscape where children and families are simultaneously idolized and marginalized, and where single and non-parenting adults (particularly women) feel vilified for their decision not to parent, the pressure to “choose sides” is intense and I find it hard not to feel rendered invisible as a non-parent who is neither proudly childless by choice nor mourning her infertility and/or circumstances unconducive to parenting. I feel bi-lingual, in a sense, able to speak the language of parenting and of not-parenting with equal willingness and ease. I can see my future life unfolding in multiple directions, and I’m okay with that. Most of the time. But certainty about uncertainty (e.g. openness-to-change) is sometimes a more difficult position to articulate or defend than is certainty about certainty.
Which is perhaps why it’s taken me two weeks and this meandering blog post to do so — and why our couples’ therapist thought I was evading the question.
There isn’t really a need to “choose sides.” Like religion, like sexual orientation, like race, like anything, there really are no sides. We either are, or we aren’t. We either believe, or we don’t. We like members of the same sex, or we don’t. The concept that there are “sides” is an artificial construct, based on this idea that there’s one “right” answer to everything, which science tells us is a false premise. There are only potentials and paths. Natural selection tells us that adaptability is far more important that the actual traits we possess.
We need to stop defining things in terms of absolutes. Being a parent cannot be considered “wrong” any more than not being a parent can be considered “wrong.” The United States was conceived along with a simple premise: individual liberty. You’re free to do what you want and be what you want, as long as you don’t force it on others. We have to extend that premise to our everyday lives. There is no right or wrong answer. There is no right or wrong way. We simply do what we can, what we must, what we should, and let the world keep on spinning.
I agree with you, Nefarious Newt, that there are no sides in an absolute sense. However, on a cultural level, there IS a pressure to choose “sides” … to be “pro-child” or “anti-child.” I see it in the virtual internet world and I see it in my circle of friends. Our culture has situated parents and non-parents as opposing groups competing for resources, workplace benefits, space on the bus, etc. We are constantly fed messages to the effect that parents and non-parents can’t communicate with one another because they’re priorities and interests are wholly separate. We buy into this division when we speak derogatorily about parents as “breeders” or speak of ourselves as “child-free” and argue that we have the right to public spaces in which children and children’s needs are not taken into account. We buy into it when we treat women who aren’t interested in motherhood as unnatural beings who are somehow incomplete, unwell, and likely to “come around” to parenthood once they’ve realized the error of their ways.
So while I’m 100% in agreement with you that the divide is an artificial one, because we’ve bought the divide to such an extent, I am pressured to identify with one camp or the other on a daily basis, and whomever I am perceived as supporting I get pretty thoroughly trashed by folks who see me as “against” them because I disagree with their position. It is very, very difficult in the circles in which I currently exist to find folks who live a more complicated middle ground or are simply neutral on this issue.
Thanks for this post. You articulated some of my own experience — I have similar feelings on parenting as a cultural/adult practice, and I too sometimes feel invisible because I lack cultural backing for my position (neither proudly childfree, nor actively desiring to parent toot sweet). I’m especially inspired by how confident your tone it, it’s very inspiring.
…Okay, it’s almost creepy how closely your experience, as expressed in this essay, parallels mine! Maybe I should print this out and give it to my mother (who thinks that discussing the POSSIBILITY of me not having children means I’ve ‘closed the door’ and am in need of an intervention and/or therapy).
It is nice to know there are other women who are not opposed to children and don’t feel devastated at not having them. I am 45 now. From 33 to about 42, everyone seemed to have an (unsolicited) opinion about what I should be doing to meet someone and hurry up and have children, and to assume I felt awful being single without kids. I enjoy my life as is, I love my nieces and nephews, I probably would have like being a mom, and I like not being a mom. I often do feel people want me to be strongly pro or anti child. Maybe it is just that people who feel most strongly about the topic are the most likely to be vocal about their views. So thanks for sharing that your feelings about not being on a “side”!
“Our culture has situated parents and non-parents as opposing groups competing for resources, workplace benefits, space on the bus, etc. …
I am pressured to identify with one camp or the other on a daily basis …”
I agree with you, to a certain extent, the media has framed this as two sides fighting against each other. However, this makes it even more important for those of us who refuse to “take sides” to try to educate those who want to make this into a war of some kind.
For example, I have no children but I completely support lots of different government provided benefits for children, everything from schooling to parental leave. I think there should be even *more* support for these things (paid parental leave, free college, and so on). And on a personal level, I have also tried to be a positive influence on the children in my life (lots of nieces and nephews).
Are these people in your life who take sides opposed to even *hearing* the concept that this is an artificial construct? Is this really too abstract of a concept for them to grasp? Can you attempt to engage them in a conversation (perhaps with lots of leading questions, LOL) and help them to see that this issue doesn’t have to be framed as one side vs. the other?
I don’t know these folks so maybe this is not possible. But, if it helps, I can definitely see where you’re coming from. The concept of being open to whatever may come makes sense to me.
I was one of those “I never want children” folks (tubal ligation with no regrets 20+ years later) but that doesn’t mean I can’t conceive (oops, pardon the pun!) of other points of view in the world.
I see this from the parenting side….people assume because I have children I am pro-child. That’s not the case: I am profoundly pro-choice.
I find the paths of caring for children, parenting, or not having anything to do with children to be all appropriate paths for any person.
This is the path I chose, who am I to say that anyone else should choose my way? It just seems bizarre to me.
Just because I like, say, Thai food, should I look down on people who don’t like it and advocate that they SHOULD do it?
That said, I think the societal pressure on women is ridiculous with this fake dichotomy.
I’m glad you posted this, Anna! I completely agree with this statement, “We are constantly fed messages to the effect that parents and non-parents can’t communicate with one another because they’re priorities and interests are wholly separate.” This is a strange analogy, but cat owners can be the same way. I’ve had co-workers, who wouldn’t give me the time of day otherwise, strike up a conversation because I have a cat, saying they can’t relate to anyone who doesn’t.
I think this post is going to echo quite eerily for any woman who was an oldest child. I think many of us were encouraged to accept a nurturing/partial parenting role, especially those of us from large families.
My partner and I have chosen to be childless, but i maintain close relationships with my friend’s children (including taking hordes of kids to the park for the day to give their various families a break) and provide respite to my family by taking in my younger siblings (20+ years age difference) for school vacations.
I’m very struck by how adoption was your story of choice, rather than being a birth mother (at least, until you got older).
@wondering
Good point about the adoption thing! I can’t really explain it, since as a very young child (i.e. when I was obsessed with adopting orphans) I didn’t really know anyone who had been adopted. Maybe it had to do with becoming a parent in a way I as a small child could picture? I think it also comes from my super-strong impulse to take care of the vulnerable. According to my mother, I would get fretful at the infants playgroup when another baby didn’t have a toy it wanted, and try to take it to them. This could just be apocryphal, but I have had to learn over the years that being the care-taker is not always the most helpful thing …
When I hit puberty and realized I would have the capacity to get pregnant and give birth I went through a period of about four years when I was absolutely fascinated with the process. It’s probably a separate post, but my adolescent sense of my sexual self was completely wrapped up in my reproductive capacity and fantasizing about pregnancy and childbirth, and women’s bodies with their capacity to procreate. I remember my mother at one point gently suggesting that there were reasons other than future pregnancies to care for my body, exercise, eat healthy, etc. Like, you know, I might be worth caring for just because I was me!