Almost half of women of childbearing age do not have children, and yet the issue of choosing to not have children still creates firestorms, whether approached from financial, societal, or feminist angles. I am the mother of three children but I never saw maternity as a mandate, and I cannot fathom why remaining childfree is seen as some sort of “rogue” option.
My many childfree friends, both male and female, are some of the smartest, most generous, most feminist-thinking people I know. And, I cannot imagine my children’s lives without those childfree adults in their lives, they’ve been such an integral part of their upbringing. Two friends in particular have known my kids since I was pregnant with them, and though they never called Marion Aunt or Blake Uncle, love has flowed both ways for their entire lives. Blake now lives in Tokyo and Marion moved to Abu Dhabi, but the intimacy of their relationships with my kids still make them closer than almost all of their blood aunts and uncles.
Marion and Blake fill a very different and special niche for my kids. “Adult friends” might be the best name for the relationship they have, but the nomenclature doesn’t matter. What matters is what we all know: Blake and Marion are an invaluable part of their lives. Having Blake and Marion attend all of our family functions is so much our normal that Louise Fabiani’s recent piece in the Washington Post took me by surprise—in it, she asks that people with kids “allow” childfree adults in their children’s lives and makes an argument for the value the childfree can bring. The post makes me feel badly for Fabiani as an individual, but sadder for our culture at large, since it is apparently a place that alienates childfree parents to such a degree.
When I was pregnant with my first child, I was in my later 20’s, and among my friends to make this life-altering decision. One of my besties said something like, “I don’t want to offend you, but the reasons to not have kids are so real and concrete, and the reasons to have them… I just can’t see...”
The funny thing is, neither can I.
It’s much easier to list the reasons not to have children. There is just so much “they” don’t tell you about having kids. In the interest of transparency and good will for all, I will:
There are prodigious amounts of poop involved. Women, you are likely to poop on the table during delivery. Men, you are likely to see it. And that’s nothing compared to what happens next. Sure, you know you will be changing a lot of diapers, but you simply cannot fathom the inexhaustible ways shit will come at you, in all colors, consistencies and textures. You will dream of crap. You are likely to have shit under your fingernails for about six years, depending upon the intelligence level of your child and your own energy levels.
Bonus poop intelligence: People make many assumptions about the childfree―-but inaccurate generalizations are made about parents, too, like the assumption that you won’t mind changing ANY kid’s diaper just because you’re used to changing your own kids. Fact check: it’s just not true. Whatever magic that makes parents not gag when changing their own kids’ diapers does not “work” on other people’s kids’ diapers. Other kids poop stinks in that way that hours after your exposure is over, you can still smell it. You Febreeze and light candles and think about burning sage, but as soon as it’s gone some other parent in your baby-sitting co-op will drop off some alien kid with packed Pampers.
Even the most demanding partner is not as difficult to deal with as 2-year-old. Your partner might insist on purchasing a wicker tea pot as a souvenir from your trip to Maine, or watching Restaurant Impossible on demand (On demand!), but he would never go rigid in Wegman’s, screaming for a Kit Kat bar while his head spins 360 degrees, not even on his worst day.
Your joy may be multiplied, but so is your pain, and it’s worse than you can imagine. Take every bit of middle-school angst and multiple it by a bazillion. That’s how you will feel when someone slights your kid, or your kid even thinks someone has. Imagine pain from loss, and how it made your heart itself hurt. Now imagine the surrounding veins and arteries being braided. Now, tie them in a Windsor knot. You’re close.
Unless you own a farm or your own business, kids are not really helpful for very long. If you add up the few years they can mow the lawn or sponge mop the floor, thereby saving you a bit of time or money, they haven’t even made a dent in their diaper costs (see “poop” above). Factor their allowance(s) in, and you’re back in the red.
You know you will be giving up your freedom, but…You are no longer free to walk out the door; to not worry about everything all the time; to take a shower or a shit when you need to (see, there’s poop issues on both sides); to not schedule work meetings around sing-alongs at the grade school where your second grader will stand on her tip toes every time she has to hit a high note.
On the plus side, kids are good excuses, though, that part’s true. You can get out of demonstration parties by saying Emily has a fever. You can blow off other people’s birthday parties by claiming you have to drive your kid to a different one. You can even leave work early if little Henry has to see the school nurse. Kids are also a terrific excuse for not having met your original career aspirations, even if that’s only true in your own mind.
You will always be wrong, their entire lives, no matter what choices you make. Let your baby cry it out and you are an unfeeling ogre, hold your baby too much and you will stop them from ever learning to self sooth. Send them to pre-school early and you are pushing them, but don’t send them and have them at a disadvantage for kindergarten. Sleep away camp both teaches your child autonomy and that you simply don’t want them around. You’ll have more than 20 years of being told you’ve made the wrong choice, as well as knowing so, deep, deep, deep in your heart.
There are times that you will feel like they are literally sucking the life out of you, you will be so drained. I have had female students come to me and tell me that they cannot imagine having children, that they’re afraid they never will have that desire. I tell them all I know: One day, you will wake up and it will no longer feel like a choice; it will feel like an urgent need. Or, you won’t.
I tell them: as a parent, the only time you’re not feeling like a husk of who you used to be, you’re thinking about how, if something happened to your children, if someone took them away, you would die.
