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I’ve never wanted chIldren,
but I’ve always had names picked out for
them anyway. Some might say that’s a sign
that I live in some sad state of unconscious
regret now that, having freshly turned 45,
I haven’t had them. But it mostly just means
there are pets I’ve wanted to call lucy and
thomas but didn’t because I was irratio-
nally inclined to save those names on the
of chance they might be put to human
use one day. I say irrationally because this
is basically tantamount to holding on to a
pair of ankle harnesses in case I suddenly
want to go bungee jumping—something
that ranks about 500,000th on my bucket
list. But that’s how deeply the motherhood
mandate is imprinted in women’s brains. we
try to talk ourselves into it. Sometimes we
even let others talk us into it. even those of
us who aren’t programmed for it are prone
to try to overwrite our code.
Some women who grow up ambivalent
about children have an aha moment, when
they realize that they want them more than
anything—or, less commonly but no less
intensely, that they don’t. For me, the jour-
ney to “no” was more gradual. as a child,
I exhibited many classic traits of a future
nonmother-by-choice: I eschewed toy baby carriages and preferred stufed
animals to dolls. I babysat in my teens solely as a moneymaking venture
and quit the business as soon as I could for a job at the smoothie stand in
the mall. In my 20s, not wanting to be a mother felt like a condition
I might grow out of someday—like my distaste for bell peppers. By the
time I was in my 30s, though, nothing had changed. I tried not to dismiss
people who said, “You’ll feel diferently when you meet the right person.”
But now that I’m in my 40s and married to as right a person as anyone is
likely to fnd, I can see that this condition is simply part of my coding.
My husband, for his part, has occasional moments of envy when our
friends’ children do something particularly impressive or charming (such
as leave for college), but I am grateful to have found someone who loves
me enough not to talk me into something that is not in my heart to do.
I was nearly 40 when we married. a man whose top priority is having
biological children does not marry an almost 40-year-old woman—
particularly one who’s about as interested in IvF and donor eggs as she
is in, well, bungee jumping. egg freezing now is a game changer for
women—at least those who have the resources. But I am endlessly
appreciative that the technology wasn’t as readily available when my eggs
were at their optimal freezability. I suspect I would have been tormented
by yet another opportunity to doubt myself, to worry more about chang-
ing my mind in the future than knowing my mind in the present.
I know: Plenty of people who think they don’t want kids wind up
being happy they had them anyway. even women who become pregnantat the least convenient time often say it’s
the best thing that ever happened to them.
and in a lot of cases, I believe them. I real-
ize there’s a danger in overthinking things.
But when it comes to the decision of
whether to create a human being from
scratch and deposit it into a world that’s
wondrous in some ways but chaotic and
terrifying in others, I’d argue that there’s
an awful lot of underthinking going on—
and not just from the people most frequently
accused of it. I’m not talking about the
pregnant teens, the Octomoms, and
the fecund lotharios who occasionally turn
up in the news, such as the 33-year-old
tennessee man who requested a break in
child- support payments for the 30 children
he’s fathered with 11 women. I’m talking
about the underthinkers who have children
not so much because they want to but
because it’s what you do, because not doing
so is (wait for it) ... selfsh. I’m talking about
people who have children to improve their
marriages, to please their families, or out
of fear that they’ll regret it later if they don’t.
If I had a child today, I’m sure I would
love her more than I can comprehend. But
I’m also pretty sure I wouldn’t love my life.
I’m lucky. I have an extraordinarily satisfying life as a writer. My career is
not just a career but an expression of the very things that defne and
nourish my existence. I could probably fnd a way to balance it all with
the joy of motherhood but, to be honest, I don’t want to. that’s not an
equilibrium I’m interested in fnding. I love the spare, quiet rooms of my
grown-up house. I love teaching and traveling and having long conversa-
tions with people I’ve never met and may never meet again. I love the
idea of contributing to young people’s lives without being anyone’s mother,
of feeding their souls in ways that mothers, by defnition, cannot. and
while it’s entirely possible that I don’t know what I’m talking about (this
also applies to bungee jumping), I can’t think of anything more unfair
than having a child for the sole purpose of fnding out what I’m missing.
I can, however, imagine what I’d miss if I’d taken a diferent path: the
tranquility of my morning cofee, interrupted only by the singing of the
birds and the roar of the neighborhood leaf blowers; the late dinners that
allow my husband to stay at the ofce until 8 p.m. while I catch up with
long-distance friends and leisurely prepare a hodgepodge of a meal. I’d
even miss the perverse pleasure I take in answering “no” whenever
someone asks, “do you have children?”
“no, I don’t,” I say with a smile. “It just wasn’t for me.”
and guess what? there’s so much else out there that is. nSelfsh, Shallow, and Self-absorbed: Sixteen writers on the decision not
to have Kids, an anthology edited by Meghan Daum, is out March 31Why I decided not to have kids
By Meghan Daum
OP T I NG
OUT
OF MOTHERHOOD
The
NEWS
karen collins/trunk archive