Yesterday someone I hadn’t seen in years asked me how my kids are. ‘How’s that?’ I asked, looking down at my waist to check, perhaps I looked pregnant. I didn’t. ‘I heard you have kids,’ he says seriously, ‘don’t you?’ ‘Not that I know of,’ I reply, ‘but I’ve had a couple of wild nights in the past so who knows …’
Quick disclaimer before I go too far, this one is about kids, and seeing as I don’t have any, you know this will be short. I’ll try to throw in the occasional reference to sex to keep you interested, but I can’t really promise too much, its a bit hard to sex-up a discussion about babies, no? Not to fear though, next week is sewer week...
The thing about crossing 30 in this town is that everyone assumes you have children, and if you don’t, then you must be dying to. Fair enough I guess, almost every woman I know is either a mother or longing to become one. I on the other hand, not so much. Wait, don’t light the torches yet, put down your pitchforks and let me explain. I’m a last born, all my life I’ve been the youngest one in the room, but now all of a sudden there’s little versions of my siblings all over and I’m looking at them in curiosity wondering, ‘I wonder what happens if I poke it here?’ Stop laughing, I accidentally said that out loud once and now my mother won’t leave me alone with her grandbabies. Shame man, can’t she take a joke?
Quick disclaimer before I go too far, this one is about kids, and seeing as I don’t have any, you know this will be short. I’ll try to throw in the occasional reference to sex to keep you interested, but I can’t really promise too much, its a bit hard to sex-up a discussion about babies, no? Not to fear though, next week is sewer week...
The thing about crossing 30 in this town is that everyone assumes you have children, and if you don’t, then you must be dying to. Fair enough I guess, almost every woman I know is either a mother or longing to become one. I on the other hand, not so much. Wait, don’t light the torches yet, put down your pitchforks and let me explain. I’m a last born, all my life I’ve been the youngest one in the room, but now all of a sudden there’s little versions of my siblings all over and I’m looking at them in curiosity wondering, ‘I wonder what happens if I poke it here?’ Stop laughing, I accidentally said that out loud once and now my mother won’t leave me alone with her grandbabies. Shame man, can’t she take a joke?
Apparently all women are hardwired to reproduce, and those of us who aren’t of the same frame of mind are immediately branded freaks, and not in a good way. When I told the last guy I dated (briefly) that I wasn’t sure I wanted to have kids, he looked at me like I’d just confessed a love for child pornography, then he crossed himself and muttered a quick prayer, this while simultaneously taking a gulp of beer and a hit of smack or whatever shit he was on (he was slightly unstable, I suspected chemicals). Trust me, when a possible abuser of things illegal crosses himself, things are not looking too good for you. Now you know. So now that I’ve been branded a half-woman by those in the know, what am I to do with myself? Back in campus when I first said I don’t plan to have kids, everyone just chuckled and wrote it off as one of those foolish things I’d say every so often. Older types would smile patronisingly and tell me that I’d change my mind as I matured, I assumed they were right and so I sat back to wait for my Damascus
I have to ask, are there others out here like me? The only women I know who don’t have kids and have made their peace with it are nuns, and they spend all day around other people’s children, running schools and what not. And not getting laid. From what I can tell, that’s the only way to get away with this whole no baby thing, because our society places little to no value on women who refuse to reproduce, and unfortunately on those who are unable to as well. My female friends frown at me when I refuse to change their babies’ diapers, they take it as a personal affront that I have no urge to cradle their screaming child to my bosom. My male friends stare at me like I’m an alien, devoid of human compassion and what not, the female terminator from T3, only without the red leather jumpsuit. The men I date don’t believe me, they think I’m trying to trap them with reverse psychology bullshit, either that or they start to stare at my womb suspiciously, like perhaps I’ve had a couple of kids already and now I’m hiding them so as to get them down the aisle as quickly as possible. My mother refuses to acknowledge it, period, and my father looks at me like he suspects I’m not really his spawn. Hell, every so often, even I start to wonder what’s wrong with me, why don’t I have this most basic urge?
A woman’s body is a strange thing. Once a month it reminds you that all that crap you’re carrying around has a greater purpose, reminding you of your place in the great chain that is mankind. At its most basic, a woman’s body is the vessel through which all life flows forth, and it will never let you forget it, despite the nonsense we often get up to. Deliberately not having a baby is like telling your own body, ‘Fuck you, bitch!’, a pointless act seeing as the next month your body will still be there, laughing at you, asking, ‘Who you calling bitch, bitch?’, and constantly trying to get its own way. It’s a scary thing when you want one thing and your body wants something completely different, it forces you to go to great lengths, up to and including sticking wire-thingis in your womb and wearing plastic to bed, to not achieve the stated purpose of your design. Did that sound almost religious? Don’t worry, I’m not about to start quoting creation scripture. Thing is, I’m a designer by training, an old school designer for that matter, I believe that form should follow function. Put differently, I believe that only by performing its function well can an object be truly beautiful. Brilliant theory at work, but its makes it a bit hard to explain the ‘woman without babies’ thing, no? Question is, by going against the design, am I negating the essence of what I am?
Now I need you appreciate just where I’m coming from here. When I was in my early 20’s, I thought all the ‘women must have babies talk’ was rubbish, a combination of dodgy biology, sexism and pressure from our mothers. I was an independent cow who refused to bow to society’s norms. Then in my late 20’s, when all my female friends started settling down and popping babies out, I realised that biological clock story was no lie, or that it was such a pervasive lie that it had become truth. Same difference I guess. At that point it became a case if different strokes and such like, but I was still bucking the trend, still fighting…you guessed it…society’s norms. For me to sit here and calmly proclaim the essence of a woman is as a baby making machine is not only frightening, it’s slightly absurd. I’m a bit concerned for myself, I’m starting to sound almost rational. I’ve always been a stubborn idiot, more inclined to say no before I listen, but with age comes, if not wisdom, at the very least perspective. I know enough now to know that I don’t know everything, so these days I’ll try to listen first, then say no (rarely yes), but with reasons, sometimes even good reasons.
Back to the question though, is my choice not to reproduce a rejection of my femininity, or am I simply an aberration from the norm, an outlier? They say nature will always seek balance, so it stands to reason that for every woman trying to populate the earth with as many babies as possible, there should be another one who doesn’t want to reproduce. Balance, no? You’re not buying this shit are you? Neither did my mother last weekend, but I figure it’s worth a shot, anything to help explain why I’m not living up to my biological potential. Truth is, I have no idea why I don’t want to have kids. Maybe it’s that I’ve never felt stable enough to start a family, because family comes with great responsibility, doesn’t it? Maybe I’ve just never met the right man, seeing as how I’ve always thought if I had to have a child, then I’d have to be married to the child’s father, because no child deserves to have only me taking care of him, that’s would be cruel and unusual punishment. Maybe I’m a selfish cow who just doesn’t want to grow the fuck up, I suspect that’s my father’s theory, at least that’s what his eyes keep saying. Or maybe, just maybe, this is how it was meant to be. Who knows, right?
POSTSCRIPT
For any of you currently going through the ‘must have baby now!’ hunger pangs, read this article The science of baby fever, turns out you’re not crazy, and neither am I.
POSTSCRIPT
For any of you currently going through the ‘must have baby now!’ hunger pangs, read this article The science of baby fever, turns out you’re not crazy, and neither am I.
