Regrets
It's something we who celebrate the childfree lifestyle don't like to talk about much, but the truth is there are some people who don't have kids only to regret the decision later. I have a friend in his 50s who has two stepkids and now stepgrandkids, but never had any children of his own. He recently told me he wishes he had every day of his life.
In this essay, "Duped out of Motherhood," writer Kate Mulvey reflects on turning 40 and being without child. It was a choice she made repeatedly over the years, but clearly regretting:
Grief and loss. These are two emotions that have become commonplace in my emotional repertoire of late. It can be frightening to yearn for a child, and it is hard to fathom the desperate urgency that comes with thinking that maybe, one day, I could be a mother.
But after that party, I had an epiphany. In six months' time I will be 40, and after a great deal of soul searching, I have decided that I am bowing out gracefully from the baby race. I cried myself to sleep for weeks. No child. Not now. Not ever.
People look at someone like me - a woman who is still attractive, has her own career and doesn't have children - and think that either I am an unfeeling monster or a tragic failure. Sometimes they say it to my face.
Just last week, a well-meaning friend stood triumphant with her twoyearold on her hip and told me: "Well, Kate, you don't like children do you?"
I lost my rag. I made it clear that I hadn't made a choice not to have children. I am not one of those women who sat down at 30 and categorically factored out babies from their life plan. I love children and share all the motherly instincts of most women.
But it is a painful modern truth that there is a growing number of women - the proportion of women under 50 without children has doubled over the past two decades - who have simply forgotten to have a baby.
Personally I've never found regret to be a useful emotion. I mean, people who have children surely regret thier decision too. But just because we don't want to regret things doesn't mean we won't. I think Kate's piece does raise some interesting points about how difficult, complicated, and personal the decision not to have kids is for some people. People like to imagine that all childfree people are smug, hedonistic baby-haters. Clearly we come in all different types of packages and with all sorts of different reasons for why we don't have offspring and a whole range of feelings about that choice.
[LINK]
In this essay, "Duped out of Motherhood," writer Kate Mulvey reflects on turning 40 and being without child. It was a choice she made repeatedly over the years, but clearly regretting:
Grief and loss. These are two emotions that have become commonplace in my emotional repertoire of late. It can be frightening to yearn for a child, and it is hard to fathom the desperate urgency that comes with thinking that maybe, one day, I could be a mother.
But after that party, I had an epiphany. In six months' time I will be 40, and after a great deal of soul searching, I have decided that I am bowing out gracefully from the baby race. I cried myself to sleep for weeks. No child. Not now. Not ever.
People look at someone like me - a woman who is still attractive, has her own career and doesn't have children - and think that either I am an unfeeling monster or a tragic failure. Sometimes they say it to my face.
Just last week, a well-meaning friend stood triumphant with her twoyearold on her hip and told me: "Well, Kate, you don't like children do you?"
I lost my rag. I made it clear that I hadn't made a choice not to have children. I am not one of those women who sat down at 30 and categorically factored out babies from their life plan. I love children and share all the motherly instincts of most women.
But it is a painful modern truth that there is a growing number of women - the proportion of women under 50 without children has doubled over the past two decades - who have simply forgotten to have a baby.
Personally I've never found regret to be a useful emotion. I mean, people who have children surely regret thier decision too. But just because we don't want to regret things doesn't mean we won't. I think Kate's piece does raise some interesting points about how difficult, complicated, and personal the decision not to have kids is for some people. People like to imagine that all childfree people are smug, hedonistic baby-haters. Clearly we come in all different types of packages and with all sorts of different reasons for why we don't have offspring and a whole range of feelings about that choice.
[LINK]
5 Comments:
This was such a powerful description. And I appreciate you including it even though it might not be exactly what many who have already made the decision to be child free want to hear. It's important for those on the fence (like me) and still wrestling with making the decision to think about.
I see more in this about dealing with people who don't understand the decision to be child free. It's also interesting to see someone who may not have made an intentional decision from the get go but is reacting to the situation that resulted from the priorities she may have set without realizing their consequences. I can only imagine that, despite the fact many others are having children at 40, she decided that wasn't the experience she wanted. It's an interesting perspective for people just putting off the decision that the delay can affect the outcome in a real and unanticipated way.
Thanks so much for your post! Changing one's mind is one of the freedoms that being childfree affords. I'm sure some BNOB fans will change their minds. Others may come to regret their decision or not making the decision, as in the case of this article. What's important is to make the most of those childfree years whether they last a few decades or a lifetime.
Personally I'm not that sympathetic to the whole 'forgot to have a baby' thing. If it was going to be such a big deal for you, why didn't you adopt or foster or be a Big Sister?
And JLS - childfree for me has nothing to do with changing your mind later. In fact one of my pet peeves is the number of ignorants who say 'ah but you'll change your mind one day'. It's like expecting me to change my skin colour!
That Kate lady needs to ditch that "friend", pronto.
At 21 I married a man who had two children from a previous marriage. His daughters were 3 and 5 at that time. I agreed before we got married to have my tubes ties since he didn't want any more brats. We've been married 12 years now and I get crap from friends and family all the time. They tell me that it's good that I never had any kids of my own since I've had so much grief as a step mom. They also say that with my hip problems and endometriosis that I probably couldn't have had a baby of my own any way. I feel like telling them to take their kids and grandkids and shove them up their asses. It's not the childfree people who treat childless people like crap. It's proud parents who like to make us feel like were less of a person simply because we didn't breed like they did.
Post a Comment
<< Home