The subject of parenthood/non-parenthood is one I’ve touched on frequently over the years, and it seems to beg a regular revisit. Now that my meno is on permanent pause it feels like time for an update.
I am one of those ‘maybe yes/maybe no’ people, who probably represent the majority of women who never have kids (and for the record, childless women are not rare: in Canada/US/UK, about 1 in 5 women will not have children). It wasn’t a decision I ever consciously made – I just couldn’t decide one way or the other. Time chugged along and I never messed up on the birth control, nor did I find myself with a partner who was into it. But I spent decades waffling, in a state that varied from mild anxiety to heart-pounding panic.
In my late ’30’s, at peak indecision with the clock ticking hard, I decided to confront the motherhood question full-force. I initiated The Egg Club – a gang of up to a dozen women who met regularly to talk about how we felt about the baby/no baby conundrum. Some were firm nos, some were on the fence, others wanted kids or were unable to conceive. We talked about our bodies and our love lives and our relationships with our mothers. We talked about grief – because there is grief in having children, and there is grief in not having children. Procreation is mortality and grief is just part of the human package.
The Egg Club convos were sometimes sad and serious, but also healing, and often very funny. We laughed more than we cried. I emerged with a determination to explore all of the options, deeply and honestly. I considered finding a parenting partner. I made a list of candidates and drafted a proposal. I registered with an organization to potentially adopt a baby from Ethiopia. None of these explorations came to fruition for me, but one day a couple of years later, I ran into one of the Non-Moms pushing a toddler in a stroller. She told me that our group had motivated her, as a single woman, to adopt a child! I was floored. But for me, eventually the just clock ran out. The pressure finally faded away and to my surprise I was left with a profound sense of relief.
What I realize now is that I think I wanted to want a child much more than I actually wanted to have a child. My ambivalence should have spoken for itself, but it didn’t. Even though I was not raised in a culture or a family where there was a lot of pressure on me to baby up, there was also no escaping the external social pressures which, while subtle, were real. I had people – usually men – get right up in my face and tell me that I would never know real love until I had a child. My hindsight reply to that nonsense is, ‘and you will never know real love until you feel it for someone you don’t share bed or blood with’. But there is no arguing with biology, and perpetuation of the species is a primal motivator. Some call that particularly intense oxytocin rush ‘real’ love, and who am I to say it’s not. I wouldn’t know. But I continue to experience what feels like love to me, in many shades and flavours.
Once that giant hormonal wave had passed over me and through me, I was genuinely surprised to experience something that I could never have imagined during those urgent years of feeling that I must make that huge decision now. The big surprise was that I felt zero sense of regret. All that listing of motherhood pros-vs-con had been a complete waste of my energy and time. I really like kids, and I am sure I would have made a fine mother – or at least, no worse than average. The rewards of motherhood would certainly have been myriad. But I didn’t go that direction, and that is fine. I know few parents who feel deep regret over having had children – and also, I know few non-parents who feel deep regret over having taken a pass.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers sang, “it’s better to regret something you did, then something you didn’t do” – and as a woman, that ‘something’ was much closer to popping out a replicant than going on a nine-day bender in L.A. I was deathly afraid of regret, and understandably so: regret can tear you apart. But the Chilis were wrong. You don’t beat regret by what you do or don’t do. You kill that evil sucker by accepting the gifts of your life, right here, right now. My only regret is all the time I wasted in fretting.
But I have to confess, happy as I am with my non-decision: I am still angry. I am pissed off that throughout my long decades of excruciating indecision, not one person ever told me the only thing that could have eased my pain (and believe me that pain is as current as ever – I talk to young/youngish women almost every day now, who are wrestling with baby/no baby pain). No one ever told me it would be OK, either way.
If you are that person struggling to decide, please know this: you will be fine, no matter what. If that struggling person is your daughter or your friend please tell them this: the world needs your whole-hearted presence.The world needs your love as much as it needs your DNA, and that love will come back to you in a million mysterious ways. Have no fear – and you will have no regrets.
Photo: a golden-hour cherry-blossom moment in The Peoples’ Republic of East Van. Where I am not skating today.
I tell that to any woman I see in real life or online that is struggling to decide whether they should have kids. I let them know my experiences, that I’m not a kid person and that’s ok. It’s ok to not want kids or to decide not o have them. I almost had one but am glad I didn’t.
In fact, I would often get asked by women if I had kids while I was working in retail in my 20s-40s. Most of those women that I talked to that had kids (and were often harriedly taking care of them) would laugh and advise me not to have them because they’re a lot of work. They’d all look annoyed and stressed and rueful while they said that. Some would admit they wish they hadn’t had them while their kids were right there next to them. I do wish more women would have known at that time that they would’ve been ok without them.
Thank you for the validation that it will be OK either way: that life will go on.
I’ve been trapped in this will-I-or-won’t-I purgatory for years. In my mid-20s when my sister’s and cousin’s kids were running around the Thanksgiving table screaming, I thought “Nope!” Then in my 30s all my friends were suddenly pregnant, and my first husband and I decided to go for it. We tried once (literally once), nothing happened, and then we ended up divorced.
By my mid-30s I was desperate for a partner to start a family with. He didn’t marry me until we were both 40, and we tried for three years and had five miscarriages. So I once again find myself at a crossroads of what to do next--whether to pursue parenthood at any cost, or let that dream go and build a life that’s fulfilling in other ways.
All of this is to say: thank you for taking the pressure off of what feels like such a life-and-death decision! This is beautifully and thoughtfully written, and I’m so grateful for your insights.