I am not a mother.
That’s an odd thing to have to announce. But at my age, people tend to assume the opposite (and have opinions when they learn the truth).
I’ve accepted the label childfree for its positive embrace of not being a parent, but it doesn’t do a great job of describing my life or my relationship with children. As my friend Lisa Sibbett writes at The Auntie Bulletin, you can have a “childful” life without being a parent — and that’s exactly what many non-parents want.
There was a time when I was annoyed by that argument. Women who were childfree-by-choice would rush to assure you, “I don’t want to be a parent, but I love children!” They weren’t mothers, but they were everyone’s weird auntie — delighted to babysit, buy birthday gifts, make funny faces at kids at the park, hold a coworker’s baby.
I didn’t feel that way. I didn’t want to be a mother, but I also didn’t want to hang out with other people’s children.
As a younger adult, I didn’t like being around children. They’re unpredictable, often loud, quite needy (if for no other reason than being too short to reach anything themselves), and everything they touch becomes permanently sticky for some reason.
This is all still true of children, but I’ve developed a tolerance that’s blossomed into, dare I say, appreciation for all of this childishness. My sister had her first child in 2011, I fell in love with her and she taught me how to love other children.
My desire to be a mother never emerged. But now I adore my nieces and nephews, I care deeply about the wellbeing of strangers’ children and I don’t freak out when a baby stares at me for 90 minutes on an airplane. (I also cry if I ever see a child crying or scared in a movie; if anyone can tell me what that is and how to make it stop, much appreciated, k thx!)
No, I won’t change my mind one day
I’ve never been pregnant or tried to be, and I realized pretty early into adulthood that I wasn’t going to want children of my own. It’s a deliberate decision a woman has to make in our culture. That’s odd, isn’t it? Shouldn’t we put those standards on the decision to become a parent? But — at least where I grew up in conservative, rural Wisconsin — becoming a parent is not a decision, it’s a default. Defying that default is a decision that requires much deliberation and is met with much critique.
(Which is weird, right? Like, if I say “I’m not so sure about having kids,” why would your first response be to think I absolutely need to be responsible for a child’s upbringing? That lack of interest should be a quick disqualifier.)
I grew up with parents who loved us dearly, but didn’t want to be parents. Both my mom and my stepdad, the parents I lived with most of the time, had had children because they were expected to as adults in a conservative Christian community. They didn’t like the way kids behaved or engaged with the world, and they didn’t have the resources or encouragement that many parents have today to learn about our development and relationships and psychology. We were not a child-centered household; kids were expected to be quiet, be clean and do as we were told. Childishness was met with irritation.
What I learned from the way I was raised is that having kids is difficult for parents.
I think that’s true for most parents, even if it’s not difficult for them for the same reasons it was difficult for my parents. But some parents also pass on the impression that having children brings them joy. I learned to see parenting only as something that terribly inconveniences adults, and I felt the ache of being a child of parents who seemed irritated by my hanging around. I took the lesson that a person shouldn’t willingly have children unless they were all-in on being a parent. Some people are super enthusiastic about becoming parents and having kids, and I’m happy to leave family life to them.
For almost two decades as a non-parent adult, people around me quietly assumed I’d eventually have kids. Even if I told someone outright I didn’t want kids, they seemed to assume that would change eventually. They’d hear, “I don’t want kids right now.” I’m a working class woman from the Midwest; parenthood was bound to happen as long as it was possible. It took me years to even believe myself when I said I didn’t want kids!
At this age, though, that assumption has faded. When I was around 35 years old, my mom finally asked — instead of another round of “Are you sure you don’t want kids?” — “Do you regret not having kids?” And I was so relieved, because I knew the pressure had passed.
What I love (and don’t) about not having kids
I love the life I’ve built without meeting any of the right milestones.
I love my house; it’s very small and cost relatively little money, and I couldn’t comfortably raise a family here. My partner and I get to make the space exactly what we want all the time, because it’s just for us. Nothing has to be child-proof or censored. I chose bold colors for every room — a purple dining room inspired by the TV show Friends, aqua walls in the den with retro 70s patterns on the curtains, 1950s-era olive green in my office with chrome details, and a deep, quiet burgundy in my bedroom. Nothing in my house is decorated with Spiderman or Disney princesses, and no space is dedicated to storing toys or stinky hockey uniforms.
I love spending my time on work, writing and travel. Not having kids means I can shape my days and weeks however I want. There’s no extra cost to traveling. I don’t have to arrange child care during the day. I don’t have to meet a child’s insatiable appetite for attention or occupation. I can sit at my computer as much or as little as I want throughout the day without guilt, and watch what I want to watch on TV at night (if that happens to be a Disney movie, it happens to be a Disney movie…).
I love that I’m not responsible for keeping children fed and housed, so my income can ebb and flow. I’m the breadwinner in my house, so I am responsible for the livelihood of another adult. But he’s much more flexible to and understanding of changes in income than a kid might be. He’s totally onboard if I say I want to stop working for a year to write a book — I wouldn’t want to ask a kid to absorb that kind of sacrifice by giving up ski club or something.
The argument that a woman in this day and age has the right to not become a parent is well-trodden ground. Yet, in practice, this still feels like an outlandish choice. We’re made to feel like unuseful weirdos in a world that’s not built for the lives we live.
Not having kids is one more thing about me that doesn’t fit the world I’m forced to live in. Nearly everyone my age in my area has kids, and their lives are arranged around children’s activities. That means my local social options are limited to retirees. There aren’t book clubs or writing circles or maker’s spaces filled with millennials with a bunch of free time. The millennials around here have kids and probably work two jobs to support them. Being social with retirees is fine — intergenerational relationships are good! — but it leaves me longing for people I can relate to more explicitly. I have connections with people my age who don’t have kids, but they’re scattered geographically, so we can’t grab coffee on Friday mornings. Finding a solid community of people my age who live a life anything like mine, even in a more populated city, would be difficult, because having kids is so culturally ingrained.
It’s particularly tough being a person without kids in my family, because plans are made around the people with kids. I’m often not consulted about when something will happen; the siblings with kids figure out what works for their schedule and then tell me about it. If I happen to have something going on, I just miss out on stuff; whatever is on my calendar isn’t treated with as much concern as kids’ recitals, basketball games and camps. This isn’t to downplay how hectic a family’s schedule is; I see what they’re dealing with. It’s just weird to assume my calendar — i.e. my life — is so much emptier because I don’t have kids filling it.
A childful life without kids of my own
In my 20s and early 30s, I loved not having kids because I loved the freedom to roam and be completely free from obligation to anyone. Now I’ve settled into a much more routine life, where I do a day job and spend my evenings writing and my weekends puttering around my house or yard. I don’t have the same kind of reckless abandon I had when I was younger; I accept responsibility now for showing up for the kids in my life.
This is why childfree no longer feels like the right label. My life is full of children I love, and I make so many decisions and plans around them. I live where I do in rural Wisconsin because it’s just four miles from where my sister lives with my nieces and nephews. I’m a short walk down the road from their school, so I’m very available for band concerts, games, plays and holiday programs, and I prioritize those in my (sometimes busy, TYVM!) calendar. Plus, I’m here in a pinch for missed-the-bus days!
I most love being a non-parent auntie, because I get to model this option for the kids in my life.
I want them to see me living the life I’ve chosen. I’m not an evangelist for not having kids, but I am an evangelist for thinking for yourself, knowing what you want life to be and doing everything you can to live that life. Coming from this small-town culture, I know how hard it is to imagine yourself doing anything other than what everyone around you is doing — which is usually getting a mediocre job, marrying someone of the opposite gender, having children and buying a home within 100 miles of where you grew up.
I want younger people around me to see that I imagined what I wanted in life and designed my life to make it happen. That they can do that, too. I am the weird auntie so they know being the weird auntie is an option — if they want it.
Your turn
What is your relationship to parenthood? What did you learn about parenthood from the way you were raised? How does your relationship to children impact how you’re perceived in the world around you?
Note: Let me reiterate that I don’t have an opinion about whether or not someone else should have children! (I would like everyone to feel the same about my choice.) Also acknowledging that some people want to be parents but can’t be for all kinds of shitty reasons. That’s a totally different experience that I would never claim to represent, but also an important part of this conversation in our culture that assumes parenting is a normal and easy choice.