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Monday, January 24, 2005

Childless by choice

I found this interesting article about childlessness by Amy Leask through Philobiblon, and it got me to thinking about my own experience of choosing not to have children and how it really differs from Leask's account, which seems more in line with how most women experience social disapproval for not having children.

I am, you see, childless, not because of any misadventure or ailment, but because I simply haven’t had any children. Nonetheless, I’m confronted with this fact on a fairly regular basis, at the most inopportune times, in the strangest places. I am faced with a steady stream of “Why not?”

I've had people grill me on why I'm not married sometimes, and occasionally about whether or not I intend to have children. But it would be dishonest to say that I'm the victim of constant hectoring on the subject, and this got me to thinking about why it might be that I'm mostly spared. A few things occured to me. For one thing, I'm officially The Weird One in my family, so they don't bug me about shit anymore because they don't really want to know what kind of odd answer they're going to get to their inquiries. Also, I'm not in my 30's yet. In most of Texas, being 27 and childless is still cause for alarm, but in liberal Austin, it's pretty much the norm for women to put off child-bearing. I imagine in a few years I'll get a few more nosy questions.

But then another possibility loomed in my head as I read this part:

Perhaps it’s a matter of politics. My partner, although he does what he can to defend my honour, is never subjected to the same scrutiny. It isn’t us who should be thinking about babies, it’s me. In the estimation of others, life will go on as usual for him, while I consign myself to diaper duty. My career, my ambitions, my interests, and hell, even my sanity seem to be worth less than his.

Ah yes, the man factor. I had never considered it much before, but my man is quite opinionated on the subject of children, and his opinion is that he dislikes them and will never have any, thank you very much. He tolerates our friends' children, but that's it. And most people I know accept his anti-child attitude without question, and certainly I've never heard anyone suggest that it's un-manly somehow to dislike children.

Which makes me wonder--do people leave me alone because they think that the decision to have children has been made for me and therefore there's no reason to question it any further? It makes me distinctly uncomfortable to think about that, and I'm sure no one consciously thinks it through like that, but there is the lingering possibility that this is, in fact, the case. People feel free to pester women about these things when they wouldn't feel comfortable pestering a man. In other words, am I inadvertantly using a man's authority to justify my own decisions?

Well, even if this is the case, there's really nothing I can do about it. It's not like I'm telling people who ask me, "Oh, he doesn't want children so I can't." It doesn't even get to that point, since I'm rarely asked. But could people be leaving me alone because they think that's the answer they are going to get anyway?

38 Comments:

Blogger mythago said...

I suspect it's also because you're unmarried, and therefore shouldn't be making love, much less babies. If you two were hitched you'd be hearing about it.

1/24/2005

 
Blogger mythago said...

p.s. - how does one contact you via e-mail?

1/24/2005

 
Blogger FoolishOwl said...

I was startled the first time someone asked me if I had children, when I was in my early twenties. They were surprised I didn't -- then I found out that most of the people with whom I was working, mostly my age or younger, had children.

However, I can count on my fingers the number of times I've been asked that question, and I can't remember the conversation going beyond, "No, I don't."

1/24/2005

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There's similar pressure if you only have one kid (to have more). Probably the pressure on childless women is worse, but I wouldn't know personally because I had my daughter when I was relatively young (24). I still cannot believe the rudeness of people on this. Once, when I was with my daughter in a grocery store, a woman (total stranger) looked down at her and said "where's your sister or brother?" (gah!!) In retrospect, I wish I had brightly said "oh, I sold him/her to the gypsies!" or (again, brightly) "well, my husband and I keep having sex all the time, but I don't seem to be getting pregnant...". (Heh heh heh: there's always next time!) My mother (who called me quote an idiot unquote because I got pregnant so "early") ironically has been a major source of pressure, along with various relatives. If I try to "argue" my case (that I don't want to have another kid if I can't stay afford to stay home with them for at least a year) people will tell me things like "you shouldn't let 'financial matters' decide how many kids you have". They really don't give a shit that I probably would have a nervous breakdown if I had to re-live my daughter's infancy (trying to work a highly stressful job and breastfeed with not enough sleep when I usually need more than 8 hrs, etc.) Sometimes I'll even say "hey, if you'd like to pay me a full time salary while I take off a year and then look for a new job, maybe I'll consider it." Usually that shuts people up (for a little while at least).

Anyway, nothing will ever please people. If you have more than one kid, but they are all the same sex, you need to keep trying for the other sex (especially if you have all girls). But if you have too many kids, that can be "bad" too. Really, the only way you can truly escape most of the crap is if you have a boy followed by a girl (within 2-3 years).

1/24/2005

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There's similar pressure if you only have one kid (to have more). Probably the pressure on childless women is worse, but I wouldn't know personally because I had my daughter when I was relatively young (24). I still cannot believe the rudeness of people on this. Once, when I was with my daughter in a grocery store, a woman (total stranger) looked down at her and said "where's your sister or brother?" (gah!!) In retrospect, I wish I had brightly said "oh, I sold him/her to the gypsies!" or (again, brightly) "well, my husband and I keep having sex all the time, but I don't seem to be getting pregnant...". (Heh heh heh: there's always next time!) My mother (who called me quote an idiot unquote because I got pregnant so "early") ironically has been a major source of pressure, along with various relatives. If I try to "argue" my case (that I don't want to have another kid if I can't stay afford to stay home with them for at least a year) people will tell me things like "you shouldn't let 'financial matters' decide how many kids you have". They really don't give a shit that I probably would have a nervous breakdown if I had to re-live my daughter's infancy (trying to work a highly stressful job and breastfeed with not enough sleep when I usually need more than 8 hrs, etc.) Sometimes I'll even say "hey, if you'd like to pay me a full time salary while I take off a year and then look for a new job, maybe I'll consider it." Usually that shuts people up (for a little while at least).

Anyway, nothing will ever please people. If you have more than one kid, but they are all the same sex, you need to keep trying for the other sex (especially if you have all girls). But if you have too many kids, that can be "bad" too. Really, the only way you can truly escape most of the crap is if you have a boy followed by a girl (within 2-3 years).

--Barbara Preuninger

1/24/2005

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There's similar pressure if you only have one kid (to have more). Probably the pressure on childless women is worse, but I wouldn't know personally because I had my daughter when I was relatively young (24). I still cannot believe the rudeness of people on this. Once, when I was with my daughter in a grocery store, a woman (total stranger) looked down at her and said "where's your sister or brother?" (gah!!) In retrospect, I wish I had brightly said "oh, I sold him/her to the gypsies!" or (again, brightly) "well, my husband and I keep having sex all the time, but I don't seem to be getting pregnant...". (Heh heh heh: there's always next time!) My mother (who called me quote an idiot unquote because I got pregnant so "early") ironically has been a major source of pressure, along with various relatives. If I try to "argue" my case (that I don't want to have another kid if I can't stay afford to stay home with them for at least a year) people will tell me things like "you shouldn't let 'financial matters' decide how many kids you have". They really don't give a shit that I probably would have a nervous breakdown if I had to re-live my daughter's infancy (trying to work a highly stressful job and breastfeed with not enough sleep when I usually need more than 8 hrs, etc.) Sometimes I'll even say "hey, if you'd like to pay me a full time salary while I take off a year and then look for a new job, maybe I'll consider it." Usually that shuts people up (for a little while at least).

Anyway, nothing will ever please people. If you have more than one kid, but they are all the same sex, you need to keep trying for the other sex (especially if you have all girls). But if you have too many kids, that can be "bad" too. Really, the only way you can truly escape most of the crap is if you have a boy followed by a girl (within 2-3 years).

--Barbara Preuninger

1/24/2005

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As well as joining the "you won't get harassed about babies until you've been harassed into marriage" and the "you're not 30 yet" chorus, I'd also like to add that it also depends on the area you live in and the culture, as well as the culture of your family. I don't get nagged too badly where I live (college town and most people think I'm still a student anyway), but I have certain relatives that think the older you are to get married, the worse off your marriage will be, and you can imagine what they pull on me all the time.

But no matter what, the longer you go without popping out babies, the worse the nagging will get. Unfortunately.

-Jennifer

1/24/2005

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I just tell them to fuck off. I am more than my uterus and ovaries. I am NOT a birthing machine. I will be childless by choice and unmarried by choice. When people ask and even nag me about choosing not to marry or have children, like I said, I just tell them to fuck off.

That shuts them up real quick and they leave me alon after that. And they get it that I'm serious, and won't stand for the belittling and condescending comments and remarks they make about the subject and my choices. My body, my life, my choices...fuck off prego/child-worshippers. That is the sickest obsession I think a person could have. Only in America.

1/24/2005

 
Blogger FoolishOwl said...

If I try to "argue" my case (that I don't want to have another kid if I can't stay afford to stay home with them for at least a year) people will tell me things like "you shouldn't let 'financial matters' decide how many kids you have".Why shouldn't someone let financial matters influence a decision on whether to have children?

I've been reading a lot of interviews with ex-soldiers lately, and there's a recurring theme, "I knew my parents couldn't pay for college, so I joined the military instead."

1/24/2005

 
Blogger mythago said...

it also depends on the area you live in and the cultureYep. If you're in certain bohemian urban circles, *having* kids is considered rather lame and declassé.

I have run into people who think three is a lot until they see that the youngest is a boy and then, of course, they are all satisfied because one couldn't possibly have a family without a son in there somewhere.

1/24/2005

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I dunno - I got a lot more crap about being childfree when I was in my late 20s than I do now in my late 30s. Then again, in the intervening years I have taken a self-defense class, let my hair do the salt-and-pepper thing it's been trying to do since I was 22, and pretty much came out of the closet as childfree. Or perhaps once I filled up my metaphorical toolbox with retorts to all the dumb things people say when you're a woman but not a mother, I then got denied the opportunity to use all those witty comebacks. Or perhaps I'm just not meeting enough new people, and all the people who know me have seen my involuntary "Mr. Yuk" expression when the subject of people under the age of reason comes up.

And here I *really* wanted to tell someone "A marriage license doesn't keep your contraception from working!"

--Rachel

1/25/2005

 
Blogger La Lubu said...

Amanda, I don't think it has anything to do with your partner's attitude; I know a woman who is living with a divorced man (they've been together for over five years) who had three children and a vasectomy from his previous relationship....even some of her childfree (not childless, but childfree, meaning, they are vehemently against having children themselves) friends have given her grief over her relationship---as in, "why haven't you dumped him already and moved on, so you can have kids". She has stated in the past, prior to becoming involved with this man, that she wanted to marry someday and have kids; she apparently is not allowed to change her mind!

Anyway, I about fell outta my chair when I heard the most notorious childfree woman in my crowd giving her hell for not breaking up....the same woman who literally foamed at the mouth at any suggestion that maybe she oughta stick to the Pill (vs. tubal ligation) until she hit her thirties, just in case she changed her mind about kids.

Point being, people are not rational about the women-and-childbirth/raising issue. The generalizations folks tend to make say more about them than about you. That my proudly childfree friend could even come up with a "you're making a big mistake" lecture for her other friend....I think it's just a reflection of internalized messages, and not how she really felt. A knee-jerk response. Upon reflection, she caught herself. Those unconscious scripts flow deep.

1/25/2005

 
Blogger mythago said...

Good point, Melissa.

La Luba, normally I take people who call themselves childfree at their word, but I gotta wonder about Ms. Foaming-at-the-Mouth there. Some people I know don't want kids themselves, but really like the idea of being Uncle Bob or Aunt Lourdes, so they bug all their friends to breed.

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