Mistaken For Mama

This is my anti-childbearing screed. Read it at your own risk.

Me & The Newbie

A few weeks ago I had lunch with The Newbie and her mama and after lunch we went to the bookstore. While her mama looked for books about the GED, I carried The Newbie around the children’s section and showed her the beautiful world of Pat the Bunny and The Hungry Caterpillar. While we were browsing, one of the middle-aged bookstore worker drones (I’d guess she was ten or twelve years older than I am), came over and showed me and The Newbie a couple of new children’s books. Of one, I said, “Oh, I think her mama would like that,” and the woman said, “Oh! Aren’t you her mother?”

Try as I might, I cannot keep from scoffing when people mistake me for The Newbie’s mother. (Just to keep things in a kind of strict perspective, the same thing also used to happen fourteen years ago when I’d take The Newbie’s then-four-year-old mama out with me, too. Which, to keep things in a kind of absolute perspective was when I was in my early twenties and could conceivably have had a four-year-old child.)

Of course I love my niece and my grandniece, but I scoff at those who mistake me for their mother in part because I don’t want children. I never have wanted children. I don't have the smallest bit of maternal instinct in me and I can’t imagine ever pushing out one of those disgusting little creatures. Furthermore, if I were to by some miracle of divine intervention--immaculate conception perhaps, or worse--have children, it would feel to me as though I had utterly failed at something very important.

Me & The Newbie

When I was eight, I told either my mother or grandmother (I forget which) that I didn’t ever want children and she (whichever one I told) said, “Oh, that’s just a phase.”

That was twenty-nine years ago. Twenty-nine years and counting. Long phase, huh?

Of course, I don't despise children. Often, I look at children and I see creative, energetic little beings. I really enjoyed spending time with my niece when she was a child (past baby age) and I really enjoy spending time with most children now. But I also think that children and babies are more than a bit gross and babies in particular are pretty boring. Though I can imagine bearing the responsibility for raising a good little citizen who has a strong and righteous will as well as a witty little sense of humor, I can’t imagine cleaning up someone else’s vomit or wiping shit off of someone else’s ass day in and day out. I can’t imagine being chained for years to bedtimes and feeding times. Feeding babies is cute and mildly interesting the first time--or about three-quarters of the way through the first time--but then it quickly gets tedious. I can’t imagine years of that. (Maybe if I were a man and had a wife who was willing to clean up puke and wipe shitty asses and take kids to doctor's appointments and to and from school and do laundry and cook for me, I’d feel differently. Hell, if I were a man, I’d probably want fifty kids.)

Me & The Newbie

And too, I find that there is more than a small amount of narcissism to most parents, not only the self-congratulatory “Look! My reproductive organs work!” but also the accompanying belief that parents have something worth duplicating. Seriously, if cloning were an option, there would probably be some standards, right? And here’s a newsflash: Most people would not meet those standards. (That seems like more than a bit of Hitleresque eugenic thinking right there, but I’m not talking about erasing the Jews, I’m really ultimately talking about some kind of self-editing process by which one acknowledges that perhaps by passing on the tendencies toward obesity and alcoholism for example, one is just not doing humanity any favors. In other words: In the cold light of objective analysis, most people would recognize that they should not breed. But most people are too much in love with themselves--or too much delusional about their true worth to humankind--that they think it a fine idea to go ahead and pop out one or two or more pups into a world that is already over-inhabited to the tune of billions.)

Beyond the gross factor, I’m afraid of turning into one of Those People, one of those vacant-eyed baby puppets. (Those People are usually women, sadly. Men are selfish enough that they don’t turn into mindless baby worshippers.) You know what I’m talking about: You’ve met them. They’re the women who can’t talk about anything but their children. What their children do. What their children like. What their children eat. What their children play with. What their children wear. What their children say. Not a single one of them ever recognizes that children have very little lives and should, appropriately, occupy very little of the conversation. No, instead Those People allow their children to become their lives and they have nothing else to talk about at parties or over dinner. Those People are, by definition, the least interesting people on the planet. [Edited to add: girl japan reminded me in the comments section that there are some cool parents out there--and I agree, that is true. There are some hip, independent mothers and some cool, involved dads. If that's you, fine. Great. Keep up the good work. Huzzah. But just know that you are the exceptions. I'm not downing all parents here, just Those People.]

I was talking with Kelly Workout (she is also childless and proud of it) the other night about how I don’t have any friends my own age because, goddamn, all those people are married with children and all they want to talk about is the children. The children. The children. She was, like, Tell me about it.

Like I said, I first expressed the preference for a childless existence when I was eight. I don’t know if the eight-year-old me could have answered the question, “Why don’t you want kids?” but the adult me can and has answered that question.

It was never an option to have kids when I was in my late teens and twenties. In those years, I was drinking often and using drugs sometimes. I was going to school. I had a job that didn’t pay much. I also had an incredibly volatile temper. I wouldn’t have trusted myself to have a child because at that time in my life I was not averse to using violence to solve problems. I’m not particularly proud of some of those admissions, but I was and am perfectly clear sighted about my capacity for dealing with children. (Would that other mothers, even less suited to motherhood than I am, admit it to themselves.) Of course over the years, I’ve mellowed and have had the volatility theraputically removed. But in my twenties, I could not have said the same.

Over time, the decisions that I now have to work at and worry over will, through the dictates of biological processes, become final. There will come a time, I mean, when it will become impossible for me to have children regardless of my decisions. (No, I haven’t yet reached that point. But it’s not all that far off either, I’m sure.) I’m as prepared for it as one can possibly be for an event that no one talks about.

That preparation has many sources: When I was younger, I saw what my childless friends in their thirties went through as their biological clocks rumbled loud as distant thunder and they walked around with panicked looks. I watched all of this even as I was intent on finding sexual partners and, at the same time, trying to keep from getting pregnant. I’m not quite ready to go the sterilization route, but that’s mostly because I’m anti-invasive surgical procedures in general, not because I think I’m going to change my mind at the last possible second.

So I took care of my niece from time to time, just as I take care of The Newbie from time to time. And I enjoy it usually and when it's done it's done. And it's enough.