I remember telling my high school friends in Raleigh, North Carolina, that I didn’t really like kids very much and didn’t think I’d have any when I grew up. This was in 1996; I was fourteen. Most of the girls I went to high school with married young and started having kids, but I knew it wasn’t what I wanted. I figured that in New York City, I’d be safe from the pressure to procreate. After all, every New York girl is exactly like Carrie Bradshaw, right?
Arriving in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 2004, I expected a bohemian paradise full of other young, struggling creative types. Instead, my neighborhood was overgrown with strollers as thick as kudzu, many pushed by young, fashionable parents balancing a BlackBerry in one hand and a fair-trade coffee in the other. The difference between New York parenting and North Carolina parenting is merely the trappings. New York parents think it’s totally OK to bring their babies to bars, nightclubs, burlesque shows, rock concerts, and even the office. One parent may have a Vespa and another an SUV, but the “now that I’m a mommy/daddy, I know everything” attitude transcends all borders.
I’ve seen otherwise-normal adults (some of whom were once my friends) with hobbies, careers, and interests turn into zombies who only talk about little Galveston or Kymberleigh’s most recent bowel movements. Even some people I know, adamant leftist atheists who consider the mainstream to be evil, can’t believe I’m planning not to have kids — “Who’s going to take care of you when you’re old?” one asked. You know who’s going to take care of me when I’m old? Employees at a nursing home. The same one where your progeny are going to send you.
When people insist on having a kid but refuse to accept any of the sacrifices that go along with doing so, they’re being selfish while trying to pass themselves off as saintly just for reproducing. Newsflash: Not every mom is the Virgin Mary. But you’d never know from the way that celebrity magazines fawn all over spawning has-been actresses, devoting ten-page spreads to pictures of their new babies. Or from the fascination with multiple-birth-based reality shows like “Jon and Kate Plus 8” or the upcoming Octomom project.
Meanwhile, those women who have talked about choosing to remain child-free — actresses Cameron Diaz and Marisa Tomei — remain rare. Corrine Maier’s book “No Kids” — which was just published in the US, two years after it caused great controversy in France — is a manifesto for the joys of childlessness. Still, the childfree remain somewhat cowed: Though there are a couple of message boards like Bratfree, where the unburdened can connect with each other, these are dwarfed by the overwhelming number of “mommyblogs,” where women attack each other for being bad parents — while not having breakdowns when little Bryden refuses to eat his edamame.
I don’t feel secure discussing my decision in public. I’ve turned to Tumblr blogs like STFU Parents (“You used to be fun. Now you have a baby.”) and Why The F Did You Have a Kid? (“. . . because you needed some fresh blood for your army of darkness”) for moral support and validation. It’s 2009 and I still field questions from friends and strangers alike — almost always female — who find it mystifying that a woman without fertility problems is utterly uninterested in procreating. One friend told me that although she’d never loved kids, the day that she gave birth and first saw her daughter’s face, “a light went on in me.”
The problem isn’t that I just need to flip a switch inside of me — it’s that I don’t even have a switch. I find kids cute, and I like them in theory. But I’ve never had so much as a murmur of a mothering instinct. I’m about as maternal as a telephone pole. I’m utterly ambivalent about children — and ambivalence isn’t good enough. You should love your kids, not just tolerate them, and I don’t have that in me.
No one ever turns the question around and asks why people do have children — especially not the parents themselves — although some of those reasons surely include making one’s parents happy, conforming to societal expectations, trying to save a marriage, or looking for someone to love you unconditionally. Of course, it’s the rare mom who’s ever willing to admit she might miss her old childfree life.
As far as I’m concerned, the only reason to have a child should be because you genuinely want to, not because you want to make someone else happy or fill a hole in your life.
I’m also bothered by the overt gender politics at play whenever someone hears that I’m not interested in having children. As much as New Yorkers like to brag about how modern and progressive they are, we still have some pretty antiquated notions about gender roles. No one ever asks a guy without kids, “Why not?” Nobody wonders how a new dad plans to balance work and family, even when both parents have high-powered jobs. Men don’t have to explain their decisions to hire nannies or babysitters the way that their wives do — much less risk the finger-pointing and sanctimony that comes from the Park Slope holier-than-thou school of parenting.
I’d love to take a “to each their own” approach to this matter — if you want kids, have them; if you don’t, don’t — but our child-obsessed society isn’t quite on board with that. Until then, a personal request. Remember what you tell your kids: If you don’t have something nice to say . . .
Lilit Marcus is the author of “Save the Assistants: A Book for the Beleaguered” (Hyperion), coming soon.