Disclaimer #2: I am a hypocrite. Those hyper-repetitive auto-fill questions I condemned as tedious in part one (Are you seeing anyone? When are you going to have kids? Et cetera), I’ve asked them all—and I expect I’ll ask them again (even though I try not to). There’s a reason they’re conversational defaults. Sometimes they’re all the brain can think of. Grace must flow both ways. I can forgive careless inquisitors, just as I hope to be forgiven for my offhand inquiries.
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As a woman of faith who has no desire to procreate, I’ve often felt like an anomaly…a mutant. Considering the various church communities I’ve called home at one time or another, I’ve been hard-pressed to find a significant number of Christian women like me—happily married without children…intentionally and unapologetically.
For a long time, I was left to assume that I’d either have to forgo marriage or compromise and have a child on behalf of my husband. And I could imagine both—lifelong singleness or loving a man so much that I couldn’t deprive him of the joys and privileges of paternity—that my desire to see him be a father would outweigh my disinterest in becoming a mother. What I found it impossible to imagine was that there could be another anomaly out there like me—a man who would love me and marry me without having to sacrifice his parental dreams.
I can’t speak for the atheists (or agnostics), but I wonder if they have it easier when they decide to not have children. I am tempted to think that parenthood is more expected of me as a Christian woman. Here’s what I see when I look at the Bible: The repeated imperative to “be fruitful and multiply.” God uses an abundance of progeny as a blessing bestowed on those He favors. Being barren is treated as gravely unfortunate—a curse to be avoided.
As a woman, and perhaps especially as a Christian woman, I run into assumptions about my being childless all the time. A significant number of people seem to expect that childbearing and child rearing is something I want to do, but simply haven’t gotten around to. So often I hear, “When you have kids…” (Notice the when as opposed to if there.) These are the people who ask when I’m going to have children as though it’s a task that’s slipped my mind. Sometimes I wonder if they’re expecting me to respond to their inquiry by running off in harried haste yelling, “Oh my goodness! I knew there was something I was forgetting to do! I really must get going. Sorry! Bye!”
I haven’t forgotten to become a mother. I’m not procrastinating. I’m aware that my womb won’t be willing and able forever, so I keep checking in on that part of me. My decision to remain childless is one I’ve revisited repeatedly—a regular internal temperature reading I take to see if I’ve warmed to the idea of doing the expected thing. Are you still absolutely sure you don’t want children? My answer has remained fixed so far—unchanging and unwavering.
I’m not apathetic to the affect my choice has on others. I’ll admit to feeling small pangs of guilt and sadness—pinpricks in my conscience—for not giving my father or my in-laws their first grandchild (especially as the eldest and first to marry). It comes out of my tendency towards people pleasing—not to mention my always-go-for-the-“A”-or-the-“win” mentality. But I can’t have a child for someone else—to make another person happy—not even family.
I had a fake fight with my sister a while back when she asked (hypothetically) if I’d be her surrogate if she turned out to be infertile and wanted children. I said no without hesitating, which made her play angry or really angry (sometimes it’s hard to tell with us—we both really like a good, spirited debate, even if it’s heated artificially).
What I realize now, but couldn’t fully articulate for her then, is that not only do I not want to have a baby, but I also don’t want to have a baby—literally speaking, as in carry a fetus to term and then give birth to a baby. And I can’t do for someone else what I won’t do for myself—not on that level. But above and beyond all of that, as much as I know I don’t want to have a baby, I also know that I definitely don’t want to have a baby and then give it away. I am in awe of those who are able to do this—give another person such an astounding and incalculable, sacrificial gift—but I know it to be beyond me. I would gladly give my fertility to the infertile, but not lend it.
It all comes down to self-knowledge and vision—what I am able to see for myself in the present and the future. I was not a child who knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. All I knew was that I didn’t want to be a mother or a lawyer. There are things I’m still discovering about myself, but then there are things I know for certain.
Wanting to be a writer is a desire I’ve had to carefully mine out of my heart. It took years for me to admit it to myself, and many years more to utter the dream aloud. I think I’ve always known I wanted to be a writer on some deep level, but I also thought I had to be given the permission and authority to do so by someone with clout—any one of my high school English teachers or professors in college, for example. I thought of becoming a writer as somewhat akin to being knighted—an honor that must be bequeathed, never self-asserted.
In hindsight I can see that even before I felt I had permission to be (or want to be) a writer, writing is something I’ve always loved doing. I remember wanting praise for my writing as early as grade school. In the third or fourth grade I wrote a piece in which I compared the sound of raindrops on the roof to the sounds of a tap dancer’s performance. I was so proud of my simile, metaphor, or personification (I can’t remember exactly how I worded it), that I reused it at least twice (if not more) in future writing assignments. I impressed myself so much, in fact, that I half-expected to win an esteemed award solely on the basis of that literary device.
When I was bored during my long vacations in the Caribbean with my paternal grandparents (and I was bored often), I’d write plays for my Barbie dolls. As a student, I was elated when my teachers or professors favorably graded my essays—and devastated by any indication that they thought my work less than perfect. I find creating with words energizing and life affirming. The same way I used to love playing with my LEGO set, I now enjoy playing with the pieces in my personal lexicon.
A few years ago I finally admitted it aloud—uttering what my heart had already known. With fear and trepidation, qualifications, self-consciousness, and rampant insecurities, I gave voice to my dream: “I want to be a writer. I want to make my living working with words.” Some time later, I put it on my business cards (and even apologetically handed a few out). And now when people ask me what I do, even though the words still sometimes stick in my throat and exit begrudgingly, I say, “I am an editor and a writer.” (I wonder if I’ll ever be able to say writer first.)
As a freelancer, whether I feel self-employed or unemployed varies day by day. It was easier when I had a job at a magazine and someone else picked the title for me—editor. Now that I’m assigning a designation to myself, it’s hard to not feel like a fraud—to feel no different than if I’d begun to insist others address me with an honorific I don’t really deserve—as in: You will henceforth refer to me as Your Royal Highness or Duchess of New York. Am I really a writer if no one is currently paying me for my words? What is the criterion for asserting that title?
When I need to muster a modicum of confidence, I often rely on a priori logic: At the very least I am a writer if I am writing, in the same way that I’d be a runner if I was running. It might feel more like my hobby than my occupation when the last or next check is beyond the horizon. But whether it feels like my profession or just a beloved pastime, I will profess it as my vocation—my calling.
What I have not been called to is motherhood. I will not have a child just because that’s what others expect (or hope). I cannot live in opposition to myself or keep pace with someone else’s biological clock. Not every woman—not even every Christian woman—wants to have a child. Not all Christians view marriage as a stepping-stone to starting their own family.
God didn’t build me with maternal affinities. What He gave me was a passion for words. The ever-evolving lexicon seduces me. I enjoy text. I carry my ideas to term until my mind has been sufficiently stretched. I have chosen to answer the directive “be fruitful and multiply” one syllable at a time. My mental womb is fertile. I am full of words. And so I write.
Disclaimer: Being someone who is biologically and circumstantially capable of having children, but who chooses not to, and who consequently finds herself regularly explaining that choice when others pry into her reproductive life, is merely an inconvenience—an endurable nuisance. Being someone who fervently wants a child, but who is unable to have one (for whatever reason), is profoundly painful—an excruciating burden. I am only writing about the former condition, and hopefully doing so without being insensitive to those suffering the latter.
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Especially among Christians, I don’t find many people who expect (or seem to understand) that I am childless because I don’t want children. Now that my husband and I are approaching the fifth anniversary of our marriage, the question that used to only occasionally drip off the tongues of others has become a steady stream of inquisition. The precise wording varies, but most can be sorted into one of two categories—circuitous or brusque: “Have you talked about having kids?” or, “When are you two going to start having babies!?”
I am as allergic to these questions as I am (and have always been) to all the auto-fill inquiries of life: What do you want to be when you grow up? What was your SAT score? Which college do you want to go to? Do you know what you’ll major in? What are you going to do with your degree? Are you seeing anyone? Is it serious? Have you talked about marriage? When are you two getting married?
Of all the formulaic probes, I dislike the relationship and procreation questions the most. Why? First, if I’m uncertain, you’re forcing me to wallow deeper into my uncertainty. You are asking a question I can’t possibly answer, and that can be stress-inducing. Second, if I am certain, but haven’t already volunteered the information, then perhaps the answer is private or a sensitive topic for me. You’ll find out if I’m dating someone when I introduce you to my boyfriend. You’ll know we’re getting married when you see my engagement ring or receive a wedding invitation. And you’ll discern that we’re planning to have children when I tell you I’m carrying my husband’s baby. No one keeps her pregnancy a secret for all nine months of gestation. Time will tell, so why bother asking? Either I don’t know, can’t know, or don’t want to tell you.
These “I demand a preview” questions feel equally intrusive and irrelevant. And they have the potential to be hurtful. What if I’m depressed because I’m single and lonely? What if I’m painfully aware of the fact that I’m the only one of my friends who isn’t happily married? What If I’m struggling with infertility? What if I just miscarried? Asking a childless woman when she’s going to have a baby is like walking through a minefield, but making her take the lead. You have no idea what kind of wounds your questions might inflict—or how sensitive or explosive the topic is. Are you prepared to stick around and take responsibility for the damage if the fallout is extensive? Or is your question flippant—the conversational equivalent of a drive-by shooting—designed to require minimal engagement from you, while (potentially, at least) being highly destructive to your target?
My answer to the question isn’t painful, just tedious to keep reiterating. It doesn’t involve complicated reasoning, but it only seems to make sense to those who share it. I simply don’t want children—I never have, and I expect I never will. Not only do I not want to have a child, but I don’t want to want to—I don’t hope I’ll one day change my mind. It’s something I’ve known about myself since childhood. I had dolls, but I didn’t play mommy.
When I was very young, my disinterest in maternal play got the attention of my nursery school teacher. She had a talk with my mom because I never played house and only ever wanted to erect skyscrapers with the building blocks. She asked my mother to remind me that everyone needs to take turns playing with the various toys in the classroom. (I am making a conscious decision here to avoid exploring that sexist tangent. Because I’m willing to bet that none of the little boys in my class were scolded for hogging the fire trucks.)
I also distinctly remember conversations I had with my friends in middle school in which we vowed children were not in our future—we referred to them as pygmies as a joke. Suffice it to say, there was never a part of my childhood during which I was looking forward to or expecting to be a mom. To the depths that I’ve always known I love to dance and hate artificial sweeteners, I’ve known I wasn’t destined for motherhood.
I don’t dislike children. Most of them are adorable and beguiling. But you can like something without wanting one of your own. Not all dog people consider dog ownership a priority. I don’t doubt my ability to love my offspring or worry that parenting is too hard. And I’m not fearful of repeating negative patterns that were present in my home growing up. I have/had wonderful parents whom I overwhelmingly respect and love. But just as I don’t want to be an astronaut, own a giraffe, or climb Mt. Everest (as much as I respect those who do), I don’t want to have children (though I’m happy for those who do). The desire simply isn’t within me—and any latent seeds of maternal yearning that might have once been buried deep (deep) in my subconscious and blossomed one day, died when my mother did.
I understand that the question is natural, and that the expectation is as well. Such is the norm—especially among Christians. “Be fruitful and multiply” is such a well-known component of the hegemonic Christian discourse. We marry and have children. It’s almost a cause and effect. The only question is how long a span of time will separate the two main events. So knowing that people are simply expecting the expected, I do my best to smile graciously and endure the mundane exchange that almost always follows. Since the person asking is usually not expecting to engender a deep or lengthy conversation about my choice, it doesn’t take long.
To be honest, I’m not really sure what people are expecting in way of a response: We’re trying really hard; we have unprotected sex every single night. Fingers crossed! Maybe next time I should seek out their motivation for asking by asking a question of my own: Why do you ask? Perhaps that would stave off thepredictable follow-up, “But you’d make such a good mother/be such great parents!” As if aptitude is reason enough. I’m also really good at being neat, but I don’t want to clean your house.
Write Away 