i’m so happy that salon put this together: to breed or not to breed.
because it seems these days that the world wants to make everyone’s most intimate, personal business their own. who they sleep with, how they live, who/how/where they marry, when they marry, why they marry, how they breed, if they breed, etc. the list goes on and on.
and it’s purely ridiculous.
even more ridiculous is the fact that because of my age i get the most patronizing of responses when it becomes known that i do not want to have children. not now…not ever. not even EVER.
and of course, i always get a knowing smirk and a “oh, just you wait.” or even more insulting: “you’re just young.”
when actually, i have been consistent in my decision not to have children since i was 12 years old. i have never, not once wavered from my choice. i have never relented or reconsidered or doubted. i do not want children, they are not for me. i have not wanted to have children for 1/2 my life…and this august will make it more.than.half. my life. that’s 13 years straight of having absolutely no desire whatsoever to breed.
i’m, quite frankly, insulted when people ask me if i have kids all expectantly. as if i should?! or when they ask when i’m going to have spawnlings…um…never. and when i say i don’t plan on it: pity (which i just don’t understand, nor do i want to), scorn or amusement is tossed my way.
from salon:
Why have children, anyway? And should you have them if you don’t feel a biological or emotional urge? If you don’t, will you feel those urges later, and regret it? Does having kids make old age less painful? Does choosing not to have children mean you’re selfish? Or are those people who choose to have children to fulfill them, or to ease loneliness, or to take care of them in old age, the really selfish ones? Are the sacrifices to your body, your finances and your freedom worth it? And why do so many parents preach the procreation gospel to their nonparent friends?
i haven’t really given thought to the whole “selfish” aspect of it, honestly. i never ever considered the decision to not have children selfish. in fact, it seems the opposite to me. some people (not all, i know) have kids just because they want someone — anyone — to love them…is that not selfish? but it’s ok because breeding is the ‘norm’. that’s just so unfair. i know that i would not be a good mother, i have no desire to even try and find out; i know that i am not, nor will i ever be, ready to be responsible for someone else’s life; i do not think i will be at any time before the end of “optimum fertility” ready to support another human being 100% financially, emotionally, spiritually, or whatever the hell else is required of parenthood. nor do i have even the most remotest of desires to get ready to devote 100% of my life to something that will depend on me completely for survival.
is that selfish?
when i stop to think what kind of environment and life i would be providing for a hypothetical child, i know that i am doing a far greater thing by not bringing such a being into existence. it would be a miserable life for me and a miserable life for any spawn. and i’m sure there are already enough people in the world who dislike, abhor & resent me — i don’t need to go out an make another one!
men aren’t pressured to have children as harshly as women are, and that is completely not fair. my worth is far greater as a person than whether or not i evacuate something living from my crotch. sounds appealing, don’t it? well, that’s about how appealing the idea of conception, pregnancy & motherhood sounds to me. parasites bursting forth from your loins & permanently affixing themselves to you for the rest.of.your.life.
another interesting tidbit:
of the quarter of American women who don’t have children, three-quarters are physically able.
i know, i know, i know that there are people out there who would genuinely make awesome parents, provide a wonderful life for their children, and utterly & desperately want kids…but by some cruel trick of fate cannot. i can empathize with yearning for something that’s just not meant to be (see also: my academic “career”), but that doesn’t lessen my desire to remain spawn-free. i’m not slighting the infertile out there by not having something i will most likely come to resent. i think it’s really unfair how the greater society as a whole uses infertility hardships as an argument against remaining child free. the two have hardly nothing to do with each other. odds are, if i squat out a kidlet it’s not going to get immediately scooped up by an infertile couple. now, i don’t discount that there are a large number of couples that would and could do anything to get their hands on an unwanted baby (see also: numerous lifetime television for women movies about baby selling). i would have a few things going against my hypothetical spawn: 1.) babythings are only wanted for about a year, then they’re resigned to the child services/orphanage system. people want infants, “cute” little infants. 2.) it would be american, which is far less exotic and interesting than some starving child from zimbabwe or cambodia 3.) it would be nonwhite, americanese spawn, and if people can’t get their tiny foreign spawn, they want tiny caucasian spawn.
so i ask you, why bother?
why go through the trouble, pain, hardship and trauma of pregnancy? why deal with the weight gain, the mood swings, the possibility of gestational diabetes, etc.? just to give it up so some random, faceless couple out there can have a kid? there are plenty, PLENTY of homeless, family-less children out there that need someone to love them. if they could get over their asinine baby-lust, then a lot of problems would solve themselves. oh and i haven’t even gotten to the horror that is childbirth.
it is not a beautiful thing, it is not a wondrous, magical, [insert flowery adjective here] thing. it’s not. if you’ve seen it: it’s violent, bloody, disgusting, traumatizing, horrifying, scary and debilitating. you can die in childbirth.
if you are a woman, pregnancy is not only a life sentence…it could very well be a death penalty.
i don’t think there’s any man out there that fully understand just how terrifying the prospect of a child is. because no matter how devoted a partner you have, in the end it’s just you and your spawn. they’re responsible, but to a slightly less degree. it’s not a balanced proportion.
to some degree, i do like kids. they can be funny and entertaining — they are little people, afterall. but they’re not my bag. and i think the “bad kids” out there are all a direct reflection of their parents. the snotty, screaming, crying brats in the stores/planes/subways/etc. throwing tantrums…all a result of insufficient parenting. which i don’t entirely know much about having never been an official parent, but still is a main cause of troubled children.
and that’s another thing i don’t feel the need to be responsible for. the one child i’ve had a great hand in raising has turned out ok, better than ok…but he’s a special case.
the bottom line is: kids are fine, so long as they’re not mine.
as for babies? i’m incredibly repulsed by them. i look at them, and i feel nothing. there is no yearning, no need, no nothing. babies smell, and they leak, and they twitch, and they’re so helpless it’s terrifying. even kittens and puppies are to some degree far more self-sufficient. i don’t necessarily hate babies, but i really want nothing to do with them.
maybe i’m hormonally imbalanced, and missing some key thing that sets off the ol’ biological clock. and if i am? GREAT. i don’t want it! i don’t need it! my life is happy and fulfilled without it.
and like i said, this is a decision i came to nearly 13 years ago…and i haven’t wavered since. i sincerely doubt i’m going to regret it anytime in the near or far future.
i know i won’t.
i also know that the only thing i have a sincere yearning for, a desperate longing for is a tubal ligation.
but that’s going to be a major hurdle i’ll have to overcome in the near future. it’s shameful how doctors are so discriminatory over the whole thing.
it’s my right…it’s my choice.
i don’t care if people think it’s selfish or reckless or rash…
it’s mine.
