The Last Word On Nothing

The kids across the street are my special little pals. They climb all over me and believe the lies I tell them. We wrestle, take walks, get ice cream, talk about poop. I really love these two little guys—I’ve known them their whole lives–and I think they love me, too. It would be interesting to know if, while cuddling these cuties, my hormonal oxytocin—associated with maternal bonding–clicks up a few notches. Their own mom, though careworn, still gets that softness about the eyes and mouth when her boys are being especially cute. (I might call it her “oxy smile” if the term didn’t suggest something else entirely.)

Then, as the boys get tired or hungry and start to bicker and whine, I plant a last peck on each warm head and get the hell out. In my [relatively uncluttered] home, I wash the sticky from my hands and lie on the couch in just a tee-shirt, no dropped Legos pressing against the backs of my legs. I pour wine. My motherly instincts turn to the dogs. The quiet is our blanket.

It’s nice to have the option of that exit. But I remember what it’s like to be part of a full house, and there’s something comforting about that kind of chaos. In my family’s case it was three, and then, when my mom remarried, four bodies in constant motion in tight quarters. As little kids, my brother and I were all about blanket forts, comic books, and pounding on the piano. We did puppet shows from inside a wardrobe box, to polite parental applause. There were stuffed animals (mine) and Matchbox cars (my brother’s), everywhere. That made it home.

As we got older we circled each other, bony elbows and knees uncontainable, provoking with pokes and insults as we competed for attention. In our family home, as in most I’ve visited since, shoes and coats were strewn, school books piled high, arguments over meals and homework perpetual. Outside was our relief: We, with all the neighbor kids, had immense freedom—roller skating, capturing the flag, pedaling off on our bikes until we were the color of pavement. As the street lights blinked on, we’d rush home with the kind of hunger/thirst only a day of full-on childhood can generate.

For my mom, I know, there was pleasure in sating it. I remember seeing that pleasure behind the tired in her eyes, the same look I see in my friend’s face from time to time.

I go to my local in-laws’ nowadays to get my fill of that world: With two teens, there is no down time—they’re out the door to a swim meet or lacrosse practice, or studying for AP exams I would definitely fail, or ducking into their phones. They leave their smelly gym clothes in the car. They toss the entire kitchen making Saturday-morning pancakes. Noise. Clutter. Lots of yelling.

My sister-in-law likes her wine. But I believe she also revels in the whole messy family package. Her teens’ packed calendars dictate every extended-family event, and she likes that, not just the control but also the sense that her children are immersed in good lives she’s helping to shape. She talks about “my kid” doing this or that and clearly enjoys that ownership. Sometimes she feigns indifference to their accomplishments, but the pride peeks through when she thinks no one is looking.

I’ve found that people who have children will offer, early in their parenting project, one of two sentiments to those of us without: The only partly-joking “OMG what I wouldn’t give for the freedom you have” or the “You’ll regret not having kids for the rest of your life” speech. The latter was more common when all the offspring were tiny. Join the baby club, they coaxed. There’s no other love like it. Still gooey-eyed and flush with cuddle hormones, their little miracle [singular among the umpteen-billion other births] bred endless advice.

With age and exhaustion came their admission that, while they wouldn’t truly hand off their kid-filled lives for any other, parenthood is not for everyone. I was grateful the first time a friend (with two kids) said that to me. She gave me permission to shirk my reproductive duty that I didn’t realize I’d wanted to hear.

I’m not alone in my shirking, of course. Census data indicate that in the U.S. around 15 percent of women in their early-to-mid 40s don’t have children. [Some of those by choice.] Those that do have fewer of them: Family size in general has shrunk in recent decades. More women are putting off, and sometimes forgoing, marriage as well. (Meanwhile, the divorce rate is over 40 percent for first marriages and even higher for second and third ones. So, maybe those stay-single girls are onto something. A discussion for another day.)

The official word is that women postponing or skipping pregnancy often do so to focus on careers or higher degrees, and, because we CAN have children later in these modern times, more women are waiting longer to try. That’s all fine and good. But my reason for not having children? I just didn’t want to badly enough to justify that commitment. I played with dolls as a kid and assumed I’d be a mom someday, but as I got older I had maternal ambivalence at best. Plus, I believe wholeheartedly that there are too many people on the planet. It’s at the root of the bulk of our problems as a species. My husband felt the same.

More immediate, the life that comes with raising babies didn’t call to us. Personally, I’d rather help a goat give birth than change a diaper (though I’m diaper-capable, as needed). I get angsty just driving by a Chucky Cheese. When I see families out for a walk in my neighborhood, I rush over to pet the dog, not to peek in the stroller. Also, I still do long division—you know, using that little bar thing—so I’d be useless with older kids at homework time.

I’m sure plenty of parents don’t revel in pizza parties and homework time; they slog through it because it’s part of the package they ordered. I commend them their patience and big-picture outlook. But to join that world I wanted to want it absolutely, and I didn’t. (I know I’m far from alone in this, though many seem afraid to admit it…as if not wanting children diminishes us as women. Worse yet, imagine the backlash if a parent were to admit she’d made the wrong choice?)

Through our late 30s my spouse and I periodically checked in with one another: Are we still okay not having kids? We were. And then, crossing the age threshold was a relief…the question became moot and I sat solidly with our decision in my lap, no fidgeting, no regrets.

Looking at the state of the world, I’ll admit I’m happy not to have to make excuses to a mini me about how we got here. How does one explain the poverty, the pollution, the people who beat their wives or their dogs, the politicians who lie with glee, the dying honeybees and disappeared rhinos? Navigating social media terrifies me when I look at it through the eyes of a teen: If I, at 50-plus, feel let down when nobody “likes” my photos, how does a 14-year-old girl handle such a seeming rejection of her selfie? How can one’s life offscreen ever live up to its online promises? How do you raise a child to feel happy with him/herself when so many voices are screaming not good enough? And if I couldn’t outrun anxiety and depression myself, how would I ever protect a child from the lurking darkness?

I don’t envy you parents these challenges. I tip my hat to you—you know, the wide-brimmed sun hat I got, along with free adult beverages, on my last spontaneous child-free vacation to a tropical island.

Still. I realize that being child free also means being child less.

Free: I wouldn’t change the family I have, with all its fur and freedom. My blanket of quiet keeps me warm, and my anxiety must be less not having to keep an infant alive or chase a toddler or watch a mini me lurch through adolescence. Yes, my life is more open, less structured, than most of my friends’ lives. Perhaps wanting room to roam is selfish. I can live with that.

Less: The quiet at home can be a dull ache. I do, regularly, go knocking on my neighbor’s door in search of unabashed hugs and giggle fits. I revel, for a little while, in the chaos at my in-laws, the drama of teen life—the non-stop-ness of it all.

And, most important, remembering how I was at that age, I imagine being a mother witnessing her child’s personality emerge. As an aunt, or even a neighbor, there’s a thrill in watching the young people I care about growing and becoming, and a warmth in having some positive influence on them. There must be something satisfying, too, as a parent, to seeing bikes toppled in the driveway and hearing the screen door slap as the kids return from their day of being, purely, kids. And to know they are, in that moment, exhausted and happy and safe under your roof, in your care.

And if those kids were my own offspring, with faces, gestures, and voices I’d know anywhere? No doubt my emotions would grow into something visceral and sustaining. I’ve glimpsed those feelings: There is a mother in me who knows that full heart. My hormones may not bubble up to the highest level of parental love, but I’ve got enough to go on. I’m absolutely confident in my choice, but I can, I do, appreciate what might have been.

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Top photo: Ben Wicks from UNSPLASH; lower photo by the author