Hypocrisy and Respect

It's something I see a lot in the childfree world, and it bothers me a lot. We scream and cry and say "don't judge me", "don't assume X about me", but then in the same breath someone will say something nice about parenthood and immediately the shackles get raised, or they'll say "I was childfree until I changed my mind" and the twitching starts.

Many childfree people find solace in the stories of parents who regret their decision. We look at the woman who resents her children and feel validation, seeing our biggest fears about parenthood happening. And, if we're human, we feel incredible sympathy. If we're not, we go "HA HA HA! Stupid parents" to their faces.

I'm not hopping up on a high horse here. I'm horrified constantly by situations that make me think parenthood should require some sort of licensing process. I get angry at people whose children misbehave and have zero tolerance once normal conversation about what we love and hate about our lives turns into preaching or, worse, accusations about our character. I make judgments all the time about people who I don't think have any business procreating. I have a very low tolerance for misbehavior; I'm highly sensitive, easily annoyed and overwhelmed and because of it I have a really hard time being around kids for more than a couple hours at a time. Sometimes I lose my cool. I bitch a lot to like-minded friends. I'm certainly not perfect.

My issue comes in with over-generalizations, the same ones that we get so angry about. The word "breeders" used as a slur makes me angry, as do many of the vulgar phrases used to describe children at some childfree blogs and communities.

I don't want you to presume I hate all, and specifically your children, but I owe it to you to not call you names. My desire to make the childfree choice a respected one involves respect on both sides.

This also includes not presuming all parents who love parenthood are delusional. I think a lot of people tell themselves little lies to make the hard situations in their life easier to deal with. I think many parents idealize their experience, and I think a lot of childfree women lie to themselves when they say they never think that elements of parenthood are kind of cool. But for every childfree woman who loves her childfree life and knows motherhood isn't for her, I promise you there are a dozen who were born to be mothers. It's an evolutionary fact. Those of us who choose not to have children ARE unusual, and the fact is it will take people some time to get used to us.

But let's try something new. Let's try not getting upset and uppity when someone presumes we're eventually going to have children. It's natural for that to be the assumption. Don't flip your shit when someone pushes the issue...in the beginning. If they continue to push boundaries, explain, calmly, your feelings but don't get bitchy and accusatory about it. Reserve your anger for when people really cross the line and actually intend to hurt. The more bitter childfree people parents meet, the more they'll be able to believe that we're horrible, soulless and defective.

Additionally, don't freak out when someone says they were childfree and they changed their mind, or they suggest that when you're older, when your circumstances change, etc., you'll change your mind too. Again, if they make the comment it's one thing; if they push, it's another entirely. NEWSFLASH: Many, if not most childfree people DO change their minds. I know I'm *gasp* not supposed to talk about it, but come on. It's a fact. Many of my friends who are currently trying to conceive were formerly my sisters in childfreedom. It happens. Blame it on hormones, blame it on societal pressure, blame it on maturity, but getting angry about a fact of life is just silly. Because of this I think it's acceptable that people presume we will change our minds, as annoying as it is. Yes, you can and should be offended when people are entirely dismissive, or they push the issue or are disrespectful. But be realistic, and especially to the formerly childfree who changed their minds: be respectful.

Lastly, don't be afraid to admit that there are things you're going to miss out on by not being parents. Don't be afraid to admit that this is sometimes hard. This is a lifestyle choice (although in many ways it doesn't feel like a choice because it's so natural and as much a part of who we are as parenthood can be for others). But we're never going to know just how it feels to watch a child of ours grow, and it doesn't make you a bad childfree person to admit there's a sadness to that.

As I've said in my post, The Rules: Open a dialogue. Don't lecture. Don't judge. There are still things that we'd like to be off-limits, but what I don't address in that passionate post is that we often need to adjust our expectation when someone breaks The Rules and educate people how to treat us respectfully. Part of mutual respect is understanding their prejudices and that those prejudices are normal, and working through conversation, not confrontation, to educate people.

And so it begins…

Nearly all of my childless friends are now either actively trying to conceive or actually pregnant. It's getting lonely on this side of the fence and I'm having a hard time deciding how I feel about that.

I knew it would only be a matter of time before this happened, and it's just happening later for me than for most. We're all in our 30s, with a couple friends finally decided to try for kids after 35, which brings up all my ethical issues regarding infertility treatments, to be honest. It's all taking on the air of that exclusive club I'm not invited to.

Because of my body's current revolt against my childfree choice, paired with all of my friends switching gears all at once, I've made a lot of mental lists. It's all left me feeling sort of deficient, which I haven't felt in a long time. My usual confidence is being tested more than usual.

But then I ask a friend if she'll be at a concert that I know we both desperately want to go to, but she can't come because her sitter isn't available that night. I see the very girlfriends who are switching gears into baby mode either scrambling to get in the travel they want to do before they get knocked up, or freaking out about how stretched they will be financially when their babies that are on the way get here, and I think my god, that's not something I have to worry about. Fears about what it means for their careers, or whether it's worth it to put an infant in daycare and I thank my lucky stars that I'm not in their place.

And the thing is, when I see them journaling about what they'll miss, how their lives will change, I see that they're struggling with the same questions I'm dealing with. They're just seeing it from the other side of the fence. They're still looking at what they'll miss out on if they make this lifechanging decision, while I'm thinking about what I'll miss out on if I don't.

It's a way that, in a perfect world, we could connect. But I'm terrified to talk about it with them for fear of turning people off as I have in the past. So I clam up for now. Maybe we'll talk about it at some point, but for now I'm just observing from afar and dealing with my issues on my own.

More on the Baby Rabies

Someone wanted to hear more about the conflict that having a body that wants a baby and a rational mind that knows I don't.

The feelings I get are very internal. I'm not the only person I know who's described it as a twinge, but it's like a little twisting or spasm in my uterus or my heart when I see a newborn, or a child doing something cute, and it's entirely bizarre. I'll feel it when I'm watching someone with a child, or holding my cousin's twins, or smelling their hair, or just talking about this.

It's like this incredible feeling of "what if" that inspires the smallest inklings of doubt. It's the literal tugging I feel inside when I read the Essure website and start weighing my options for a permanent birth control solution. It's the tugging that makes me unable to make the final decision to remove all possibility that I will get pregnant.

It's like there's a disconnect in my mind over the concept of having a baby and what a baby means. My mind goes to different places when my body starts wanting the baby. I say things to myself like "it wouldn't be that bad" and my rational brain chimes in immediately with "of course it would!" I don't know if other childfree folk feel this, but for me it's quite plainly an internal struggle. "But BABIES..." "...require every last moment of your attention and energy that you don't have to give." "But, but BABIES!" "…mean the end of your life as you know it and having a constant tag-along who you will resent, and you know you will." The argument rages in my mind and it's frustrating, and I can't talk to anyone about it.

Why? Because it immediately means that I'm really changing my mind, that I'm clinging to this "childfree" label but really I want children. Really, I'm NORMAL. Nothing I can say will make people believe it is not the case. I've tried to explain it. Even in these moments when my uterus is twitching and my stomach is churning and my heart aches, I couldn't begin to list for you the reasons why having a child would be the right thing for me. I can't even throw together a "we would adapt" spiel. Even in these moments the thought of being pregnant frightens me to the core because I think "I'm too old to have an abortion. Too mature and financially secure to live with that decision." I cannot even fathom the idea of bringing a child into this world to live under my care. I don't want that. But like any grass that's sometimes greener, there are aspects that are, of course, appealing.

I do want a little of that joy. I want to know that feeling of watching the ultrasound and holding my breath as the nurse determines whether I'm having a boy or a girl. (twinge). I want to know how it feels to hold my child for the first time (twinge). I want to feel that incomparable love that parents always talk about, that immense satisfaction that I made that. I want that intangible knowledge that my husband and I created a life together, that this child is alive and awesome because of us, and it has my eyes and his smile. (twinge twinge twinge)

But there's a difference between wanting that and wanting years on-end of being responsible for a child's every waking moment, of knowing the only traveling we'll be doing is to Disneyland, if we can even afford that at all. I can't have all those things and still have my hobbies, my work, my peace and quiet and my life as I know it. Being a parent is hard work, and it's hard work that would make me miserable. Me being miserable would make me a terrible, resentful, short-fused, easily annoyed parent and an even worse wife and partner.

I'm at a crossroads in my life right now, but I am 100% sure that I will go through life without knowing what it's like to be a mother. And I'm going to admit what a lot of childfree women will never admit: That kind of sucks. But I'm also going to have a life full of rich experiences with my husband. We'll get to be fully in love as we grow old together, as we travel and experience the world together. We'll never deal with the pitfalls of parenting. We'll never have the heartbreak of having our child proclaim that we're awful and she hates us. We'll never stay up nights worried about the thousands of things parents have to worry about. Our life won't be free from cares, but it will be free from parental cares, and there's value in that.

Mothers and fathers wonder all the time what their lives would have been like if they didn't have children and many come to the conclusion that it wouldn't be worth it because they wouldn't have their child in their life. Well, we look at the decision too, and when we start weighing things, yeah, maybe we'd be pretty great parents, but then we'd lose us in the process, and that just wouldn't be worth it.

The Baby Rabies

The prospect of updating this blog has become very loaded, but I'm at a point lately where I really need to vent about this and I'm needing an outlet desperately.

I've got the baby rabies. Oh, it's not so bad. I know it's my biological clock and I have no desire to have a child because my mind knows what's involved, but I'm at a point right now where I'm actively fighting against my biological urges.

So what brought this on? Well, for starters, my husband and I bought a house. A dream house, to be exact, with tons of space, two fully loaded entertaining rooms and a kitchen that was designed by the empty-nester owners and has proven to be outstanding for entertaining. It's amazing.

Also, one of my best friends is expecting, which means I'm spending a lot of time looking at goodies to buy, hearing about her pregnancy (in a good way — she's been great about it all)… babies are on my mind a lot.

And, lastly and most pressing, it seems, is the expiration of my IUD. I'm faced with needing to either get a new IUD in February. That, or my husband as offered to get a vasectomy. Talk of the vasectomy makes me twitch in a way I never thought possible.

Talking about the baby rabies is something that's taboo among the childfree. We're conditioned to never ever mention that our bodies are sometimes in conflict with our minds, and it's a strange and annoying place to be. My heart and mind know that I don't want to raise a child for all the reasons I've listed a thousand times over. I do not want this for myself. And yet the idea of my husband getting a vasectomy and cutting off that possibility entirely (because right now we're talking about biological children) makes my stomach twitch awkwardly.

The conflict is troubling in a way that's hard to explain. I hate the idea of being pregnant, and suddenly I find myself jealous of my friend's experience. When I look at the prospect of raising a child, especially a baby, it sounds dreadful. And yet I have a physical reaction when my husband and I talk about him getting a vasectomy. I feel a deep, internal sadness that's complete contradiction with the relief I feel at the thought of not having to worry about being pregnant ever again.

I also hate that I can't talk about it without getting "I told you so" looks or commentary, when my mind isn't actually changing. I feel defensive, and worse I feel defensive against myself. It's incredibly frustrating, but it feels really good to just talk about it.

Finally Updating

Yes I am still childfree. Yes we are still dealing with many of the issues that brought me to blog in the first place, but life gets in the way. I still get emails and messages hoping I'll update now and again, so here I am. I'm going to try to blog weekly, but we'll see how that goes. There's certainly plenty for me to sound off about.

Thinking of Thanksgiving

As if Thanksgiving with my husband’s family wasn’t stressful enough, headlined by my husband’s judgemental stepsister, stepmom and stepmom’s twin sister, but babies are going to be front and center; both of my husband’s stepbrothers’ wives are currently pregnant. I got to hear all about it at dinner last week, about how pleased they are that one couple who had a traumatic pregnancy with their first child, preceeded by several devastating late-term miscarriages, finally decided to give their daughter a sibling while expressing that it’s cruel to leave a child as an only child. By the way, finally is relative; their daughter just turned two.

The other baby on the way is the couple’s first child, and it’s coming to the stepbrother who was married about a year after my husband and I were, and boy is everyone excited. Except I recall my conversations with my stepsister-in-law about how she wasn’t ready to have kids yet, how she wanted to travel, to do more before she wanted to settle down. I find myself wondering what changed her perspective so dramatically. She wasn’t childfree by any means, but it appears that the pressure to have as many babies as possible got to them. Who knows, maybe she had a genuine change of heart, but in my conversation with her, where I first floated the idea that my husband and I might never have children, she seemed quite sure that she wanted to wait a few years, or at least until she was able to take a trip to Asia.

The talk of us having babies has slowed significantly while my husband is in school, with everyone knowing that I’m the sole breadwinner in the house. But the dynamic will be changed with two pregnant ladies in the house. It’ll be interesting.

Sanctity of Marriage

While at dinner with my husband and my in-laws the other night, my father-in-law dropped a bomb on my husband. While my stepmother-in-law and I were at the buffet refilling our soup bowls, FiL blurted out to my husband that “oh, by the way, you have a half-sister. But don’t tell ‘the women’, we’ll talk later.” We then returned to the table to hear the last part of that statement and were none the wiser until my husband and I were in the car on the way home.

We’ve since learned that FiL had an affair on my husband’s late mother shortly after they were married, and a child was born. While the babymama denied that FiL was the father, he always sort of knew. He found out about three years ago and apparently decided that the time to tell his son, who had grown up as an only child, about this secret half-sister, over soup and salad at Sweet Tomatoes. She’s about 8 years older than my husband, is married, and lives in North Carolina. But the thing that FiL keeps bringing up over and over, is that she is married to a black man.

My husband quite literally could not care less about this qualifier, and yet his dad keeps referring to him as “her black husband” and that my husband has “three black nephews”. It’s especially striking to me that someone in his line of work, teaching in an ESL program, would continue to make this distinction in every reference, over and over.

The whole situation has me thinking about Prop 8 and other hate legislation for many reasons. First it’s the whole “sanctity of marriage” crap, expounded loudly by this man who created a child with a woman other than his wife while they were married. Then it’s the fact that my husband’s half-sister would never have been allowed to marry or have children with her husband had the laws been decided.

I am a happily married straight woman, and my marriage is as sacred as anyone else’s. That sanctity is not threatened when people who love each other are allowed to get married to the person of their own choice.

It’s been proposed by some that same-sex marriage is unreasonable because they cannot create life, and then I wonder what these people think about childfree marriages like mine. But then again, I know what they think. By and large they also feel like my marriage is less sacred because we are choosing not to create life for whatever reason. And yet they would never question the sanctity of a marriage where a man and a woman choose to adopt a child after a bout with infertility.

We’re going to make plans to meet my husband’s newfound sister in the nearish future, and it’s kind of exciting. It’s got us thinking a lot about family and what it means. Hopefully we’ll get along with her family because I know they’re both very excited to meet each other. I get a warm feeling when I consider her, which is really nice considering the apprehensiveness I feel with FiL and my husband’s stepfamily. I get a feeling of warmth and accepting based on early communication, and I think that acceptance and openmindedness is what family should be based upon. That acceptance should exist without qualifications like “my black grandchildren” and “my childless son.”

I'm hopeful that this might be the first member of my husband's family with whom we feel totally and completely accepted for who we are. And that's pretty cool.

Weekends Away

We spend about one weekend a month with our friends who live downstate, and while the country life is so not for us we love the change of pace once in awhile. It’s quiet there, mellow, and visits to their house are often filled with great cooking and fun crafts. This time, however, I kind of wish we hadn’t come.

Our mutual friend and his wife decided to drop by with their three rambunctious kids — the manic twins and their alpha dog older sister. They were loud, they tortured the dogs (unintentionally — they called it playing), they ran around and completely changed the energy of the house. Our quiet weekend sanctuary was instantly transformed into a den of chaos.

The mother of these youngins (Momma) and I have never gotten along. She’s one of those super-judgmental moms who brands me “childhater” and inhuman because I don’t want children. I’m a bad influence on friends who have come out as childfree or settled upon a childfree lifestyle after me, and a bad person in general. I think she’s judgmental and mean, treats her husband like a slave who can do nothing right (he’s got his flaws too, of course) and I really am not fond of her. The kids are fine, just hyperactive, and that’s only exacerbated by the fact that we were down there to RELAX.

Because she’s hypersensitive to any signals I might send that confirm her opinion of me as a childhater, it of course bode well for me when all the chaotic energy and shrill noise left me with a massive headache not an hour after the group arrived. To her credit, Momma did try to keep the kids out of the room where I slept it off and sent them outside to play. When I woke up after the meds began working and went to join her and my friend in the other room, though, she retreated. While we hung out in the dining room, she sat knitting on the sofa and watched her kids play in the other room, isolated from us childless ladies. Momma and my friend used to be very close until my friend was diagnosed with cervical almost-cancer and decided after her surgery that while they may want to adopt in a few years, a natural birth might not be the best way to go. As far as Momma was concerned my friend had changed fundamentally and their relationship immediately began going downhill, as had happened with other friends who decided to put off children for awhile. It’s a pattern.

I feel sorry for Momma. Because she fails to realize that women are still women when they are not mothers, that we are worth being friends with even when we don’t have kids in common, she loses out on friendship and affection and has become a bitter, bitter woman. And while I’ve hoped over the years that she would warm up by knowing us, and knowing that my husband and I are good people, I’ve given up on that. We now merely coexist when stuck in situations with each other, and that’s okay with me. That said, if I hear that the whole family’s coming for gaming weekend in the future, I will respectfully bow out. Between the kids' energy and the stress of a strained relationship, that's not my idea of a relaxing weekend.

Opting out of fatherhood

A friend of mine brought up an interesting conversation in her own blog: Should a man be able to opt out of parenthood in a situation where he made it clear that he did not want to be a father, took reasonable steps to avoid doing so, but a child is conceived.

This is an issue close to my heart because my niece is one of those babies. Sure, perhaps a little more accountability should rest on my brother’s shoulders for having unprotected sex with a girl he barely knew, regardless of whether she said she was on birth control or not. But the fact is, she said she was on Depo. She was not. She got pregnant. She bailed. Now my niece is 9 years old and living without a mom and while I wouldn’t change that she’s in my life, the circumstances surrounding her existence give me pause.

Take the example of my friend’s boyfriend, who had a lengthy discussion with his former “friend with benefits” about not wanting another child before agreeing to take their friendship to a sexual level. She assured him she was taking birth control and they continued to mess around when one or the other was single, over the course of a couple years. And then she turned up pregnant.

It would be one thing if this was just an accident. But when a mutual friend came to him with what babymama had confided in him, this is where it gets sketchy. What she confided was this:

I just kept seeing him with his son (from his previous marriage) and thought what a great father he was, and I couldn’t stop thinking of us as a family, so I stopped taking the Pills and if I got pregnant, then clearly it was meant to be.

Additionally, she had “been in love with him for-like-EVER” and this was the only way she thought she could get him to consider having a serious relationship with her. She never confided in him about this, never said that her feelings had changed. She continued to maintain the f***buddy relationship because “that’s what she thought he wanted”. And now there’s a baby, there’s child support that he can’t afford, and he not only had no say in the matter. He was deceived into this situation.

What recourse does he have? NONE. The baby tied him inextricably to this woman, like a contract he never signed. How is this fair?

The problem is that it’s not fair. That said, I don’t think there’s a fair solution. Because as much as I’d like to say screw the babymama, the manipulative psycho who roped a good man, a good father, into something he wasn’t prepared for and something he didn’t sign up for, it’s just not that simple. Her manipulation amounted to a breach of contract—their agreement that their relationship was just about sex and that if anyone developed any deeper feelings they should come to each other and talk it out—and he shouldn’t be liable.

But then there’s this kid, who didn’t have anything to do with it. Should the baby be punished for his mother’s lack ethical vacancy? Or did babymama sign on to be a single mother when she intentionally manipulated a situation to bring about a pregnancy?

I lean toward the latter and don’t believe that single parenthood is necessarily “punishing” a child. But should a father in such a situation “opt out” of fatherhood society will eventually tell this child that he was rejected by his father, which, regardless of whether this was an oversimplification of the facts, can be extremely damaging.

Here’s the thing: there are so many ways to screw up a kid. Single parents can raise awesome kids, grandparents can raise awesome kids, “traditional” families can raise disastrous children. As I’ve said many times, it’s a crapshoot.

But while in principle I think men should be able to opt out of fatherhood in situations like my friend’s, it’s far more complicated than just that. Once you get another human being involved, situations need to be looked at beyond just considering them “in principle.” I have no good answers for how to resolve this.

All that leads to me being really glad I’m not a single guy. As if navigating the dating world isn’t scary enough, I can’t imagine the added possibility of being unwillingly or, worse, unwittingly roped into parenthood. The moral of the story: men need to take responsibility for their own birth control—period—because that’s clearly the only way that men can “opt out” of parenthood without the moral and ethical dilemmas that ensue AFTER an accidental child is born.

Windows

Another childhood friend joined the ranks of the childed last week. He's a gorgeous little boy, even when not considered by newborn baby standards, and she's thrilled. But for the first time, I don't really feel a wall has been erected by his birth. It's odd to me that it would be she, the OB nurse, the one whose life revolves most completely around babies and mommies, that would be the most accepting of my decision, never questioning it, being completely understanding. It's a nice change.

I look at my other friends' kids, growing like weeds, the infants suddenly toddlers, the toddlers suddenly kindergartners, gathering together for playdates and such. I'm now the last of my childhood friends to remain childless, and it's interesting. We're all in our 30s and it boggles my mind that of all the people I knew when I was growing up that I'm the only one to decide that kids aren't for me. Oh, there's one friend from high school who's childfree, but we're barely acquaintances.

In the meantime I've got my cousins popping out kids, my (step)sister-in-law, and again I've got that feeling of being left out of a club I don't belong in and don't actually want to be a part of. It's the meeting at work that's just for the "real" employees (no freelancers please), it's the family events that I've stopped being invited to in the last year. I watch from the sidelines and think "my god that looks like a good time" while simultaneously thinking "that would make me so miserable."

The childfree life for women like me is full of such paradoxes, I think. The desire to be included is almost inherent, instinctual. I suspect it's part of the reason that so few women challenge the expectation of motherhood, even when they suspect it's not what they want. They pursue it because it's what they should want, and because the people with whom they surround themselves chant the mantras of "it's different when they're your own" and "everything changes, but it's the best thing you'll ever do".

Challenging these ideas is, well, challenging. Over the years I've been able to surround myself with people who understand me, letting those who refuse to try linger on the fringe except for an awkward "hello" every couple years at the club or a friend's party. It's better this way and I'm happier for it. But through their blogs, their Facebook profiles and the other forms of communication we still share I see a window to their world, and it honestly looks like a fun place to live in. Not for me, but for them, and I'm thrilled to seem them, surrounded by the kids that fill their lives in place of the things we did together in the good ol' days, and overflowing with happiness.

There's an ache to being left out of this world, but it diminishes the moment I consider how awesome my life is for me, and how I know they look into my window and wish they had the freedom to travel, to go to concerts and stay out all night dancing, to have the kind of grown-up time that we do. And I'm sure, like me, most of them wouldn't trade in their own lives for a moment.

Weekend with a 9-year-old

My niece has been looking forward to this weekend for months. She made a countdown calendar for a craft project, counting down each day and excitedly sending me e-mails about what we'd do, where we'd go, what her uncle would put in his "famous pancakes" for her (butterscotch chips with whipped topping and syrup). So going into it, naturally, I was kind of freaked out.

This was a lot to live up to.

We decided together that we'd make candles and soap, and go to the Farmer's Market for fresh donuts and honeycrisp apples. And, of course, we would let her play with the Wii. Thank the gods for the Wii.

She woke at 6:00 on Saturday morning, and I found her at almost 7:00 laying in her bed in the guest room with the lights on, doing nothing. Her book was at her side (she always has a book with her) but she had tired of reading, and instead was just staring at the ceiling waiting for us to wake up. It bears noting that our weekdays start about 7:30, our weekends rarely before 9:00, so my husband and I were both extremely groggy.

We don't have cable — between Hulu.com and Netflix we fail to see the point — so there was nothing on TV for her. She quickly grew antsy and we decided to just get dressed and head for the Farmers Market at 8:00. She ate her donut, we picked out apples, we marvelled at the enormous produce, she cringed when I bought an eggplant the size of her head (I promised I wouldn't try to make her eat it). After running a couple errands, we ended up back at home around noon; I am NEVER this productive by noon on a Saturday, but I was already feeling exhausted.

We laid out our soap-making supplies and, as expected, she quickly grew bored of the process of waiting for the mixture to melt, waiting for the first layer of soap to cool, and waiting until we ended up with bars of beautiful lavender rosemary soap. The candles began another waiting game, and her boredom was palpable. So I set her up with Samba de Amigo on the Wii, complete with the maracas attachments, and she was in heaven. She'd come drag me from the crafts table to watch her do a song here and there, and she'd come by me when it got exciting — pouring the wax into the candle molds. But when it came time for a new batch, or to clean the container (using old candles means cleaning out the soot for each layer of wax), she played. Later in the evening we watched a few episodes of Ghost Hunters (her favorite — told you she was a cool kid), made some fish sticks (one of the few things she'll eat), and then she helped clean up.

This morning she woke again at 6:30 and wanted to play the Wii, which she did until it was time to leave, save for breaking for her pancake breakfast. When we got her home, she excitedly presented my great-grandma, grandma and grampa with the candles and soap we made, and talked incessantly about the Wii.

Overall this weekend went about as well as it could have. We had a great time hanging out, but I imagine it would have been infinitely more challenging had we not had the Wii around for her to become fixated upon. She's not a big TV kid in general, and I can appreciate how crafts like the ones we were doing could make a 9-year-old quite bored, even while they think it's fun. She's used to multitasking, and mellow crafting just wasn't her game. We balanced it well, I think, and she was super proud with what we ended up with. That said, I could tell she was ready to go home by mid-morning on Sunday, and we were more then ready to return her and get some nice alone time.

That was perhaps the biggest real issue we've had with sharing the weekend with our niece. Weekends are the only real time my husband and I have alone together, especially since our roomie is usually with her boyfriend over the weekends, and we've been, well, suffering a bit with the kid around. ;) I suppose couples with kids eventually learn to stop being paranoid about fooling around with a kid in the vicinity, but I couldn't put her out of my head for a second.

We'll gladly have her back another weekend, hopefully sooner rather than later, but it's nice when these weekends truly emphasize how much we love our life just the way it is.

Back from the dead

I'm touched that it seems my readers still drop by and I'm missed, and I've wanted to get back into blogging about being childfree, but time and other commitments have gotten in the way. Life is good, and life is still childfree. It’s been the good kind of distraction that’s kept me from this blog, but I think about writing often. It’s time to get back on track, because there IS a lot to write about.

Most importantly, I have not given in to the pressure, as it seems many of you are concerned about. I’ve come out to a couple of stepsisters-in-law, and I can only assume it’s made its way up the ladder. We received fewer (if any) invitations to family functions since then, but considering the way we’ve been made to feel at such events it’s kind of welcome to not have to decline all the time. This year we’re having Thanksgiving with my in-laws, when talk of babies will no doubt be rampant. My husband’s stepbrother’s wife is pregnant with their first child; they were married about a year after we were, so you can imagine where that conversation will head. But overall, everyone’s been pretty mellow with us. We’ll see how that changes at Thanksgiving.

I was laid off in July and I’m so thankful we don’t have a child to support during this time. I’m freelancing regularly, but we’re also facing the loss of my insurance at the end of next month. With the uncertainty of the economy, it’s a scary, scary time, and I can only imagine how scary it is for those who have larger families to support.

J continues to live with us and she has completely turner her life around. It’s magnificent and really inspiring. She credits us for helping her turn her life around and helping to show her what a real relationship looks like. She’s spent the last 3 months with an amazing man who is everything she deserves; they remind me of my husband and me when they’re together. It’s remarkable the transformation, and she concedes that had she met him before living with us she wouldn’t have been the right person for him. I truly believe, even at this early state that she may have found “the One”, but she’s taking things slowly and it’s working out well for them.

As I prepare for an entire weekend spent with my 9-year-old niece, I’m sure I’ll have plenty more insights to share come Monday, and I’m hoping to update more frequently again. Thanks for your dedication, e-mails and comments. I feel touched that as much as this blog has helped me over the years, I’m also helping some of you who feel the same.

A Reason, A Season, or a Lifetime

I feel like I'm going through a transitional period in my life. Friends I thought I'd have forever are fading into the mist, I'm entering a new phase of my marriage as we look toward becoming homeowners, my parents are, unfortunately, entering a new phase as well due to layoffs, a slowed economy and the mortgage crisis. Times they are a-changing, and I often feel quite lost.

It's during these transitional phases that I start questioning why I'm here. It's a question, perhaps a conundrum, that is more difficult, I think, for the childfree person. Parents have an easy default answer: I'm here to raise my kids and be a good parent, they'll often say. But when you don't have something that the world at large finds so valuable, so central to their own lives, how do you find a place in the world and say what your purpose is?

In the past few years, my husband and I have boarded displaced friends and family members. But is that our life calling? I don't think so, especially when the overwhelming evidence shows that we haven't made a difference in their lives once they emerge from under our roof. C returned to her abusive home after beginning to become a grown-up (at 28) and immediately regressed to her destructive childish behavior. E responds to attempts to help with a blanket "you don't understand me" and continues to refuse to take accountability for her actions. J, our current boarder and my husband's cousin, is doing better, but after being removed from the drama and destruction of her family home, I'm seeing her begin to seek it out elsewhere, as if her life is incomplete without the constant dysfunction.

I used to wonder, and still often do, whether we might have it in us to be foster parents one day. My experience helping these troubled friends is talking me out of it.

"Sometimes somethin's so broke can't BE fixed."

I used to feel like we made a difference in the lives of these people we take into our homes, the friends I take into my heart, but they fall back into their same destructive patterns until I'm so exhausted I don't know how to help, that I need to admit defeat because I was never the one who could save them in the first place. We've shown people who've never seen a healthy relationship what one looks like, we've shown them love, and it's never enough because sometimes somethin's so broke can't be fixed.

Deep down I know that the problems are due to mental illness, to broken minds paired unfortunately with good hearts, but often I wonder if I could have done more. If I didn't out of laziness or fear, if there was a magic way to reach them and encourage them to get the help they need and I just missed it.

I expect too much. I want it to be easy, but it's not. I cannot save them all, and I cannot save who doesn't want to be saved. I find it so difficult to distance myself from the damaged person I care about, and just when I think I'm being a good friend, helping someone make major changes, they go back to the abusive home, the self-destructive promiscuity, the relationship-wrecking stubbornness, the debilitating depression, and I feel like I've failed, especially since I'm resented by the very person I tried to help out of pure love.

It's not in me, I couldn't deal with that. It's hard enough dealing with it from friends and family, but to experience it from a child placed in my care... I cringe thinking about it because deep down I don't want to care for a child, I want to fix somebody. I want to say "see, I turned this person into a better person," but I want it to be easy and that's just not realistic.

I think a lot of people enter parenthood with these idealistic goals. They want to raise a good person and they want it to be easy. What does my outlook say about me? Does it say that I'm enlightened, knowing myself enough that I wouldn't be able to handle such pressure, or does it say I'm a defeatist, giving up before I try when there's a possibility to do such good? I don't know.

I just know that there's nothing in this world that I hate quite as much as when I feel this way, when this powerlessness overwhelms me, and I sure as hell don't want to subject myself or my husband to a life sentence of this uncertainty. This, this right here and now, this will pass soon and I will feel better because the root of it will be gone soon, faded away with the friendship as sad as that is. Friendships come and go. A child never really leaves. There are no do-overs, and there's no saying "oh well, I tried my best and this failed. Better luck next time."

I know that I am going to be in the somewhat unique position of challenging myself to find the quick answer to the question "why am I here". And, to be honest, I'm glad for that. I'm glad because instead of just defaulting to an "easy" answer, my life's quest will require more thought, consideration, and an adventure totally unique to my husband and me.

As the seasons end for some of my friendships, many of which I thought were "lifetime" ones, I'm reevaluating everything. It's painful, but I know it's giving me strength. I can only hope it does the same, on whatever level, for those that I've loved.

Just a simple question

I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt and hope that it was a rhetorical question. She’s long been befuddled by me not wanting a baby, but as she bounced her six-month-old daughter in her arms as I paged through her admittedly adorable baby book, she mused about already wanting another, and another, and another. She pointed at a particularly cute photo and said,

“Seriously, how could you not want one of these?!”

I chuckled and moved along and nothing more was said, but the comment stuck with me more than I wanted it to. I had a thousand reasons why, a big one from just an hour earlier as we sat down for our amazing dinner cooked by her chef husband. Delilah got fussy, and we had a hard time sitting through dinner without her dominating the table. And while I hadn’t seen my friend since her baby shower and she excitedly referred to our visit as some much-needed grown-up time, it really wasn’t. Sure we all shared a bottle of wine, ate fancy food and hung out as adults, a great deal of the evening was about the baby.

I expected that to be the case and embraced it. I wanted to get to know her daughter – we’ve known each other since we were 5 years old. My husband and I had fun watching the baby while she and her husband went out on the balcony for a smoke, but were left thinking “my god, how would we possibly entertain this child for even an entire day”. Hell, even an hour would have been challenging, because Delilah is still at that stage where she’s, well, not terribly interactive. There’s only so much you can do with an exercircle and, well, while it was super adorable when she started mimicking our faces and the way we clapped our hands, the novelty eventually wore off and we got bored.

And there is a bit of a rift there, the unspoken awkwardness that I usually feel with friends who are new moms who haven’t really seen me interact with kids. It’s subtle, possibly imagined, but it’s there. It’s there and it makes me wonder if her question, “how could you not want one of these?”, was her reaching out to see if there was a connection. Perhaps it was the accusatory “if MY baby can’t make you want one of your own, then something REALLY must be wrong with you” thing that I’ve felt before, perhaps it was just disbelief, perhaps it had nothing to do with me and it was just an expression of glee about her baby, which I’m hopeful it was. Except I feel like it wasn’t that simple. It’s that little chunk of “us” that I suspected would be lost when she became a mom coming to life, saying “remember when we dreamed of our kids growing up together when we were little? We can still have that. It's not too late.”

But that hurts. So instead I’m going to pretend it was a rhetorical question and struggle to put it out of my mind.

You've got it all wrong...

It happened again; or, rather, it happened for the first time at this office. My coworker with whom I share an office brought her 8-month-old child in for the first time. And nothin’. As people crowded my space to see the baby, beg to hold the baby (who clearly didn’t want to be held by anyone other than Mommy), talk to the baby in babytalk and just stare, I quickly went back to work. Wrong answer, apparently.

“Not a big fan of babies, are you?”

Oh no gals, just have a bit of a migraine, I lied. I didn’t want to hold the baby. Sure he was cute and my tiny little Filipino friend was adorable with her son. But the way everyone just ogled and stared, I just didn’t get it. I greeted him, then turned around to work until I started to feel self-conscious that I was not ignoring everything but the baby.

My childfreeness has come up a couple times at work, where it seems to be more accepted than in my suburban jobs, but moments like this just single me out and people start asking uncomfortable questions. It seems weird when I don’t pay attention to the kid. I just don’t care, and sometimes I wish I did at least a little. I can appreciate a cute baby, but it’s a glance and move on sort of thing. I’m the same way with puppies. They’re nice to look at for a bit, but then on to different things. Apparently this makes me weird.

And it was noticed.

Usually my friend opens the day with a funny story about the baby, and it’s cute. It’s part of who she is. Since this incident (and it feels like an “incident”), I initiate conversations about him. It’s like a rift was erected… oh, SHE didn’t want to hold Anthony, she didn’t want to play with him or goo-goo-gaa-gaa at him. What’s her problem?

And it makes me sad. I’m glad we’re moving desks next week and I won’t be sitting next to her, because while I’ve really enjoyed sitting beside her, there’s a palpable awkwardness that’s just stupid and it doesn’t need to be there.

This is STUPID. Can we go back to the hotel?

The hubby and I both love museums. We love exploring science museums, analyzing art and ogling oddities of all sorts. When we decide to take weekender trips, usually it’s to see some exciting new museum on at least one of our days. Our recent trip to Cleveland took us to the Great Lakes Science Center and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Science museums are a blast for us. We’re both passionate about learning and, spoiled perhaps by the Museum of Science & Industry here in Chicago and the MOSI in Tampa, have enjoyed long days wandering around the exhibits. We excitedly added the GLSC to our list of destinations. The website made it seem interesting enough, though smaller than our favorite in Chicago. When we arrived we marveled that we seemed to be the only ones there not toting small children. It was only after we bought our tickets for the IMAX movie and the museum that we realized why that was the case.

The GLSC is a glorified playground. It was filled with noisy children running completely amok EVERYWHERE. Instead of using the displays as a tool for learning, 90% of the parents were using them as tools for distraction. Let’s not teach the kids WHY this is making noise, let’s just let them make their noise. And let’s not talk about the parents who shot sidelong glances to tell us that we were lingering at a display too long and not giving their kid a turn. It was insanity and within 15 minutes I was nursing a migraine. And in under an hour we had explored the ENTIRE place. The exhibits were almost exclusively designed for children, and the second one piqued our interest we were stared down or, twice, shoved out of the way by impatient children. We resisted and said EXCUSE ME, to which the children sheepishly responded with an “excuse me”, but it was insanity.

The IMAX film about the Mars rover was also filled with hundreds of children far too young to understand what they were seeing. So, of course, they got bored. Then they got wiggly. Then they got noisy. It was, all in all, a truly awful excursion and we were thankful it was only a couple of hours with the movie.

The next day, we headed out to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I’m a huge music trivia nerd, and my husband is a music lover, so this was an exciting place. (Granted, I enjoyed it far more than he did.) The thing about this place is that it’s marketed as a fun-filled place for EVERYONE, when, in fact, it’s like any niche museum. First-off, it’s filled with stuff. That’s right, just stuff, with the occasional video presentation. Many of the attendees were so disappointed, as if they were expecting to come and meet David Bowie instead of looking at the costumes that spanned his many personas. And all but one child was bored practically to tears.

Because, like it or not, most kids could not care less about museums, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum included. Surrounded by shinies and sparklies that they cannot touch, that hold little to no meaning whatsoever to them, their parents tried to explain it to make it sound interesting, and it was sad. I could tell how excited many of the parents were to be there, and I read the frustration in their eyes, in their furrowed brows, as their kids moped and begged to go back to the hotels. A 9-year-old doesn’t know who ZZ-Top was, why it’s super cool that the Eliminator, the car they used in all their videos in the ‘80s, was sitting right there, or why it was so impressive to see Hunter S. Thompson’s actual manuscript from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (some of the best lines of the book and film, right there, in their original format). They certainly don’t think that seeing the actual guitar that was smashed in the cover images for London Calling is one of the coolest things ever and they don’t care about the evolution of the BeeGees or why the Beatles and the Stones were so influential for the same reason they don’t care about a painting painted 200 years ago or ruins from the 12th Century because it doesn’t feature blinking lights and freaked out animation.

Parents, if you want to spend some time at a museum, then spend some time at a museum. If your kid is not the type to be impressed by history of any sort, don’t force it on them. It’s painful for you, you won’t enjoy it as you deserve, and it’s painful for those around you who have to deal with your kid’s incessant whining about how “this is stupid.” You’re not going to make them suddenly appreciate it, and it’s okay that they don’t.

That said, the rare kid that was excited about the museum was a treat to see. One scruffly-headed boy of about 12 ran to every guitar display and got really excited – clearly he was raised knowing a lot about the legendary guitarists. Another little hippie girl was so excited about seeing the Beatles stuff. These are the kids that really belonged there.

Bored children or not, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum was a total treat for me. And, as we stopped at a pub for dinner and drinks afterward, and out to the club for a late night, we lamented about how we were able to appreciate it as we wanted to. We get to do what WE want to do without considering the kids and what we’ll do with them. That’s pretty awesome, I think.

I hope you don't mind that I put it down in words...

It’s been two and a half years since I started this blog, and sometimes I’m fascinated how central the issue of childfreeness remains in my life, how the experience evolves over time as more of my close friends get pregnant and have babies, with each year that I make family members wait for their grandchildren they continue to hope will come.

And while I feel like sometimes I beat a dead horse with my words, I’m constant encouraged to keep blogging by my readers. I often wonder how many of you there are, so often I see comments that say you’ve been following my journey forever.

Mostly, as I get older, I realize that while being childfree may not be as powerful an experience as having a child might be, it’s emotional in very different ways. If I’m typical, it’s on our minds regularly. Not having a child colors my days in the workplace, my response to marketing campaigns, my experiences on flights and at tourist destinations, or even at the mall or grocery store.

Often I wonder if this preoccupation with my lack of children and how it makes me different is actually how my unique brain (insomuch as we are all unique) is interpreting what many women would respond to with cluckiness, with "the baby rabies". Perhaps this IS my clock ticking, but instead of responding with deciding I’m ready to have a baby no matter what, my mind wants to write, speak, blog about my experiences as a woman whose brain and biology are at odds. Because I do think about it a lot. I would even venture to say for every moment a clucky woman thinks about how complete her life would be if she just had a child I think about how miserable a baby would make me.

I think about this because I’ve been asked why this is something blogworthy and how the hell I can think of all these things that I care so much about that I need to put it down in words. The people who ask, though, are never childfree. They have kids currently or plan to have kids one day. They don’t feel like an outsider, as I sometimes do, that the people around them don’t get them. They don’t worry about offending people and don’t have the pressure of having made a decision that has a tendency to be polarizing. They’re never told by "formerly childfree" women over and over and OVER again that as you get older, your mind changes, invalidating what they're feeling in the here and now. They're not treated like they don't matter.

Do I think I’m “special”? Only in that each of our life experiences is unique. I don’t think my childfree experience is universal, but it’s mine. It helps me to write about it and I’m thrilled to know it helps others to know that there is someone else out there, especially when they might not have the need to address it all the time.
For me, sharing the words is my escape. Sharing my experience in this blog helps me feel a little less alone in a world that sometimes overwhelms me by making me feel too “different”. And over 140 posts and two and a half years later, I credit this blog and the support of my readers for making me feel a little more a part of this world.

These Dreams

So I have this recurring dream that I have a baby. The fact that I have a baby always comes as a surprise, like “oh crap, I forgot about the baby”, kind of in the same way I notice the cat’s litterbox is a mess or I haven’t fed my fish in a week (oops). I’ll pull the baby out of the closet, or the guest room, where it has been stashed away with other clutter, and then I wonder what to do with it. I ask myself how long it's been since I fed her, changed her diaper, cared for her at all. I fret about not being able to do anything and contemplate giving the baby to an infertile but desperately clucky friend, but then wonder what the family would say. Then, of course, I realize that I have no business having the baby and start making plans to get rid of it because, dammit, I want to go watch X-Files and I don’t have time for this.

What’s weirdest about the dream, I think, is that even though it’s exaggerated and ridiculous (like I really could have neglected a baby like, well, I neglect my pets sometimes), it’s kind of poignant. I can handle the responsibility of pets because they require minimal maintenance. I fill my cat’s bowl and he grazes for three days, and he reminds me (with incessant meowing) if his litterbox has become unreasonable and I deal with it. If I can’t find the 45 minutes to clean the fishtank, my betta will be fine ‘til next week. I can still do my thing, go to bed when I want, wake up 20 minutes before I have to be at the train station.

I often wonder if, in a parenting situation, I would be as lackadaisical about the care for my child as I can be with the animals. It scares me, to be honest. I can’t function under constant pressure, constant stimulation, and I think of the months of panic, sleepless nights, the need to keep the baby entertained… it freaks me out even thinking about it and even in my dreams I feel a panic attack coming on. Why won’t she stop crying? What does she want now? What about ME? Why can’t I put her down? (Oh, yeah, in the dreams the baby appears in my house as it is now – no crib, no toys, etc) What about work? And, of course, my husband is furious with me because I don’t know how to be a mom and HE doesn’t want to deal with it either.

The dreams are over-the-top, but they illustrate my feelings about being a mother so perfectly. It’s just not me. I’m too panicky, too jumpy, too lazy and selfish. Why do people feel it’s wrong that I know my temperament and personality well enough that I know it’s incompatible with motherhood, and most of all that I’m okay with that? I get the argument from some that having a kid changes your perspective on things like that, that they force you out of your lazy comfort zones, but I ask this: what’s wrong with those comfort zones? What’s wrong about having an expectation of a few hours to myself every day, needing those decompression hours to avoid a breakdown from exhaustion?

Feeling panicked, tense, unsure of myself, paranoid… I would actually liken my baby-havin’ dreams to a nightmare. Rarely do I wake up as tense, my heart racing, than I do after freaking out in these dreams.

24 hours

24 hours is just not enough.
I'm not sure where the time goes. It was on my mind for a couple reasons, especially last night as I ran out of time to work on my portfolio samples to send for a job I want. Another thing brought it to mind today, and I figured I'd come on this blog and calculate it.

Wake up: 6:45
Snuggle time & out of bed by: 7:15
Shower & Get Ready, make lunches and breakfast, out the door by: 8:00
Wait for train, walk to the office, in my seat by: 9:00
Work work work, out the door by: 5:30
Walk to train, get home, in the door by: 6:30
Unwind, change clothes, begin making dinner by: 7:00
Make, serve and eat dinner, done by: 8:00
TV/movie/us time, 'til about: 10:00
Cleaning, Freelance work, jobhunting, portfolio prep, pay bills: 'til bedtime, usually 12:00

This is a fairly typical day for me.
This week my schedule looks like this for my evenings:

Tuesday -- Craft night
Thursday -- Date Night / Concert
Friday -- Out dancing at the club!

It's fairly common for us to have stuff planned about twice a week, and since I've been doing much more freelance work lately, I'm super busy on the other evenings. I'll tell you what got me thinking about this.

I heard a woman talking about how her husband is one of those "I've got my interests and they're not going to be altered by new addition(s) to the family" guys. And I couldn't help but think "my god, I'm one of those guys".

What would I give up if I were to have a baby? Music is a huge deal for me, and I start to really feel like I'm lacking in something when I haven't been to a good show or gone dancing in a long time. Going to shows, going out dancing, that's all a big part of who I am.

Okay, so I can definitely cut out craft night, right? Craft night is my opportunity to see my girlfriends, and it's an opportunity for me to be creative doing something other than my work. Sure, sometimes one of the hostesses' friends brings their baby, but I can't even imagine the ordeal it takes to get out of the house only to stay someplace and do crafts for an hour before it's time to go home.

So what do we cut? Us time? Hardly. If we had kids, we would work to keep our marriage at the top of that priority list... yes, more important than showering all that love solely on the kidlets. While I find cooking dinner every night fairly relaxing, it's when we relax together on the sofa watching X-Files or a movie that I actually get to unwind. I get overwhelmed easily if I don't have my decompression time and have learned how to deal with it. Having this time is simply non-negotiable.

"I've got my interests and they're not going to be altered by new addition(s) to the family." It's true. That's why I'm not making any new additions. I'm unwilling to make those sacrifices. Willingness to sacrifice a huge part of yourself is essential to being a good mom. I am unwilling, and I'm glad I know it.

Just in Case...

My father lost his job 6 months ago, and in an attempt to keep their house long enough to sell it they've moved in with my maternal grandmother to free them up to get rid of the clutter accumulated over 25 years of living in the house. In addition to garbage bags full of expired medication, hotel soaps and shampoos and other little crap saved "just in case", I've also helped my mom purge bags and bags of my 9-year-old niece's old clothes. I'm finding that my niece's stuff is the hardest for her to let go of.

It's the stuff where the "just in case" was most hopeful.

My mom's pretty much always known I'm not the Mom type. We talked about it long before I met my husband. She's always been a good 80% supportive, which I think is really great. It's taking rooting through boxes and bags of old baby, toddler and kid stuff to realize that maybe she isn't THAT okay with it.

My brother, a single dad, is the other half of the "just in case". But even though my mom dreams of him meeting a nice girl and finally settling down, he's already told me that he envies us the ability to choose to remain childfree. Unless there's some dramatic change if he meets that nice girl, he does not intend on making another kid. After all, his daughter is already 9. He found raising her overwhelming and he didn't even do most of the work (my mom did).

I understand my mom's mourning for C's childhood. She has raised her as her own daughter for the most part and I'm sure this is a natural part of it. But there is a sense of guilt that I'm not giving her another little one to fawn over, spoil and adore. I wish there wasn't because I know that I shouldn't feel guilty.

Maybe it's just because she's been so sad lately, that losing C's childhood things means (in her eyes, as one who equates stuff with memories) losing hope of more grandkids, and in the context of everything else they're losing since my dad lost his job it's just too much to take. Regardless, it's really hard to look her in the eyes as I insist that the baby stuff go in the "sell" pile.