my mum, and me and childfree
Aug. 16th, 2004 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baratronJust to follow on from my last post, I would like to mention that I actually had a decent conversation with my mum about being childfree yesterday. She is 110% supportive of my decision, which is reassuring. I know lots of people whose parents have put pressure on them to "produce grandchildren", which is apparently upsetting even if you want children. And I am an only child, and thus The Only Hope. But my mum pointed out that, quite apart from all my medical issues that would make pregnancy A Bad Idea, I have never had any desire to have kids. So I was thinking about that.
When I was very young and other girls would talk about wanting to get married and have children, I couldn't ever understand why. As a highly intelligent overachiever, I thought about adulthood in terms of "when I'm a doctor/scientist" rather than "when I get married and have children". Then when I got to puberty, I found other girls talking about when they wanted children - and I really couldn't understand why. As everyone kept telling me that I would want children eventually, I figured they must be right, so decided to plan my life around my career and just fit children in somewhere. I had the nagging thought "but what if having children means I lose 5 years off my career?", but because the question was always asked: when do you want children, not do you want children, it didn't occur to me that there was an option to say "I don't". By university I still didn't have any particular desire to reproduce (and especially not once I'd got rid of the Good Little Christian idea that any man I dated was a future husband), but some of my other friends were getting actively broody, and putting dates on when they wanted to have children by - which utterly made my head explode. It wasn't until I was 21 and first reading alt.polyamory that I heard the term "childfree by choice" and made the connection THAT's what I am! And suddenly a lot of things made sense.
The older I get, the more certain I am that I'm childfree. My belief is that I'm 99.9% unlikely to have children at all, and 100% unlikely to have children of my body. I remain utterly boggled by stories in the paper about women who have spent upwards of £10,000 going through cycle after cycle after cycle of IVF, putting their bodies through months of excessively high artificial hormone levels and maybe even risking ovarian cancer in the process, when adoption is - if not easy, at least possible. I think that in itself says a lot about me. I wish it was possible for me to donate my fertility to someone who could use it, because it's just a pain in the arse for me (TMI - My inability to use most forms of contraception affects my sex drive, because I'm paranoid about accidental conception). And yet, outside of my immediate family and circle of acquaintances, the idea of a woman who does not want to have children is still regarded as somewhat freakish - and people who don't know me feel free to patronise me and tell me how I'll change my mind someday.
The thing that bugs me most is how difficult it is for a woman under some vaguely specified age (25? 30? 35?) who has no children to get sterilised. Yes, I understand how difficult it is to reverse the sterilisation if you suddenly change your mind - but this isn't a snap decision. My doctor tells me that Richard could get a vasectomy tomorrow if he wanted - the idea of a man who doesn't want children has been long understood - but women have to be treated like children incapable of making a rational decision. Why?!
I'm not even going to start on religions which imply that having children is the main reason for marriage. Let's Not Go There.
Anyway. While I was once childfree in the sense of "I don't even want to be around children", I'm now happy to spend time with kids as long as I can give them back at the end of the day. I actively like spending time with bright or stimulated kids, even, and would be happy to be an aunt or godmother or cool weird adult around the place to any of my friends who wanted to put me in that role for their children. And, while I don't think I'll ever understand it emotionally, I understand intellectually that some people actively want to have children, and I support those people in their decision.
And this is, in part, why I thought my mum would have trouble understanding it. Because she really wanted me. It took her several months to become pregnant after she started trying, and she wanted to have a large family. But she was so ill during her pregnancy that the doctors advised her never to have any more children, at risk of death. She thought about adopting more children, but my dad was against it and it was difficult back then to adopt children if you already had one of "your own", and then I turned out to be a hyperactive far-too-intelligent child that could get by on 3 hours sleep a night (yeah, I'm still catching up on it now), so it seemed like a bad idea to throw more kids into the mix. So I figured that she might well be one of those people who really wants grandchildren.
But my mum surprised me. She declared that deciding to have children is a personal choice - you're the one who has to look after them for 18+ years of their life, and it's none of the potential grandparents' business. Wow.
The really quite amusing thing is that we talked about H & D's commitment ceremony the other week. It was an amazing day - really special and beautiful - and yet Richard & I said to each other afterwards "We're never doing this!". Just the thought of having to invite all kinds of relatives I never speak to makes my stomach hurt, let alone the thought of actually exchanging vows that are honest rather than what's in the official Church of England marriage ceremony. (H & D made frequent, if not explicit, references to "supporting your relationships with others"; one of the best men was another of H's partners; and the formal photos included the happy couple surrounded by their chosen family. Anything less than that at a ceremony of mine would be lying, imo.)
Well, apparently several of my aunts and uncles have been asking my mum when Richard & I are going to get married, and my mum has been busy telling them that we're not - we don't see any need to. I'm just amused and also surprised and pleased that my mum understands my lack of desire to get married when marriage isn't available to everyone, and also understands my lack of desire to have a non-legally-binding commitment ceremony if it involved having pretty much any of my relatives.
My mum utterly gets on my nerves at times, and my parents' inability to actually sort their lives out has been driving me mad for a long time - but all that being said, she's hella cool.
When I was very young and other girls would talk about wanting to get married and have children, I couldn't ever understand why. As a highly intelligent overachiever, I thought about adulthood in terms of "when I'm a doctor/scientist" rather than "when I get married and have children". Then when I got to puberty, I found other girls talking about when they wanted children - and I really couldn't understand why. As everyone kept telling me that I would want children eventually, I figured they must be right, so decided to plan my life around my career and just fit children in somewhere. I had the nagging thought "but what if having children means I lose 5 years off my career?", but because the question was always asked: when do you want children, not do you want children, it didn't occur to me that there was an option to say "I don't". By university I still didn't have any particular desire to reproduce (and especially not once I'd got rid of the Good Little Christian idea that any man I dated was a future husband), but some of my other friends were getting actively broody, and putting dates on when they wanted to have children by - which utterly made my head explode. It wasn't until I was 21 and first reading alt.polyamory that I heard the term "childfree by choice" and made the connection THAT's what I am! And suddenly a lot of things made sense.
The older I get, the more certain I am that I'm childfree. My belief is that I'm 99.9% unlikely to have children at all, and 100% unlikely to have children of my body. I remain utterly boggled by stories in the paper about women who have spent upwards of £10,000 going through cycle after cycle after cycle of IVF, putting their bodies through months of excessively high artificial hormone levels and maybe even risking ovarian cancer in the process, when adoption is - if not easy, at least possible. I think that in itself says a lot about me. I wish it was possible for me to donate my fertility to someone who could use it, because it's just a pain in the arse for me (TMI - My inability to use most forms of contraception affects my sex drive, because I'm paranoid about accidental conception). And yet, outside of my immediate family and circle of acquaintances, the idea of a woman who does not want to have children is still regarded as somewhat freakish - and people who don't know me feel free to patronise me and tell me how I'll change my mind someday.
The thing that bugs me most is how difficult it is for a woman under some vaguely specified age (25? 30? 35?) who has no children to get sterilised. Yes, I understand how difficult it is to reverse the sterilisation if you suddenly change your mind - but this isn't a snap decision. My doctor tells me that Richard could get a vasectomy tomorrow if he wanted - the idea of a man who doesn't want children has been long understood - but women have to be treated like children incapable of making a rational decision. Why?!
I'm not even going to start on religions which imply that having children is the main reason for marriage. Let's Not Go There.
Anyway. While I was once childfree in the sense of "I don't even want to be around children", I'm now happy to spend time with kids as long as I can give them back at the end of the day. I actively like spending time with bright or stimulated kids, even, and would be happy to be an aunt or godmother or cool weird adult around the place to any of my friends who wanted to put me in that role for their children. And, while I don't think I'll ever understand it emotionally, I understand intellectually that some people actively want to have children, and I support those people in their decision.
And this is, in part, why I thought my mum would have trouble understanding it. Because she really wanted me. It took her several months to become pregnant after she started trying, and she wanted to have a large family. But she was so ill during her pregnancy that the doctors advised her never to have any more children, at risk of death. She thought about adopting more children, but my dad was against it and it was difficult back then to adopt children if you already had one of "your own", and then I turned out to be a hyperactive far-too-intelligent child that could get by on 3 hours sleep a night (yeah, I'm still catching up on it now), so it seemed like a bad idea to throw more kids into the mix. So I figured that she might well be one of those people who really wants grandchildren.
But my mum surprised me. She declared that deciding to have children is a personal choice - you're the one who has to look after them for 18+ years of their life, and it's none of the potential grandparents' business. Wow.
The really quite amusing thing is that we talked about H & D's commitment ceremony the other week. It was an amazing day - really special and beautiful - and yet Richard & I said to each other afterwards "We're never doing this!". Just the thought of having to invite all kinds of relatives I never speak to makes my stomach hurt, let alone the thought of actually exchanging vows that are honest rather than what's in the official Church of England marriage ceremony. (H & D made frequent, if not explicit, references to "supporting your relationships with others"; one of the best men was another of H's partners; and the formal photos included the happy couple surrounded by their chosen family. Anything less than that at a ceremony of mine would be lying, imo.)
Well, apparently several of my aunts and uncles have been asking my mum when Richard & I are going to get married, and my mum has been busy telling them that we're not - we don't see any need to. I'm just amused and also surprised and pleased that my mum understands my lack of desire to get married when marriage isn't available to everyone, and also understands my lack of desire to have a non-legally-binding commitment ceremony if it involved having pretty much any of my relatives.
My mum utterly gets on my nerves at times, and my parents' inability to actually sort their lives out has been driving me mad for a long time - but all that being said, she's hella cool.
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-16 02:27 pm (UTC)I was also very lucky to have a mother who completely understood, and never, ever put any of her children under the slightest pressure to reproduce. As a result, of the four of us, only my brother has a child, and just the one.
It's nice to be of an age where I'm no longer asked when I'm planning to have kids. Of course, now the same busybodies ask questions about my nonexistent grandchildren.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-16 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-16 02:59 pm (UTC)My mum figures that one of us (I have two sisters) will have children, and even if none of us did she would accept that as our choice. My older sister is a headcase with severe long term depression and addiction issues so my mum is eternally glad she has not had kids. My younger sister may or maynot have kids she oscillates. I figure I can be the WeirdAuntie(tm) and return kids at end of the day.
Like you I boggle at the IVF stuff, as someone who has had shedloads of medical crap over the years I don't understand why people do it by choice, and in addition the cancer thing is SOOO scary - what's the point in kids if you aren't around to see them grow up!! My mum had cancer when I was in my teens and I was /so/ scared we'd lose her.
I think adoption is one of those things that some people get all hung up on, I know several people who have been adopted and they don't see what the issue is, they never knew any other parents, but their parents get all hung up about it and anytime they do anything their parents don't like the parents assume they are screwed up about adopted.... Very odd...
I still get all the rellies asking about children, esp now I'm all graduated. And I don't even know which ones I'm outed to and which I'm not and so I just keep quiet.
Natalya
no subject
Date: 2004-08-16 03:00 pm (UTC)I have spent a lot of time this weekend talking about marriage and children. I guess I am one of those people who has always seen children as a when rather than an if, but still, if they aren't for you, the worst thing I can imagine is to bring unwanted children into the world out of societal pressure. *hugs* for sticking to your guns.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-16 03:40 pm (UTC)I keep reading that and picturing it as, "I've looked everywhere, and I'm fairly sure by now that there are no children hidden around here." ;)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-17 05:58 am (UTC)I always wonder at people who think all women (and why is it women they moan at?) should have children? I ask them why on earth they would want a child to exist whose parents were less than enthusiastic about having it.
Completely agree on hassle of commitment ceremony and relatives - my parents were quite enough to deal with. The event was carefully timed just after one lot of my relatives emigrated, and the only aunt of D invited was one who used to be married to his uncle. And one cousin. We avoided all the others!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-17 06:54 am (UTC)I do want to have a child some time (if it's possible) but only when i'm in a situation where i can cope with parenting and not on too many unpleasnt medications so i can very much relate to the contraception difficulties/sex drive thing (i'm allergic to all available spermicides and can't tolerate synthetic hormones).
no subject
Date: 2004-08-17 11:23 am (UTC)The cynic (which is more awake than I am) in me says that men can father chldren without getting pregnancy, so there may be some element of 'go spread your wild oats' about them. I know one of my ex's had a father who believed in 'sowing wild oats' and was very vocal about it in a scary scary way.
The less cynical thought here is that it would be cool to ask childfree guys what they get instead, or find out if they do get asked re kids or not....
Natalya
no subject
Date: 2004-08-17 02:03 pm (UTC)I've been struck by babycraving, and my mother is working very, very hard to make me feel that this is a bad, bad thing.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 11:55 am (UTC)But I was really pissed off when Rob's mother put pressure on me to have grandchildren for her. I'm even more annoyed with her now, having seen how she deals with my baby.
I was put under lots of pressure to want a career, and it took me until very recently to work out that *children* is what I want to do with my life, not *career*. I honestly believed that I must deep-down want a career because I'm bright, right, so *obviously* I don't want to waste my life raising children - only stupid people should do that!
I wish more people recognised that one gets to choose for oneself what to do with one's life and energy.