I read a fan-frickin'-tastic article on Huffington Post today, that PERFECTLY captured my thoughts on the concept of being childless by choice. You should definitely read it. After you read Pie-Heaven, of course, because I'm adding my own two cents here:
For reasons that I have never understood, it is tacitly not OK in this country to be childless by choice.
Childless by pathophysiology? That's fine.
Childless by some horrific accident? No sweat.
Childless because you're a young mother and you decided adopting out was the responsible thing to do? Yeah, OK, sure, we're fine with that.
But childless by choice? *insert judgey and awkward silence here* God, what is wrong with you?
I know this first-hand. I know it because two things happened when I got married: First, everyone started saying how I was "an old married woman now" (I was 23) and on the heels of that, asking, "When are you going to have kids?"
"We're not planning on having kids," I would say, trying to smile blandly, but still be forthright. That's when the aforementioned awkward silence would start. They would look at me as if they didn't physically understand the words I had used. From that point on, the reaction would vary. Most people would mutter "Oh," and the conversation would move onward. Other people would try to use Jesus to convince me of my spiritual obligation to reproduce and "experience the Holy Spirit incarnate" (I am not kidding). Some would wave it off, saying, "Oh it's just a phase. Just wait 'til you turn 30." Still others would shake their heads sadly, saying, "But you would be so good at it!" And the rest would get angry, saying that it was my duty as wife to give my husband children. That I owe it to him. In fact, these conversations even began prior to being married. The Church definitely wanted to know what reasons we could possibly have for not wanting to immediately (and repeatedly) procreate.
Now, I have no shortage of sound biologic reasons to avoid replicating: shitty genes, high risk case, I don't want to chance kidney failure, etc. etc. But the big one, the one that really counts, is I do not want to.
And this is no secret. I have always clearly broadcast my distaste for the concept that I should be a mother. The earliest I can remember considering a childless life was at the age of 12. Moreover, I had a very clear conversation with my spouse-to-be that I had no intention of birthing anything. Guess what? I'll be 32 in 3 days and it's not a phase! Weird! [sarcasm]
While I resent the aging process in general, there is relief that with every passing birthday, my odds of unintentional pregnancy get smaller. I've tried to get sterilized in the past, but I couldn't even get a doctor to take me seriously until I turned 30, and by then my no-frills med school insurance refused to cover "any percentage of any intentional sterilization in any form." Well, that sounds pretty clear. Oh hey thanks pro-lifers for making this harder than it should be. So of course I snarked back at the insurance representative, saying, "So, if I should happen to get pregnant due to the 1-3% failure rate of oral contraceptives, should I just send the baby to you?" They were non receptive. Weird! [serious]
My personal philosophy remains as steadfast at 32 as it did twenty years ago: IF there should be anything contained within my person that even remotely begins to resemble some sort of biological clock, and it should start to work at any given time, I've heard a rumor that Somalia (and Korea, and China, and the Philippines, hell let's not forget America) is rife with motherless tots.
See? Problem solved. And I could see Victoria Falls.
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