Whole Life Times: An Apology for Not Breeding

April 2007 | Life, the Universe and Everything

An Apology for Not Breeding

By Laura Wiley

I don’t know how to preface this, so I’m just going to come right out and say it because I feel like everyone I meet is dying to know. I don’t want to have children. You heard me. I’m a weirdo. A genetic perversion. A self-absorbed “career gal” — or so society would have me think. After thirty-eight years of politely dodging the question at parties, humoring everyone in my family by pretending to even consider it, I have finally come out of the closet. For reasons too numerous to mention, I’m a non-breeder. A childless married woman. It’s not that I have “better” things to do. I have “other” things to do. In America, this shouldn’t be so hard for people to accept. And yet it is.

I remember when I first realized I did not want to be a mother. I was eight. I was playing house with my friend Cameron, a farmer’s son who lived next door to me in rural Indiana. He was one of a long line of folks with “family values.” Even at eight, I felt the weight of that phrase although I had never even heard it uttered. I knew that when Cameron and I played games he would invariably assign the roles. He was always the “daddy” and I was always the “mommy.”

My husband and I sit on the couch most nights after dinner. We have been married for over a decade. The sitcom du jour has just ended, and a comfortable lethargy settles over us. Now what? Anxious thoughts start to invade my peace. Am I lazy? What would “normal” people be doing right now? I see a mental vignette of a woman helping her son with his math problems. I see a man swinging his daughter by the ankles while making airplane noises. I begin to feel incredibly guilty.

What am I depriving my husband of? Do these feelings come from a deep sense of longing for children? Or do they come from Madison Avenue? Most nights, I have just spent an hour or two watching (among other things) images of vibrant, middle-aged women who drive home in SUVs packed with groceries and children, women who clean up spills on the floor with a sturdy paper towel and a smile, women who shake their heads and roll their eyes at their children’s adorable antics, with a “There you go again!” resignation. The message is clear. This is la dolce vita. Motherhood is the place where any woman needs to be if she wants to be happy.

I can sometimes go for weeks without even addressing the “baby question” until someone at a dinner party brings it up. At first, it catches me off-guard. I have to think fast. I must not insult the person who has already been a parent — né, sacrificed much to get there. I must not seem wishy-washy, for they can sense doubt like a dog smelling fear, and will jump in with all sorts of arguments to win me to their side. On the other hand, I must not seem too firm, or I risk appearing cold and bereft of a nurturing instinct. In terms of a response, the old joke is probably the best: “I can’t bear children.” Get it? But that’s not exactly true, both ways. I am fertile, and I teach children music. They are an endless source of fascination and humor. I remember things they say in lessons long after they have left. I adore my three nieces and my nephew.

So, to return to the original question, after 12 years of marriage and no children to show for it, what, exactly, are my husband and I doing here? I guess we’re here because of comfortable routines I wouldn’t trade for the world. We’re here because every morning I wake up to the sound of carrots being grated — the carrots he puts in the huge salad he takes to work every day. We’re here because every night when he comes home from work I know he will give me a hug and then look down and quip “Are you getting shorter?” Because even though it annoys me, I like the fact that for the last 12 years whenever I am in the bathroom and he is washing his face, he will reach for my nightgown in mock confusion as if he intends to dry his face on it. And because every weekend when we go on our hike I know at some point he will toss a twig up the path and yell “Snake!”

When I die, it is possible I will spend a few restless months (or years) wishing I’d had children to keep me company and to serve as a mirror for my genetic traits. It’s also quite possible I’ll regret not having traveled to Botswana, lived a year as a redhead, learned to make tiramisu, or bought a summer home on Martha’s Vineyard.

The truth is that every time we choose to do something in this life we are choosing not to do something else. Life is a series of decisions to be made, the ramifications of which we can’t know until we make the decisions — and sometimes not even then. It might surprise us that the decisions we make are not, in themselves, what determine our level of happiness. It is our ability to make decisions using self-knowledge and intuition, and then accept the outcome, that determines our quality of life. Making informed choices and then living our lives gracefully and without comparison to others is the best we can really hope for.

Laura Wiley is a Bay Area freelance writer, editor and music instructor.

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: