May's Story

I cannot write one story about my choice not to have children. I will therefore write a few, which will interweave, yet not be precisely one. There are other stories I might have told, and other stories I will doubtless someday tell.

"I hate her!"

"I do too. She's so nosy. And she listens. All the time. She never says anything. She just listens."

"Yeah. I bet she's listening right now."

Of course I was; they were right behind me in line, walking back to school from a brief field trip. What could I do but listen? There wasn't a thing I could say that would make them hate me less, after all.

I was born with a series of minor birth defects which caused incontinence. I grew up with other children hating me. I was an easy target, and I learned very soon how ceaselessly, viciously nasty children can be. I learned to listen, so that I knew whom to avoid. I learned to vanish, quickly and quietly. I learned not to cry, because it didn't help.

I learned to deny that anything was wrong, because if I complained I was labeled a tattletale, and if I merely told the truth when asked, I caught hell later.

I learned a number of nervous tics and mental compulsions, which recur to this day when I am under significant stress.

And I learned that children are not innocent, not joyful, not kind. I learned that most children glory in being hateful and delight in getting away with abuse. I learned that there's damned little adults can do about it, even those few adults who care enough to want to help.

I learned my lessons well. I don't want children. I have seen more than enough of childish cruelty.

"Women give sex to get love, and men give love to get sex. It's better that you should wait until after you get your Ph.D. to get married and have children."

I believe I was in my early teens when my mother said that to me. It sounded strange. I had barely entered high school, and had no idea what I would do with myself in college; graduate school was too remote a concept to even enter my dreams.

I have thought a lot about my mother since then, and I think I know why she said what she did. Before she married my father, she had earned a bachelor's, a master's, and a nursing degree, and had almost finished Ph.D. coursework in anthropology. Then she got married, and then her birth control failed. I was the result.

She never got her Ph.D. She got stuck with a baby she hadn't wanted. She ended up at home raising baby -- and raising another baby five years later -- while Dad (who did get his Ph.D. in anthropology) built a career, published, got tenure, traveled, taught, and won grants and awards.

And she ended up a bitter, resentful, controlling alcoholic. I used to blame her for it. I don't, any longer. I blame parenthood for ruining what might have been a productive, joyful life for her.

My birth control won't fail, I dearly hope. I intend to get my tubes tied as soon as I can convince a surgeon to do it. And I will earn my Ph.D.; I'm more than halfway there. And after that...

"He seems so -- unfocused, like he doesn't know what he wants to do with his life. Are you sure you can live with that?"

My mother still dislikes and resents my fiancé, although she's learned to hide it in order to keep the peace with me. Because I am the family pet and nearly the only thing in the world she has to be proud of, she was most disappointed when I chose to love an itinerant scholar rather than a rich doctor or lawyer or other brag-worthy man.

She is wrong about him. He knows what he wants to do. He wants to study, and learn. He wants to study whatever he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants. His learning, and his delighted and delightful love of learning, have enriched my life immeasurably, and always will.

Studying, however, is not a paid pursuit in our society, and most full-time paid pursuits don't leave much time for study. I don't want him to drudge, but someone will have to pay the bills in our family.

That's me. I can do that. I can't count on myself to manage it with a child, though. Children are expensive, and at the same time they reduce the time a person, particularly a female person, can spend bringing home the bacon (well, the TVP, anyway -- we're vegetarian).

"I always sort of thought I'd be a good father."

"Have you ever changed a diaper?"

"Well, no. Have you?"

"Yeah. I've babysat for infants and toddlers before."

"Is baby poo really as bad as they say?"

What's a good father? In America, it's usually a lot less than a good mother is. I'm sure my fiancé would be a good father, as the term is usually understood. I just don't think an American-style "good father" is enough for me.

American fathers don't change diapers. They don't do laundry. They don't stay home from work when the kid is sick. They don't take the kid to the doctor. They don't listen to innumerable iterations of "Whyyyyy?" They don't cook, or clean, or grocery-shop, or mend, or take children clothes-shopping, or mete out ordinary discipline, or bandage hurts, or pick up toys, or give baths, or go to parent-teacher conferences, or bake for the kid's bake sale.

Sure, there are exceptions, and I applaud them. They are going against the grain, though. The approved, hearty, traditional American grain leaves most of the drudgery of raising children to Mom, and assigns her most of the blame should something go wrong.

I can't accept that. I won't accept it. And the only way to avoid it, as a late-twentieth-century American woman, is to refuse to have children. I love my fiancé very much, and I trust him, because he has always been honest -- but I won't take his word that he will split childraising fairly; he doesn't understand what he's agreeing to, and there's nothing in our society that will make him hold to his promise.

"Yep. We'd better get you off the pill."

Wanting not to have children was at best a subconscious notion until quite recently. Not surprisingly, the clearly sex-related issue of birth control ended up causing me to think seriously about what having children would mean to me.

I have had truly horrendous luck with birth control. I am apparently allergic to the sponge, my first back-up method; it caused frightening dizziness, nausea, and disorientation in me at one time. I started taking the pill shortly afterward; all was well for a while, until my optometrist and my gynecologist in quick succession noted an alarming rise in my blood pressure. Pill-related, as we eventually determined -- during the week I was on placebos, my blood pressure started to go back down.

So I switched to Depo-Provera. All was well for a while, until I noticed that I wasn't much interested in sex any more, and was having difficulty participating comfortably and enthusiastically in sex. This, for me, was highly abnormal.

What options were left? Norplant is essentially the same formulation as Depo-Provera, so the side effects should be similar. The mini-pill is also progestogen-based. The various methods of "natural family planning" are at best unreliable. Live with condoms the rest of my life? Or bite the bullet and tie my tubes?

I'm going to bite the bullet, so I can get off Depo-Provera and reclaim a normal sex life, as well as putting the issue of birth control behind me forever. It wasn't a snap decision, believe me. It hurt; I had to confront openly thoughts I'd kept hidden a long time. I wanted to know what was wrong with me, that I didn't want children. Was I sick? Was I deranged? Did I not love my fiancé enough? Doesn't everyone want children?

Well, no, not everyone does, and not wanting children is absolutely not a sign of mental illness. I learned that via groups like NO KIDDING! and a number of books on the subject of choosing not to have children.