Now that I’m on the downward slide towards thirty, I find that the topic of babies is starting to creep into conversations at networking functions attended by a preponderance of women. Carrying on the family gene pool is a pretty black and white issue for most, and while women are more than willing to put off having kids in the name of building a career, most that I meet hope to have one or two of their own some day.
My best friend got married a few years ago. Cycling served as the common denominator for the couple; not only did they take long bike excursions on weekends, but both taught spinning at area gyms. In the span of a year, they moved in together, got married, and she got pregnant. Once Boy 1 was born, their lives were thrown into complete upheaval. Between day care, work commutes and extended family issues, it took 2 years before either of them set foot in a gym again, despite fitness being an integral part of their lives. Now with Boy 2 in the picture, my friend looks forward to federal holidays so that she can go to the gym, knowing her kids are attended to at day care.
While my friend wouldn’t trade her kids for her freedom, I’m not willing to make that sacrifice. I spent my childhood trying to make other people happy, desperate to connect with another human being at some level with a high personal cost: my passions got lost in the process. Now that I’m finally figuring out who I am and what I want, I not willing to sideline those interests for anyone again, especially for someone that’s going to require 21+ years of financial (about a quarter of million dollars before college is factored in) and emotional support. To some that seems selfish.
But I would argue having kids is also selfish. The world population is growing to a capacity that the planet will not be able to sustain continued exponential growth, and Americans use a disproportionate amount of the planet’s natural resources. Also, given that half of marriages end in divorce, I have to wonder how often a baby is used as a temporary band aid to obscure deeper issues v. the baby being the issue, since “parents have significantly lower marital satisfaction than nonparents”
Personally, I knew with certainty, on the most primal level, that there was no way I was having kids after watching a “miracle of birth” video in middle school health class, Helen Mirren recently echoed my sentiments.
“I swear it traumatised me to this day. I haven’t had children and now I can’t look at anything to do with childbirth. It absolutely disgusts me.”
Since the US is so fond of medicalizing birth, consider the “condition.” If you were not pregnant, such a condition (considerable amount of weight gain; requisite enhancement of calorie, nutrient and vitamin consumption to compensate for the condition; and a variety of other side effects like hemmorhoids and back pain, all before searing pain as the growth exited your body) would be diagnosed as a parasite. Pregnancy is not a symbiotic relationship.
I acknowledge that for many women, they can overlook the 36-40 weeks of a medical condition, followed by the searing pain of childbirth (that will eventually fade from memory), because the outcome is a new life they get to nurture. Me, I don’t want more responsibility than a puppy.
And I’m likely to be happier for it. Lorraine Ali of Newsweek reports:
In Daniel Gilbert’s 2006 book “Stumbling on Happiness,” the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child—and increases only when the last child has left home. He also ascertains that parents are happier grocery shopping and even sleeping than spending time with their kids. Other data cited by 2008′s “Gross National Happiness” author, Arthur C. Brooks, finds that parents are about 7 percentage points less likely to report being happy than the childless.
For an interesting read on modern motherhood, I highly recommend Naomi Wolf’s Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood, which addresses the stereotypes and cultural limitations of contemporary pregnancy and motherhood in America.
I’m also looking forward to seeing the documentary, “The Business of Being Born.”
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