It's been over a year since that post, but the issue has remained in my mind ever since. I'm getting older, more of my friends are having kids, and my marriage is officially past the no-but-really-it's-been-5-years-where-are-the-kids point. While I have a serious problem with people butting in to my reproductive choices uninvited, I have no problem discussing them on my terms, so I thought I'd take a little inventory to talk about what has and hasn't changed since I first brought up this topic last May.
Let's just get this one out of the way first: I still don't like kids and I'm still selfish. After a full 15 months (and 4 days), exactly nothing has changed about this. I don't think I'm any more selfish than I was a year ago, but I'm definitely not any less selfish. I just uprooted my family for 3 months for my career, I still prioritize running/triathlon over nearly everything else, and I haven't had any more experience being around kids (and, thus, I haven't had any win me over).
One of my biggest issues this whole time has been that I just can't see a time in my life when having a child will be convenient. I know, I know, no one is ever really "ready", but I don't think they mean that the way I mean it. I think they mean they don't have enough money saved up to have a parent stay at home with the kid until it starts kindergarten, or that they live in a 2-bedroom house, which is fine, but ideally they'd have a couple more bedrooms with a bigger backyard. What I mean is that I won't even start my new career for another year, I live in a 700 square foot apartment with dreams of downsizing even further. For starters. I'd also like to keep running more and more without having to worry about who that hobby is affecting. I'd like to travel with my husband. I would like to spend more quality time with my couch.
And let's back up for a sec to my husband. My husband is truly my best friend. And I don't mean that in a mushy-gushy way and I'm not trying to brag about how we are ~so in love~. Really, he is my BFF in every sense of the word. Like, he is actually me and my personality and my soul all in the body of another human being and from the moment we became friends I knew he would be in my life for the rest of time regardless of his gender or marital status or geographical location. The fact that he happens to be a heterosexual male who agreed to live in the same house with me for all eternity is just a really major bonus. I am terrified - terrified! - of creating a small human who will come between us. Who will interrupt our True Detective marathons. Who will make us fight over whose turn it is to roll out of bed at 3am and change a diaper (which, btw, I haven't done since my brother was born in 1989). Who will make us forget who we were as individuals and as a couple and will instead make us only know each other as Mom and Dad. I don't want our roles in our relationship to change that fundamentally. I'm way more interested in preserving our relationship as it is now than I am in potentially sacrificing it for someone who doesn't even exist yet (don't even get me started down that road).
Basically I'm afraid of becoming one of those moms who is depressed (but won't admit it) and has no sense of self and no relationship with her husband.
Let's just get this one out of the way first: I still don't like kids and I'm still selfish. After a full 15 months (and 4 days), exactly nothing has changed about this. I don't think I'm any more selfish than I was a year ago, but I'm definitely not any less selfish. I just uprooted my family for 3 months for my career, I still prioritize running/triathlon over nearly everything else, and I haven't had any more experience being around kids (and, thus, I haven't had any win me over).
One of my biggest issues this whole time has been that I just can't see a time in my life when having a child will be convenient. I know, I know, no one is ever really "ready", but I don't think they mean that the way I mean it. I think they mean they don't have enough money saved up to have a parent stay at home with the kid until it starts kindergarten, or that they live in a 2-bedroom house, which is fine, but ideally they'd have a couple more bedrooms with a bigger backyard. What I mean is that I won't even start my new career for another year, I live in a 700 square foot apartment with dreams of downsizing even further. For starters. I'd also like to keep running more and more without having to worry about who that hobby is affecting. I'd like to travel with my husband. I would like to spend more quality time with my couch.
And let's back up for a sec to my husband. My husband is truly my best friend. And I don't mean that in a mushy-gushy way and I'm not trying to brag about how we are ~so in love~. Really, he is my BFF in every sense of the word. Like, he is actually me and my personality and my soul all in the body of another human being and from the moment we became friends I knew he would be in my life for the rest of time regardless of his gender or marital status or geographical location. The fact that he happens to be a heterosexual male who agreed to live in the same house with me for all eternity is just a really major bonus. I am terrified - terrified! - of creating a small human who will come between us. Who will interrupt our True Detective marathons. Who will make us fight over whose turn it is to roll out of bed at 3am and change a diaper (which, btw, I haven't done since my brother was born in 1989). Who will make us forget who we were as individuals and as a couple and will instead make us only know each other as Mom and Dad. I don't want our roles in our relationship to change that fundamentally. I'm way more interested in preserving our relationship as it is now than I am in potentially sacrificing it for someone who doesn't even exist yet (don't even get me started down that road).
Basically I'm afraid of becoming one of those moms who is depressed (but won't admit it) and has no sense of self and no relationship with her husband.
But even though I'm not any closer to having a kid now than I was a year ago, I have noticed a change in my perspective. I've learned that not wanting kids, not wanting kids, and not wanting kids are all different things. They can coexist, but they don't have to. My biggest reason for not wanting kids used to be a cross between not wanting them and not wanting them. Not only did I not have a strong maternal urge, but I was simultaneously really afraid that if I did become a mom, I'd lose all sense of myself. I was scared of having to turn over all my hopes and dreams and instead invest all of my time and energy into another person's hopes and dreams. I've invested way too much time and energy into myself (we already established that I'm selfish, right?) to give all of that up.
I know it doesn't have to be that way and I'm fortunate enough to have friends who show me what a healthy, balanced family life can look like. And over the last year, I've been even more fortunate to meet more moms who are successful in their own endeavors as well. They're not defined by the role of "Mom." These women go to work and lead projects and are respected in their fields, and they also manage to go home at the end of the day to take care of their children. I've come across ladies in endurance sports who make the time to read bedtime stories before hopping on the bike trainer for an hour before hitting the hay themselves. This is admirable to me, and awesome and encouraging that I don't have to stop being who I am or put my own aspirations on hold or even on the back burner for the sake of being a good mom.
But. BUT. This revelation, while encouraging, led me to another one: maybe I just don't want kids? I already know I don't want them but maybe I just don't want them either. Now that I'm no longer afraid of my life being completely swallowed by another person's (someone who, again, DOESN'T EVEN EXIST YET) maybe my hangup is that motherhood just isn't for me.
Sometimes I try to put myself in a mom role - I'll take an everyday event and for a few seconds imagine what it would be like if I had a child to worry about. When I'm peacefully watching Netflix on the couch or not worrying about the fact that it's 8pm and we haven't eaten dinner yet or we're traveling out of town for a week...how would that moment be different? What would I be doing? What would I be worrying about? And I do that not in a fantasy way but in a realistic way, because I want to have some idea of what real life would look like with a child.
Even though I'm not a kid person, I'm still sure I'd have those moments when my heart would go pitter patter at the sight of my tiny sleeping child. I'm not a monster, people! But I don't want to take those moments into consideration when I think about having a kid. I don't want to consider that thing everyone tells you: "Oh, it'll be different when it's your child!" Of course it will! But that won't make the temper tantrums any less annoying. It won't make spit up any less gross. It won't give me more time to go for a run when the kid needs a bath. It won't stop me from having to take sick days from work to stay home with my sick kid. Sure, it would be different with my own kid, but that doesn't mean I'll be okay with it. It just means I'll be more okay with it than I would be if it were another person's kid, which still might not be much.
For the past several years I've been saying I'd wait until I'm 30 to really think about having kids, but what I meant by that is that I assumed that I'd have an idea of whether or not I even want kids well before I'm 30, and then I'd get to acting on it sometime shortly after my 30th birthday. Now I only have 2 more birthdays until there are 30 candles on my cake (side note - another check in the no-kid column: I don't have so share my cake with anyone) and, if anything, the idea of procreating any time near then is more remote than ever. If I really wanted to be a mom, I'd know that by now, right? Am I going to wake up at 35 and suddenly realize, "Of course! I DO want to be a mom!" And even if that happens...can I trust that impulse? What if I wake up the next day and realize that was just a fluke or a phase?
So, all of that to say that in some ways I have some more clarity, but in other ways I'm still confused as ever. If I had to decide today I would have no problem getting my tubes tied and having it settled. I think that's what bothers me the most (not that this is something that keeps me awake at night, despite the message this post might be giving): it's the not knowing. In my old age I've gotten a lot more comfortable with the idea that I just can't know everything, that every aspect of the future can't be mapped out, but this is one still gives me pause. As far as I know, my uterus is happy and healthy and just waiting for the day it has an inhabitant, but my brain isn't exactly on board. But my brain isn't not on board either, and that's the problem. I don't know. I just don't know.
Let me get back to you in another 15 months.
So, all of that to say that in some ways I have some more clarity, but in other ways I'm still confused as ever. If I had to decide today I would have no problem getting my tubes tied and having it settled. I think that's what bothers me the most (not that this is something that keeps me awake at night, despite the message this post might be giving): it's the not knowing. In my old age I've gotten a lot more comfortable with the idea that I just can't know everything, that every aspect of the future can't be mapped out, but this is one still gives me pause. As far as I know, my uterus is happy and healthy and just waiting for the day it has an inhabitant, but my brain isn't exactly on board. But my brain isn't not on board either, and that's the problem. I don't know. I just don't know.
Let me get back to you in another 15 months.
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