Message ID: 2hbpabFb4395U1@uni-berlin.de
I am a 31-year-old woman and I have been living with my boyfriend for two years; we have been together for seven. We will most likely be getting engaged this year. He wants kids and I don't. He says he is OK with our never having kids, but I am not sure I believe him.
I have dreams that I am trying to fulfill, and I don't feel that motherhood is compatible with that. I don't want to be one of those mothers who has no interests but her child. When you are a mother, you don't have options. If you need to buy clothes and diapers for the child, then you have to work whatever job you can get so you can fulfill that responsibility. You no longer have the, luxury of pursuing a job that you prefer.
I don't see what is so fulfilling about having children. They are decades of hard work and effort. Only a couple of years ago I finally returned to school to pursue my bachelor's degree. I will graduate in a year and be starting to find work in my chosen field, which can be very difficult to be successful in. He thinks that I will get over it and want to have a baby someday. How do I get the point across that I do not want to have a child and probably never will?
-- Childless in Chicago
Dear Childless:
I don't know where you got the notion that becoming a parent locks you out of the rest of your hopes and dreams, but you're wrong. I don't know why you think that mothers are one-sided baby-makers who can't wrap their heads around non-child issues, but that's not the case. I especially resent that assertion, and so would the countless mothers who are also astronauts, soldiers, senators, doctors, teachers, first ladies, community activists, nurses, farmers and homemakers.
It is fine -- and your inalienable right -- to not have children. Parenting involves many sacrifices, without question. But to paint it with such a broad brush is shortsighted.
You and your guy need to get straight with each other on where you stand. As it is, he says he's fine not having kids but you don't believe him. And you emphatically declare that you don't want to have kids, but he doesn't believe you.
Ideally, you could work on this in your premarital counseling, which you must have.
Send questions to askamy@tribune.com or by mail to Ask Amy, Chicago Tribune, TT500, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611.
I fear that your only error here is trying to get an unbiased and at least non-judgmental response from Amy Dickenson. Amy, as always, utterly fails to see that the decision not to have children is a perfectly valid choice. (Incidently, Amy - in your list of "career choices" I have to point out that "first lady" is not really a career move. It is a matter of either being fortunate enough (or unlucky enough) to marry the right man).
As Judy Chicago pointed out in her address to the graduating class of Wellesley in 2000:
"I believe that one of the pernicious lies that has been told to your generation is that one can 'have it all.' Although I can't explain how I knew it, I always knew that this was not possible. [When] I looked to history, I discovered that those women who had achieved at the level at which I had set my sights had been childless and those that were not had suffered constant guilt at not being able to meet the demands of both their work and their children."
And, she's right. You can't have it all. No one can. Germaine Greer, I understand, has, engaged in much hand wringing at her failure to reproduce. Yet, you also have to ask yourself, would she have accomplished as much as she did had she made a choice to have been tied down with children? The chances are she would not. Life is about choices, the choices you make, and the consequences thereof. And the fact is, being a mother does make one less effective in one's chosen career, as much as the pro-natalists refuse to recognize the fact. If it were not the case there would be no such thing as the "mommy track".
You have to decide, as indeed you have, what is the right path for you. You have weighed your options, and considered your goals, and made the choice that motherhood does not fit in with your dreams and priorities. A choice that makes Amy and others of her ilk extremely defensive, as shown by her response to you.
She did not, however, even address your question. You had already made your choice - your question pertained to exactly how you could get the point across to your boyfriend that your choice has been made. Fact is, if he doesn't believe you now, how is he going to take you seriously in other areas? His attitude is patronizing and disrespectful to say the very least.
What you have to do, since you have made up your mind, is to explain it to him very simply, in one-syllable words if necessary - that children are not part of your future. Then, get a tubal. And that's it. Then, you will find out whether your boyfriend values you, and the relationship with you, or whether he sees you as a broodmare. Prepare yourself for the worst.
Childfree Abby
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