weirdo
about a week or so ago, i read this article. typical daily mail tripe – a beyond-sanctimonious mother who says that bosses are right to distrust women who don’t want children, then goes on to call childfree women selfish, partying backstabbers who are unreliable in the workplace.
i spent about a millisecond getting irate over it, then promptly discarded it from my thoughts as so much ludicrous rubbish.
or so i thought.
but over the past day or so, i’ve noticed it lurking at the back of my brain again. so i went back and re-read it, wondering what the hook was that wouldn’t let go. and there it was, staring me in the face:
Yet if she says she hasn’t a shred of maternal feeling in her… my heart whispers: ‘Lady, you’re weird.’
It was welcome news, therefore, to discover this week that I am not alone. Research conducted over six years shows that far from bosses and colleagues always being suspicious of a working mother, the opposite is becoming true: it is the childless woman who is regarded as cold and odd.
… many employers believe them to lack what the study calls ‘an essential humanity’. And I know exactly what they mean.
that nugget of truth that i can’t dismiss quite so easily. people think it’s weird to not want children.
the reason i can’t deny that, is because i see it over and over again in my own interactions. almost all of my friends have at least one child now, as do a significant proportion of my female colleagues. so when children or pregnancy come up, i can chat with ease about pelvic spd, breastfeeding, cloth-vs-disposable, and developmental milestones. i’ve absorbed quite a lot of mother-related knowledge by osmosis, it would seem. so invariably, when someone then asks, “so what about you and your husband?”, and i say, “oh, you know, we’re not really going to do the kids thing,” they look at me with suspicion.
i know, in that instant, that what they’re thinking is, “lady, you’re weird.”
and what follows is usually a combination of the pitch about how fabulous children are, and oh-you’ll-change-your-mind certitude, with an underlying layer of confusion and incredulity. at times, there’s even an undercurrent of hostility – as if i’m somehow denigrating their experiences by saying i don’t want the same.
what follows by me, is a response that’s become nearly automatic – myself acknowledging that 99% of the world have kids, that i know i’m an outlier, that i actually really like kids (really i do!), that i know if i *had* kids i’d feel differently, that my own mum was great and definitely-not-deficient-in-any-way.
in other words, i know you think i’m weird. i apologise for unnerving you with my weirdness. really i’m not a psychopath.
but at the bottom of it all, is a lack of comprehension. they simply don’t understand, and there’s a real sense that i’m lacking in something – that “essential humanity”. because for 99% of the world, having children is something so central to the human experience, and by missing that, how could i *not* feel that i’m missing out?
it’s precisely that which the (otherwise disgusting) article hits exactly on the head. that otherness which sets my life choices so outside the realm of understanding of pretty much everyone else. precisely that which i can never change about the way i feel.
so as repelled as i am by the otherwise wildly ridiculous assertions the author makes – that by not having kids i am “cold, calculating, sad, and mad” - i can’t deny that bit that she gets right. the bit that’s gone unspoken in every conversation i have with mums. i am weird. everyone else knows it, i know it.
but she had the gumption to actually say.
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Comment by blues
31.05.2009 @ 10:58 am
Wow. That article. Just, wow. I couldn’t get through the whole thing, I just got mad.
I’m 32 and I don’t have kids yet (I hope I will have kids some day). I can’t tell you how sick I am of my family pestering me and my husband to have children. This article is just sad to me because, not only being completely insulting to people who choose not to have children but it completely disregards women who just end up not having kids because
A) they don’t have a person by their side that they can have children with or B) they are infertile and maybe want to save face and not tell a potential employer and/or boss about such a personal problem and feel their eyes of pity that they already feel from everyone in their personal life.
I get not wanting to have kids, even though I do want them. In our case we have never said we didn’t want to have kids and we still get the persistant annoying onslaught of uninvited nagging that comes along with being in our early 30’s and not having children yet. I can’t imagine how much more we would have to endure if we were to say we had decided not to have children.
This article also angered me because it just reminded me once again that women, no matter what they do, cannot ever do the right thing in our culture with respect to reconciling work and motherhood. EVER.
Great post.
Comment by Thomas Foolery
31.05.2009 @ 17:25 pm
yeah good post
Comment by Stacey
1.06.2009 @ 15:55 pm
I think it’s something like 20% of women in Britain of about your age don’t have kids, so it’s weird that it’s still an issue.
Comment by Noble Savage
1.06.2009 @ 20:15 pm
I find it odd and rather sad that you (and other people who have chosen not to have children) haven’t met more of the awesome parents (like me!) who don’t give a flying monkey’s if you don’t have or want kids. I know we’re a rarer breed than the “Ohmygod, you don’t want KIDS?! What’s wrong with you, lady??!” crowd but we do exist. Are the nonchalant “Oh, that’s cool” responses really that few and far between? I’m not questioning your perception or your experiences, just bummed out that you get so much more of the zany zealots than the laid-back “Eh, whatevs” folks.
Comment by Jen
1.06.2009 @ 20:25 pm
@stacey: it may be that there are still lots of people my age that don’t have kids… but very few of them i’ve ever met would say they don’t want them. i know lots of 30-something women who just can’t wait to be mothers.
@ns: i should clarify: most of the people i have this conversation with are not zealots in any way (though a few feel the need to evangelise)… but even the ‘cool’ ones still have that momentary “wha?? that does not compute” reponse. the idea is completely alien to their way of thinking and feeling.
Comment by Sarah
5.06.2009 @ 12:38 pm
Great post.
You described so well one of my biggest frustrations right now. My family, my friends, my distant friends, my colleagues — all have decided that too much time has passed — I’ve been married too long and am too old not to be having children. I wish I could say I definitely didn’t want them, so at least I’d have a response other than, “F- off” (in my head) and “not yet” (to the person).
Some are cool, some are not – I just wish they’d all stop talking about it.
Comment by Jen
5.06.2009 @ 21:30 pm
“I just wish they’d all stop talking about it.”
well *precisely*.