I USE THREE forms of birth control: my sister's children, homosexuality, and my other sister's children. To date, all have worked perfectly fine. (And though I'd love to rankle the Catholic church, I'm not sure I'm the candidate they have in mind for immaculate conception.)
I view this small effort at population control as my contribution to the world. But actively preventing pregnancy and admitting that you don't want children are two entirely different beasts. Say that you don't want children - just flat out tell people - and they look at you as though you assassinated one of the Wiggles.
"No, you don't really mean that," they say. (That would be crazy and inhumane, not wanting to have a human head squeezed through your vagina.) They say you just haven't met the right person to spark your maternal instinct. They argue that you're too young to be making such foolish decisions. "But you're so good with kids," they continue, while you stare at their offspring, wondering how one can love something that produces so much mucus.
The truth is, I think the no-kids admission makes people uncomfortable. They don't know what to do with folks like me. Where do we fit in a world full of spit-up cloths and baby joggers? If we're not here to procreate, what are we to do with ourselves? Shall we just slink away at 40 and populate a deserted island, where our ovaries can dry like cowhide in the scalding sun? Or are we going to hang around like mirrors, reflecting life's roads that breeders didn't travel?
Until I turned 30, I never realized how deliberate humans are about the course of life. For me, that birthday was just another excuse to throw a party. For others, it became a benchmark for making "important decisions." Engagement rings quickly slid on fingers, pregnancies were announced, condos were purchased. And I suddenly realized I was becoming a rare breed whose lifestyle would have to be defended to the oh-so-very-normal masses.
So, not wanting to repeat my rationale one more time, I decided to write down my top 10 reasons for not wanting kids. (I didn't include "sex" because that's so goddamn apparent, I didn't think it needed noting.)
1) Fashion. "You did not just touch auntie's shirt!", I said to the three-year-old niece in my lap. She raised her frosting-covered mitts as if preparing for arrest. "Get down," I said, dropping her to the floor. It is this instinct to preserve my garments over human flesh that worries me. Most mothers have their clothing destroyed by heaps of poop and spit-up and other unidentifiable fluids until they learn not to wear nice things anymore. For me, this slippery slope from cashmere to Crocs is not one I'm prepared to travel.
2) Freedom. I want to climb mountains while my knees are still good. I want to quit a job if I hate it. I want to drive cross-country in a VW van. I want to say yes to spontaneous weekend getaways and no to nine-to-five employment. That would all seem so selfish with my starving baby at home alone.
3) Sleep. With all that sleep deprivation, it's hard to distinguish new mothers from Abu Ghraib detainees. I don't even know what the world looks like before 8:30 a.m., unless I've yet to go to sleep from the night before. My fear is that I just wouldn't lose sleep for the poor kid. I'd be more apt to build a sound-proof dungeon and let it cry itself into a coma while I got my rest.
4) Conversation. If my vocabulary ever gets reduced to gleeful monosyllabic terms spouted in the face of a tiny, bald mute, shoot me. I have no desire to revert to baby talk, or to look at a child that's doing absolutely nothing while cooing, "What?! What?! What?!" as if it's suddenly going to articulate its gas problem. And I'm about as interested in hearing about your kid's new habit as you are in hearing about my recent European adventure.
5) Money. Who can afford kids these days? I priced a couple of standard baby items just to get some perspective on this. Baby Bjorn: $80. Graco infant car seat/stroller: $190. Delta Chelsea crib: $371. Evenflo breast pump: $99.95. (Tits that don't sag after having the life sucked out of them: priceless.)
6) Nerves. I've smoked enough pot to make me afraid of my own shadow. Never mind unformed skulls in close range of the sharp edge of a mantel. I am a nervous wreck around kids and have no desire to incorporate this feeling into my daily life. They say it wears off after your first kid. Yes, because by then your mental faculties are as burned-out as Greece.
7) Vanity. I work hard to keep my body looking like this. I'm not about to flush it all down the drain for one little human life.
8) Travel. Where can you go? You take babies to restaurants, people hate you. You take them on an airplane, people hate you. You take them to the beach, people hate you. You take them to church, people love you. Scary.
9) Age. They say life begins at 30. So technically I won't be even close to adulthood until sometime in my 60s. Personally, I have no desire to be in diapers at the same time as my kid.
10) Nieces and nephews. Let's face it: the act of child-rearing is a selfish one. You make a conscious decision to have children and then blame them for everything they prevented you from doing in your life. In return, you expect them to be indebted to you, and to wipe your ass when you're old. The other day, when my sister was contemplating giving one of her ill-behaving children up for adoption, I reassured her with this: "At least you'll have someone to take care of you when you're older." She replied, "Don't worry. They'll take care of you, too." Look at that! All the rewards, none of the effort.
(If, in 10 to 20 years, something in my life goes horribly awry and I'm saddled with kid and cargo, know that Mommy loves you, sweetie. She didn't really mean all this nasty stuff about kids. She was just young and stupid and carefree.) @
Jeannie Greeley is a freelance writer and, according to Hallmark, "the world's greatest aunt." You can reach the heartless wench at jeannieg@comcast.net.
[Illustration by Corey Smigliani]
