That said, there are some things in that comment thread to which I want to respond initially, and they relate to this idea of “reproductive self-esteem.”

But before I get to that, let me just preface my comments in this post with this: I think that every person who commented on the last post commented in good faith and wasn’t trying to perpetuate any sort of “mothers” vs. “child-free women” divide.  And I don’t believe that any person who commented in that thread believes that women should be defined through their reproductive capacities, desires, or realities.

But with that being said, I notice the ways in which certain kinds of discourses around motherhood influenced that comment thread, and I do want to respond directly to some of those comments and to extend some of my thoughts… not to call people out in an unfair way, but rather to take this conversation further.

First, a person whom I don’t think I’ve ever seen comment here before, Tem (and then later, Temara), wrote about the ways in which motherhood can be productive for work and possible even if one feels like they are impossible, in spite of one’s anxieties.  And my initial response was (I freely acknowledge) defensive.  I trace my defensive response to this passage in Tem’s original comment:

“It would be misguided, though, to wait until all your worries and anxieties abated to have a baby. You sell yourself quite short if you think all the things that make you good at your job detract from your ability to parent – your commitment, integrity, strength, kindness, and your voice are all things that would make you a great parent.”

Let’s note that I responded (albeit defensively), and then Tem(ara) clarified her intent.  It’s all good.  I don’t draw attention to this comment because I think it was heinous, or because I feel like Tem doesn’t understand me or because I feel like I don’t understand Tem.

I think that the word “misguided” was my trigger, and then I was further triggered by the fact that Tem wrote that I was “selling myself short” if I felt that the work that I do detracts from my ability to be a parent. I want to acknowledge right here and now that it was unfair of me to judge that comment on the basis of those triggers.  But I also want to note that my tendency toward defensiveness is all about how this discourse on the “motherhood imperative” works.  And it has everything to do with what I objected to in my initial post, about reducing women to their reproductive refusal or potential.  But more on this once I note a couple of other comments.

Later, nicoleandmaggie (Nicole?  Maggie?  because n&m wrote something disparate earlier) objected to the turn the comment thread had taken to specific personal rationales, saying:

“But those issues are a very different point than the original post, and somehow seem to sully it for me. In fact, they almost seem to be in opposition to the main point of the post. I’d rather see the details arguments elsewhere rather than this post devolving into the same-old same-old arguments about motherhood and work that assume the same basic assumptions that the original post argues against. The details are individual to people and should not be general statements. All the “here are my excuses for not having kids” are not excuses for many other people who chose to have kids anyway, despite X, Y, and Z. The problem is talking about them as if they’re excuses.

People’s reasons are individual and their own and even if they’re not other people’s reasons, they’re valid. And more importantly, we shouldn’t have to justify what our fertility choices are in the first place, perhaps even to ourselves. There are factors governing why people have children now or later or don’t have children now or later. They’re multi-dimensional, should not apply to everybody, and shouldn’t be such a big deal, especially when they’re not that big a deal for people with Y chromosomes.”

I don’t object to the argument that what we’re talking about is individual reasons, individual situations.  But what I do object to here is that somehow reproductive “choice” means we can’t talk about individual rationales for those choices, and I object to framing rationales for not having children as “excuses” whereas nobody (not even N&M in this comment) ever frames having children as needing an “excuse.”

And then finally, cbjones1943 asserts that I am “brave” for writing the previous post, while at the same time this person talks about deciding not to comment on the comments because “girls don’t get (or, want to get) what being an autonomous adult is all about.”  Um, I would not characterize a single person in that comment thread as a “girl.”  Indeed, the people commenting here (with I think the exception of Comrade Physioprof), are women.  And yes, there is a difference.  Also, I’m not sure how brave anybody writing a pseudonymous blog really is, but that is neither here nor there.

But so here’s the thing.  I’m ok with us (me, my commenters) talking about our personal experiences in relation to the question of or the fact of child-bearing.  I don’t think that talking about our personal experiences means that we are somehow getting in the way of thinking about women as people – as not defined by their reproductive capacity.  Here’s where I’m coming from: men can talk about their sexual lives, their reproductive lives, and yet, they are men regardless of that, outside of those conversations.  If we say that women shouldn’t talk about their personal experiences in relation to sexuality and reproduction, in the service of some kind of “equality,” we’re ultimately defining femaleness (sexuality, embodiment) as negation.  I’m not ok with that.

And I’m ok with women providing rationales for not having children, not because I think women shouldn’t have children or because I think such rationales mean that they “can’t” have children, given the constraints of their lives, but rather because there are legitimate rationales for not having children, regardless of sex, and when we take the ability to voice those reservations away from women, and not from men, we do women a disservice.  Just because a woman talks about the negatives of having a child in her own life doesn’t mean that she doesn’t believe that she can have a child or mother a child.

Finally, just because women have or voice anxieties about their relationships to motherhood doesn’t mean that they don’t understand themselves, or function as, autonomous adults.

Just as much as women don’t “forget” to have children, they also don’t “choose” not to have children, at least in most cases, as a result of ignorance or low self-esteem.  It’s not that women don’t “know” what they choose when they make choices that don’t end up with a baby.  And it’s not that they don’t “believe” they can parent a child and that’s why they don’t end up with a baby.

In fact, some people (women and men) just don’t have a baby at the end of the line.  Not because they forget about it, and not because they are ignorant of biological realities, and not because they are “afraid” of something that they don’t understand the joy that would result if only they took a leap of faith.

In fact, lots of people don’t become parents because they just don’t.

And if they don’t, they might have reasons, even if those reasons weren’t directly related to the kid thing.  Those might not be reasons that you would have or did have, but they aren’t excuses, and they aren’t misguided anxiety.  And yet, thinking about reasons doesn’t make a person a coward, nor does it make one a “girl” who doesn’t know what it means to be an autonomous adult.

The fact that I’m not having a baby right now doesn’t mean that I have some kind of low self-esteem, that I’m afraid to have a baby or that I’m afraid that I can’t handle one.  It doesn’t mean that I’m making excuses, nor does it mean that I don’t realize that all! things! are! possible!  It only means that I’m not having a baby.  That parenthood is not in my immediate future.

I almost ended my last post with this, but then I decided not to.  Here’s the thing.  If I had the identity of “bachelor” open to me, none of this would be an issue.  One can be a bachelor, one can be George Clooney, and nobody asks twice why you don’t have a kid.  But it’s not normal for a 37-yr-old lady to declare herself a bachelor, much less a confirmed one.

Again, I don’t write this post to disparage those who commented on it – I think it’s been a really good conversation.  But at the end of the day? I will say this.  I really resent feeling like I have to explain not pursuing motherhood.  Because I’m just not so sure what is so virtuous about that.  And I’m not so sure why people feel like they need to convince me to do it, when I tell them, that at least right now, that I want my current book more. That’s not because I feel badly about myself or my potential.

I have always thought that I would be a mother, since I was a little kid.  When I was seven years old, and I briefly considered a vocation as a nun, which I think a lot of seven-year-old Catholic girls do with all of the First Holy Communion hullabaloo, I ultimately decided against it when I realized that it would mean forgoing having a baby.  Note: the problem was not that I wanted to get married – I was totally cool with being a “bride of Christ” – the baby was the thing.  (I think my flirtation with becoming a nun probably lasted for about two weeks, during which I said the rosary every night and imagined myself especially holy.  It seemed like a really long time.)

And yet, here I am at 37 years old, totally single, never having experienced a pregnancy, and with no committed relationship in sight and no real… motivation… to get going on the baby thing.  Did I forget to have a baby?

I don’t think so.  And in fact, this has been on my mind a lot this year, because in the way of many people who spent their 20s in graduate school, as did most of my friends, the “baby boom” in my circle is happening now – not ten years ago.  And, given my super-duper love of the babies (and their love of me) and my love of kids and young people in general, I’ve been thinking: um, should I be getting on that?  I mean, I’m already at Advanced Maternal Age, and have been for some time.  So what gives?

Whatever it is, it’s not that I’m colossally forgetful.  It’s not like I have reproductive amnesia or something.  I mean, my clock, it’s ticking.  I hear it.  Tick-tock-tick-tock.  But am I “exercising my reproductive choice” by pursuing egg-freezing or sperm donation or even dating like it’s the end of the world in the hope of finding the father of my babies?  Um, not so much.

Did I decide I didn’t want kids unconsciously?  Is it that I “really” don’t want a kid?

I’ve thought long and hard about this.  Especially over the past couple of weeks.  Why so much thought about this recently?  Three reasons.  One, High School BFF is moving in with her boyfriend, and they likely will get married, and all of this is in part related to her desire ultimately to have kids with him.  A. is likely going to start trying to have a baby with her partner in the next year (with no plans on the horizon to marry).  And finally, I just learned that another friend from high school decided to get pregnant on her own via sperm donation.  It’s enough to make a 37-year-old woman wonder: am I supposed to be putting having a baby as my top priority right now?  And if I’m not, why am I not?  I have a house, and I make a reasonable amount of money: do I want to have a kid on my own?  And if I don’t want to have a kid on my own, why am I not more activist in my approach to dating right now, in the service of getting partnered up, if I want to have a biological child?  What do I “really” want?  Or am I just “forgetful”?

I don’t think I’ve forgotten anything, and that’s probably part of my problem, when it comes to babies.  I can’t forget the sacrifices that babies entail, and I can’t forget the fact that doing it by oneself is really motherfucking hard.  And I can’t forget that if one isn’t really more committed to parenting than to any and all other things that one isn’t going to do a proper job of it.  (This isn’t to say that people who choose to parent can’t have other commitments in addition, but rather that other commitments always have to come second to the demands of keeping a tiny human alive and helping the tiny human thrive.  It’s one thing to knit a blanket for a tiny baby or to talk to a little kid in line at the grocery store or on a plane or even to love a friend’s kid and to be a great auntie-figure  – another thing entirely to take responsibility for another human being.)

So I asked myself just this past week, “Self, what if you were to have a kid on your own?  Do you want to do that?”  And do you know what my response to myself was, without any hesitation?  “If I did that right now then I wouldn’t be able to write my book.  And I have to write this book.  The thing I want most right now is to write this book.”

Apparently, right at this moment, I want to have a second book more than I want to have a baby.  I want to have a book more than I want to date like it’s a second job, and I want to have a book more than I want to have a “good enough” relationship that might produce a baby.  (Note: I’m just talking about myself here – my own desire to have that second book written and published.)

The thing is, even having said all of that, I really do want to have a kid.  The problem is that right at this moment, I want other stuff, other stuff that would be a hell of a lot harder if I had a kid in tow.  And I’m no dummy – I do realize that I might miss my chance at a theoretical (since I’ve got no plan and no partner) biological baby by being so all-consumed with this book project right now.  I haven’t “forgotten” that there’s an expiration date on my ovaries.  It’s just… I’m a person, in addition to being a potential mother.  And as a person, I want some things for myself, still.  I’m not (yet?) in a place where a baby is the only thing I have left to do.  I’m not sure that I’ll ever be in that place. A baby is not the only thing that I have left to want.  Even if I “really” want one.

At a certain point, a woman has to acknowledge that if she’s gotten to her late 30s without having had a kid that this was a decision, or a set of decisions, that she made.  It’s a hell of a lot easier to get knocked up (assuming no medical complications) than it is to get a Ph.D., to get a tenure-track job, to publish a book with a 4/4 load, even to buy a house as a single woman.  I really do believe that if motherhood were a priority for me, that this would have happened by now.

And will I have regrets if I don’t have a kid?  Yeah, I probably will.  Just like I regret not going to law school, or not being in a rock band, or not taking art in high school (which yes, I actually do regret that).  I regret not learning French for real as opposed to pretending to have learned French on the basis of my Latin, and I regret some of the people that I’ve dated, and I regret not having worked harder to make certain romantic relationships work out. Like I regret not having had a stronger relationship with my father in the years before he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

But whatever happens in my life in between now and the end of the reproductive line, I am actually confident that I’d rather never have a baby than resent a baby for getting in the way of this book.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t “really” want to have a baby.  It just means that I’m realistic about the fact that now is not the right time, even if that means the right time never comes.  I’m a person, and I have love in my life.  That’s true, and that will be true, regardless of what happens on the baby front.

It’s not about “forgetting” to have a baby, and it’s not about not “really” wanting one.  It’s about the fact that I want many things, that I am many things.  And maybe a kid will happen and maybe it won’t.  But if it doesn’t, my life will still be really great.  I will still be a woman. I’ll still be a person.  Reproductive choice for women isn’t only about  freedom from having a kid (the right to legal, safe abortion) nor is it only or also about the freedom to have a kid with the aid of technology (egg-freezing, sperm donation, other reproductive technologies).  If we see it that way, women are still defined through and by reproduction.  Reproductive choice, for me, should result in a world in which women are people outside of their reproductive refusal or potential.  Reproductive choice should mean that I don’t have to be either a “mother” or “child-free.”  Setting it up that way means that I’m still only the sum total of my uterus – whether I’ve “chosen” to use my uterus to house a human or whether I’ve “chosen” (or by virtue of health issues had to) to keep my uterus empty.

No woman should need to announce her womanhood, her personhood, either by having a kid or by asserting her “choice” in not having a kid.  At the end of the day, a woman’s personhood shouldn’t have a thing in the world to do with her reproductive organs. That, for me, should be the point of reproductive choice.  Not that I have the freedom to have an abortion or I have the freedom to freeze my eggs.  Seriously, are those the only options for a person who is also a woman?  I’m sorry, but I want more than that.

But so anyway, that’s what’s going on with me.  I’m just trying to be a human being and get my shit together.  Ok, off to return to the cleaning.