Historiann has a post up that dovetails with some stuff I’ve been thinking about lately, and I figured I should post over here rather than muddy her comments up with my lengthy personal reflections.
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.
Reassigned Time 2.0 
What an absolutely brilliant, powerful and amazing post. It’s just brilliant. The last two paragraphs should be printed out and distributed to people as inspirational leaflets.
I just love this post.
Totally with you on this, dude. (I mean, I have a partner and all, and in theory I’d like to have a kid, but we’re not in the same geographic location, and having a kid long-distance is WORK. . . and that’s not a sacrifice I want to make right now. So, it might not happen. That’s okay, but it both is and isn’t an active choice.)
But what this post really reminds me of is Peggy Olson’s line to Pete, at the end of Season Two of MM, when she reveals that she had his baby and could have shamed him into being with her: “I wanted. . . other things.”
It’s one of my favorite moments in the series. And I take it as a reminder that the “other things” we feel we want don’t always have to be fully apprehended, or capable of being articulated, to have real force in our decision-making process.
This is pretty much exactly what I and, for that matter my partner, feel. Children are wonderful, but right now, we have other priorities. And, we have both decided that if it never gets to the top of the list of priorities, then we will be happy with the life we have chosen, which is wonderful too. And, from the discussions we have, I think this is what many of my friends feel.
Thanks for this, it was thought-provoking and somehow comforting.
Great post!
There are many great things in this post, but this really struck a chord: “I am actually confident that I’d rather never have a baby than resent a baby for getting in the way of this book.”
Now, having made a very different set of choices than you–deciding to pursue single motherhood at 29, just a year out of grad school and on the tenure track–I can say I’ve seen way too many kids of academic parents being saddled with that kid of resentment. I worry sometimes that my own kids feel like they come in second to work, and, honestly, there are sometimes they do (in the short term, obviously not in terms of overall priority).
But I’ve also been in the place where I needed to choose having a second child or possibly not getting tenure, because fertility treatment really is a second job. I took a major gamble, started trying at 35, and, eventually, it worked out on all fronts. But it took almost three years and egg donation to do it.
I guess what I’m saying is I hope it all works out for you in the way you want. That you have your book and then, if you want it, you can still have your baby. Your way.
Yes, absolutely, I really feel this post. It’s the crude reductive (and condescending) nature of the media hysteria around women and their empty wombs (and empty lives!) that’s so troubling and outrageous. It’s not baby = happiness, successful career/forgotten baby = life devoid of meaning. We all make the choices that seem best for us in the moment that we have to make them; there are almost always trade-offs and sacrifices that we make, some we are aware of and some we aren’t. But we can only make choices about what is right in that moment. I never wanted to be a single mother, and I was always clear in my head that I’d rather not have a child than to have one on my own, even though it would make me sad to not have a child. I know that I could have had a happy fulfilled child-free life, even if I had simultaneously mourned the life that I thought I would have and how it turned out differently. Those aren’t contradictions, you know?
I too am mulling over a baby versus book type situation, with some complicating factors. My family gives me a lot of joy, but it isn’t ALL of me, it’s not the whole me; there are other things I want out of my life. It’s called being a whole person. All these articles about babies and fertility and the supposed misery of working mothers and all that – they are all about patriarchal equilibrium in the way they try to reduce women into partial self. That’s total bullsh*t.
Fabulous post as always, Dr. Crazy. I think the horrible thing about this whole baby culture is how everyone feels so entitled to remark on your children or lack thereof. (And, once you have kids who are growing up, they start in on asking about grandkids, I kid you not.)
When you looked inside yourself and saw what you really wanted next, that was a wise and powerful move. You didn’t consult the ‘experts’ or turn to anyone outside to figure out what was the most important and authentic next step. That’s the best way to keep free of the insanity that is the cultural prescription for women, dragged hither and yon by the demands of our schizophrenic society!
As a Ph.D. student in her early to mid-thirties, reading this post resonated with me, though I, unlike you, have never wanted children. Indeed, if there is such a thing as a maternal instinct or desire, I am missing that gene/hormone combo/emotion entirely. (Being a father always seemed much more appealing to me than being a mother, but my biology/gender forecloses that option.) I am married to a man and have been for some time, and it has only been recently–now that I am beyond my twenties–that I am made more acutely aware of my oddity in this regard; I refer to myself, when asked about the possibility of becoming a mother, as “childless-by-choice.” I become very irritable when people remind me of the biological clock, and upon finding out that I don’t want to become a mother, suggest that I still have time to change my mind or wonder if later (when I am old, decrepit, and child-less) I might regret this decision. Franky, his type of conversation strengthens my resolve and renders me even more obstinate.
More to the point, I appreciate your post because it argues that there are other pleasures and pursuits that can be just as meaningful and valuable as deciding to become a parent. (I have seen this argument made by people who are child-less but not by choice, as a way of coming to terms with the loss of the dream of becoming a parent.) When you don’t have kids, and I supposes especially once you do, you commonly hear the repeated mantras, “I didn’t know how much I could love until I had children”; “No one regrets their kids”; “Becoming a parent is the best decision of my life,” etc. So, even once you have made the choice to live a child-less life, there are ever present reminders that no matter what else you might produce (a dissertation, a book, rich relationships etc.) ultimately nothing can ever match having a child. The patronizing implication is that you (child-less woman) think these other pursuits are just as meaningful, but in reality people who become parents are privy to some greater truth concerning “what really matters” in life, a truth in which you will never know. However, as your post suggests, there are joys, sacrifices, and likely regrets no matter which path (motherhood or not) we choose, assuming there is a choice, to take as women, and that does not mean one path is inherently nobler, more satisfying, more meaningful, more productive, or less regret inducing than the other.
P.S. I **heart** your blog.
I really enjoyed the honesty of this post.
As someone part of the recent mid-30’s baby-producing bumper crop and as one in the academic world, I can vouch for the difficulty, but writing a book is difficult, as is playing in a rock band. The bigger point is where do you want to put your energy, because to be EVERYTHING is an exercise in mental suicide (not to mention the excess amount of wine involved).
There are choices and there are stages. You sound like you are in the land between choice (no child) and stage (write book now). These may stay constant or change; it’s the acknowledging and consideration of consequences that is real and admirable. Great post.
I wanted to be in a rock band, too. When I was in grad school I auditioned to be the drummer for an existing pretty popular (on a local level) band whose drummer had quit. Dozens of people tried out, and they actually picked me, supposedly because I had “swing” or some shitte like thatte. I was totally all set for the girls, drugs, glamour, fame, and all thatte shitte! It was gonna be totally fucken AWESOME!
Then I found out that we had four-hour practices four times per week, based on our time-share lease of a practice space: two weekday nights from 8PM to midnight, and Saturday and Sunday mornings from 8AM to noon. I lasted two weeks, and then quit.
This is really great, Dr. Crazy. Thanks for picking up the rope. I will link to it over in my comments again and urge my readers to check it out.
To quote The Masochistic Anthropologist above “I appreciate your post because it argues that there are other pleasures and pursuits that can be just as meaningful and valuable as deciding to become a parent.” I just wanted to post as a female academic with two children who feels the same way.
I don’t regret my children (although I did wonder if I’d majorly screwed my life many times in the first few weeks and months, after each daughter’s birth, and still have moments of wishing I didn’t have to deal with some aspect of parenting or another), and I don’t think I will ultimately regret this path. However, my wife and I could imagine our lives with or without children, and discussed being able to take either path, and also the fact that either path would have its own joys and regrets.
I had made up my mind in my early 30s (years before I found my partner; I was most incredibly lucky to easily get pregnant at ages 37 and 39) that I wouldn’t have a child without a partner; that wanting a child and having that life wasn’t something I wanted so much that I would want to go it more or less alone. I know people for whom the scales tipped the other way. And your book, just like the rigors of being a single parent, or other life committments and goals, are all reasonable additions to the decision-making we all do.
(I *really* hate the glib “but aren’t they worth it all” language that parents use with other parents. I mean, even if my answer is yes, or mostly, that doesn’t remove the suck from some of the consequences of having kids.)
A slightly different perspective: you can continue to do all these things (write books, be a great teacher, pursue things for yourself) with a child. And not only that, having a child actually can make you better at all these things. There are challenges and sacrifices in that choice, to be sure, but it doesn’t have to be a choice between being professionally productive and personally fulfilled *or* being a mother. When you have a child, you become a different type of person; you work differently, and feel very different about that work. If and when you decide to have a child, I think you’ll find parenthood can actually be very complementary to an academic career.
And you could do it on your own. You would need support – a good daycare, a reliable babysitter, friends or family nearby to help out in a pinch – but you could do it. Raising a child with another person presents its own challenges.
But whatever you choose, you will not be defined by the choice, and it will work out fine. You can be happy, successful, and fulfilled with or without a child, despite nasty messages to the contrary. 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.
Becoming a parent is such a paradigm shift in your life you can’t prepare for it. All you can do is adjust on the back end.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments, everyone.
And briefly, to Tem – it’s not that I think I couldn’t write “a” book with a kid, or have a vibrant professional life with a kid. It’s that I know where I am in *this* book project, and having written a book before, I know that I do not *want* a kid to change my entire working life at this particular juncture.
It’s also worth noting that I have no family support network fewer than 4 hours away from where I live, and so not being partnered really does make a MASSIVE difference in terms of how doable the whole kid thing is. (And for what it’s worth, I think this is the issue for a lot of Advanced Maternal Age child-free women). I’m actually not anxious about the idea of becoming a mother in a context such as the one my mother had: family all living within a 5 mile radius, starting off partnered – even if not ending up that way. But frankly, that isn’t my life. For a lot of reasons, I’m glad it’s not. But I do think it legitimates the anxieties that I’d have about getting pregnant right now.
So thanks for your encouragement, but really, I want a book more than I want a kid right now. I don’t need somebody to tell me that I’d be a “great mom” and I should just go for it if that’s what I “really want.” (I’m not sure if that was the ultimate intent of your comment, but that’s really how it came across.)
Great post, especially this: “Reproductive choice, for me, should result in a world in which women are people outside of their reproductive refusal or potential.” Absolutely!
Lovely, thoughtful post. Yes, why should reaction to the ‘motherhood imperative’ also be framed around a woman’s reproductive status – i.e. to define oneself as child-free or childless-by-choice is still to define oneself in relation to parental status.
And – holy cow, you published a book with a 4/4 course load? I’d say if you can do that, you can do anything. Including having, or not having, kids.
What Perpetua said exactly goes double for me too. Perfect.
(Though I wouldn’t want to be a single mom mainly because I don’t care much for kids just for myself. I care about my own kid(s), but wanting my husband to be a father was really the driving force in my decision. If it had been just me unpartnered, I would foster kittens instead. I don’t think I’d be sad about it. Though my parents would probably be nagging my sister more!)
I certainly did not intend that as the subtext of my comment, and I apologize sincerely for the miscommunication. As I said, I was just trying to present an alternate perspective, not provide an uninvited nudge. It’s just an all around difficult and frustrating decision at any point in one’s life (especially as we age), for all the reasons you articulate.
I love this post. Especially, “At the end of the day, a woman’s personhood shouldn’t have a thing in the world to do with her reproductive organs.”
As a single woman in my early 30s, I find that people assume I am desperate for a partner with whom to have a child. In fact, I would really like to not be single and have a partner, but it has nothing to do with children (which I’m not particularly convinced I want). It drives me even more nuts when people tell me that, as a result of my ambivalence toward children, I can wait on finding a partner since my biological clock is less important than someone who definitely wants children. At which point I want to hit them and say something like “my desire for a partner is no less or more important than anyone else’s. And children are the priority, well, they don’t necessarily require a partner.” Okaaay, off the soapbox. I’m just glad to read this post and feel like there are others out there who understand and make clear that women are more than their ovaries + uterus.
One of the reasons I wanted to become a professor was because it would allow me to be with my kids more. In some ways, that’s true. I spend more time with my kids than my sister with a full-time exec job or my sister who teaches high school biology. I can pick them up from school, even on Friday-short days. I can’t, though, call in sick when they’re sick–canceling class seems beyond the realm of options. I try to write books and teach and play Rails, Roads and Rivers at the same time which makes me shout why don’t you people leave me alone? I would love a little more compartmentalization in my life. Instead, I have wine.
There’s a matter of luck in the whole thing–luck to find someone with whom you’d like to raise kids, luck in fertility, luck in getting the book, or the second book, out “in time,” luck in having a job at all. Replace the word “luck” with “work.” Either way, it’s tiring. I don’t think the men-folk are quite so tired.
[…] about motherhood right now, and I’d like to weigh in about this as well. See Historiann, Dr. Crazy, and Heu Mihi (haha, I like her “AP Credit take on this). It’s like cycles have […]
I think Tem’s first comment was well-meaning, but there is no question that a child or children slow down the research productivity of most women scholars. I don’t think the differential is as drastic for fathers v. non-fathers, but it may exist too. So I think Dr. Crazy is right to want to write the book she’s writing now, and that her instincts are correct that she would not be able to write that book now were she to have a child now, too.
Dr. Crazy, I think you are also correct to think about the proximity or non-proximity of family when thinking about your life course. It’s a really big deal, one that I probably underestimated when I moved out to Colorado, where I have zero family. This is a big question for most academics on the tenure-track, as the vast, vast majority have to pick up and move from are roots and/or where we trained in order to make our livings. I think it may well be a(nother) reason why women with Ph.D.s have fewer children than other women with advanced degrees, in addition to time-to-degree and the relative compensation of our work.
My brother, sisters-in-law, and brothers-in-law who all live either very close to grandparents or closer-ish all have benefited enormously from regular free babysitting and/or semi-regular emergency backup babysitting. And I notice that among my colleagues, those who have more than one child usually have grandparents in town or nearby for at least part of the year. And I must admit that although it’s my career and choices that led me to Colorado, I’ve been quite envious of their family lives at times!
(This is just my anecdata, BTW–others may disagree.)
Interesting. I really, really wish I felt that way about the book. I really want to have a kid, but I have to write a book or I’ll lose my job. And that makes me fear for being able to take care of a kid.
Sometimes I do wonder if this is all just leftover cultural programming, since I have always wanted children, but obviously have done everything in my power to make that not happen.
@Historiann – just throwing in my own ancedata, I think you’re right, about the benefit of families and what a huge difference that can make. It changes everything to have a safety net, in terms of what you can do at work and how productive you can be. As you know, my work-family life is super complicated, but part of the reason why it’s even functional is that I have a ton of support from my retired mother, who has spent large chunks of time living with me, and relatives who have come with me on research trips (to watch the babies while I go to the archives). If we (my parents and I – or hell, my partner and I!) lived in the same town, it would be easier. (Not easy, just easier; having a department meeting can be a huge drama for me, in terms of trying to find adequate last minute back up late afternoon childcare.)
I like living far away from extended family. Like my mother before me (and her mother before her– since my great grandma, even though in the same town, also had her own full-time job), especially when the two-body problem wasn’t working out for my parents, we hire college students (and occasionally daycare ladies).
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’m only 31 (completing my PhD this year) and I already identify with this post so much. I keep hearing from my doctors, “don’t wait! Have the kids now!” and I just keep thinking, “I want to do X first” or “I want to work on Y now.” I keep wondering if things will be different when I’m 37, and hopefully on the tenure-track? Does the fact I keep putting kids off mean I really don’t want them? I meet with other women who have put their careers on hold or scaled them back to be mothers, and they talk about how much their children are their life, and I think, “if I don’t feel that way, does it mean I shouldn’t have children?” I just don’t identify with that narrative, but I’m not in the child-free camp, either. Objectively, as a feminist, I know that there are many paths and many truths. But as a practicing female academic, I still struggle with this.
Just wanted to inject a quick personal experience: personally, I think the whole “running out of time” thing is seriously overblown and even used to push women out of their careers and into motherhood. Buttloads of people will descend on you telling you how imposserus it is to get pregnant after 35, requiring injections, operations, liquid nitrogen, and animal sacrifices to the gods. The scores of women who got pregnant really easily after 35 do not run around advertising it, because we feel, well, a little misled/chagrinned/confused/lotterylucky about the whole thing. Look around you. If it were that hard to get pregnant there wouldn’t be so many damn people in the world. People who have difficulty getting pregnant when they want to, go through a lot of pain, and I am not trying to deny or minimize that. But I don’t believe that they are the rule, or even the majority, or even a very large minority, before 35 or after 35. Do what you want to with your life, at every age. Don’t let the “you’re running out of time” fear-mongers inordinately influence your choices. Go to a doc you trust (a lot) and say, damn, what’s your best advice on how to stay fertile til 50? There’s plenty of older, secure, successful career women covered in babyfood out there. (As well as ones that aren’t.)
1. IMO, this blogger is brave. A woman who knows who she is and who can act from that position is not, in the US, in an enviable position.
2. I am choosing (sic) not to comment on the comments because they make me very sad. IMO, girls don’t get (or, want to get) what being an autonomous adult is all about.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/cbjones1943
I love this. Granted, i’m only 20 but i was already worrying about this choice. I’m finishing my bachelors, i’ve secured a masters place and i’m planning to go onto research after that. I’m writing a book now, but that has a long way to go. A family always seemed really important when i was growing up, and i still just assume i’ll have one. Thing is, i really don’t think i’ll be growing up anytime -i still feel 12, and i will for a long time. Last year i even lost my best friend when she found out i was aiming for a phd, and she realised our babies wouldn’t be growing up together – i wasn’t worth the effort after that. My career is going to come first, and i’m glad you’ve had the courage to put this out there – its helped me a lot when i wondered if i was making the wrong decision!
Thank you.
There are too many things in this comment thread, my peeps, and I’ve been too busy with the trying to be a human being what with my Tuesday schedule and then with the teaching and the service to respond to them all. I think the best approach may be to do a follow-up post. But until then, thank you thank you thank you all for your comments.
[…] Comments « On “Forgetting” to Have Babies […]
For what it’s worth, my male partner is also an academic, and we’ve managed pretty much 50/50 equally-shared parenting of our two kids (currently ages 2.5 and almost 5). And I’d say it’s cost me about a book per child, and the equivalent for his math research.
He’s tenured already, and I’m primarily a fiction writer, and on the clinical academic track, so we can afford the hit to our publishing timelines (which a tenure-track parent might not be able to manage). But essentially not doing research / writing for four years has made us more than a little crazy (in addition to all the general sleeplessness and stress and misery of parenting very little ones) and it is SO GOOD to finally be getting back to it now.
We’re both glad we did it, and now that we’re on the other end, we’re pretty happy with what we have — but it was a brutal four years, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone unless they REALLY REALLY wanted it.
[…] how this (word that means separate into two parts that don’t overlap… bi-something) into women who want/have children and women who don’t is incomplete and inappropriate. She hits compensating differentials and differing circumstances. The comments are also […]
[…] A brilliant piece on “forgetting to have babies“ […]
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I think it’s great if you don’t believe you are ready to be a parent to wait! Everything happens for a reason. Still, I find the article a little dry- it’s the theory of what being a parent entails to someone who has never actually felt the… unconditional love of being a parent. I just feel like the author is me, me, me, i, i, i and that’s fine- totally respect the independent career minded type- but life can be so much better than you’d ever imagine as a “we.” While I find the “I gave up a career for my kids,” line horrifying and guilt laden toward a child, my son absolutely is my life. He’s the reason I exist- the reason I go to school, and work towards a difficult career- to make life better for him. My dreams for my child are much bigger and brighter than my dreams for myself, and anyone lucky enough to know that kind of joy isn’t sacrificing anything, but gaining the world.
Liz, can you possibly be serious? Your comment is so sanctimonious, so over-the-top arrogant, that it reads like parody. And even if you *were* right (which I don’t think you are), even if what you had *was* better than what she chose, how rude and cruel it would be to shove it in her face in such a holier-than-thou way. Miss Manners would not approve.
On the off chance that you actually meant what you wrote, may I say, (as someone who has two children, age 2-and-a-half and almost-5, children whom I adore) that you don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s the theory of what writing a book entails from someone who has clearly never actually felt the deeply-satisfying intellectual thrill of writing one.
I am so glad that I wrote one good book, one translated-into-six-languages, critically-acclaimed book, BEFORE I had my children. Because if I hadn’t given myself the time and space to do that, I would never have known the soul-deep satisfaction that comes from pushing your mind to its uttermost capabilities. I wouldn’t know what it was to wrestle with ideas in a incredibly difficult, satisfying, and intimate struggle to understand them, and then attempt to communicate those ideas to the larger world.
If your dreams for your child are much bigger and brighter than your dreams for yourself, then all I can say is that that’s a poor legacy to leave your child; it shows a lack of imagination and a lack of faith in yourself and your own capabilities. I would be ashamed to display that attitude in front of my own children.
Comments like Liz’s are precisely why I’ve questioned whether I should have children at all, given that I don’t see myself ever living completely for another person. I have talked to plenty of women who don’t fall into the “my kids are my life” category, and I think this sentiment can be really, really, damaging.
Great post and touching on so many thoughts I have and have had lately. Especially this “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. .. //…. I really do believe that if motherhood were a priority for me, that this would have happened by now.”
I had to face myself in the mirror and accept that if it would’ve been a priority I probably would’ve “accidentially” been knocked up in my previous relationship but since I think I wanted a steady relationship AND a baby, that didn’t happen. Thus, I’m mid30ies, no babies, no marriage and pretty much all my friends and fellow (former) gradfriends have babies…. and I’m not entirely sure I want to do it all by myself so maybe just let it be and see what happens. To some extent I’d be very happy turning 40 so I can ‘stop’ thinking about it, since I doubt I’ll be fertile at all after 40….
I have to acknowledge that this profession is inordinately unfriendly to parenting. Having said that, I really appreciate Tem’s (Temara’s) comments above. The alternative perspective she presents is valuable: kids don’t ruin your life, they don’t ruin an academic career. They just change things immensely. A few years after I finished my PhD in 2007, with no tenure-track job in view, I finally got the surprise pregnancy of my dreams. I am in my late 30s and have always wanted kids to raise, but believed I was infertile until a myomectomy in 2010 changed all that. (I had assumed I’d adopt, and I still might–the biological clock is an insidious myth). Now I’ve got a daughter, and she’s become my motive for working even harder on my book project (yes! even as an adjunct!), my teaching, and even my seemingly endless job hunt. I wouldn’t want to model for her the defeatest Baby-vs.-Career dichotomy I see in the OP and in some of these comments here.
[…] On “Forgetting” to Have Babies (Reassigned Time) […]
Well thought post. Some great posts there that has certainly made me think about a few things.
[…] I need to finish my dissertation/get tenure. How will I do these things? What if I never do them? Will I regret Za Baybee? No, Za Baybee is all worth […]
Am Marie from UK, married for 5yrs without issue but Ever since i met mikefoundationsolutiontemple@gmail.com,my marriage has being comfortable for me and my husband has really being showing more concern and care in our marriage.Am glad sharing this testimony despite all the past pain and negletion but now my heart is full of joy because i am now a mother like other women.I still want to thank Dr Mike for his good work to me, you are actually a light to the women.And you have proved to me that barrenness is no longer a problem.thank you so much.