This is the perfect day to salute all those women who wouldn’t dream of becoming a mother. And to those who would dare call them selfish, as many people do, I suggest that in an increasingly restless world of declining resources, those who decide not to create one more cute little consumer/polluter are being less selfish.
They feel no compulsion to pass along the cherished DNA, no need to mother a little human (and then complain about how hard it is), no lack of fulfillment at being able to sleep in on weekends.
“For me it’s never really been a philosophical thing,” said Erin Hutchinson, a health-care consultant who moved to Chicago from California with husband Dave Holsinger late last year. “I just never had an interest in having children. I remember being pretty young and, even though I wasn’t raised Catholic, thinking that the only way I could avoid having children was to become a nun.”
In March she started the Chicago Childfree by Choice Group (childfree.meetup.com/cities/us/il/chicago/), a social organization that has begun to offer get-togethers with no prospect of having to look at the latest photos of little Eddie and Autumn.
It’s not that she, as she said, has to “run screaming” from people with children. “But as you transition into your 30s, so many people start to focus on having children. I don’t want to spend all of my socialization centered on children.”
On the other hand, “I love teenagers and love spending time around them. Just because you don’t want to have children doesn’t mean you want to divorce yourself from them entirely.”
I have to admire people like this, those who stop and think about what so many other people don’t stop and think about, those who can comfortably step outside the evolutionary script.
I have two children, wonderful young men, but in my pre-child years, there was no debate within myself about why I wanted children; I hate to admit that. Having kids was just the natural progression, like confirmation or retirement.
If I were making the decision today, I wonder if I would take a different path. Of course, the future didn’t seem nearly so bleak back then, and there was less anxiety about sending a child into it.
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I think that at one time, having a child was like creating a time capsule of hope to send forth into something better, but I can see where some people might have pause, between nuts determined to set off suitcase nukes and an environmental meltdown that urgently needed addressing about 50 years ago.
One of the most typical arguments for having children is from parents, who already have them, saying that they couldn’t imagine not having experienced that special love.
Well, wouldn’t that be a selfish argument?
Love itself is special; that’s what people need to experience, however they find it.
It’s an astute observation to know within oneself that she or he doesn’t want to be a parent. Pity the child whose parents don’t figure that out until the child is 10.
Then again, they could go see Erin. After all, she used to be a family therapist.
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