Picture from Liza Donnelly’s forthcoming book “When Do They Serve The Wine?”
Part III of my Just Saying NO to Children series (click here if you missed part I or here for part II) is the reflections of an amazing woman I was fortunate to meet for the first time back in November when she came to Paris. She is none other than Linda Donahue, the editor-in-chief and founder of Parisien Salon, a kind of exclusive insider’s guide/magazine to everything Paris. It’s brilliant because it’s not cheesy, gimmicky or like anything that exists. Recently, Linda interviewed me about my Paris favorites so I am thrilled that she was willing to tell her story on Lost In Cheeseland. Bonne lecture!
As a little girl growing up in the 1970s, I, like my peers, would frequently imagine my dolls to be babies. I even had the Baby Alive—a life-like doll that cried, cooed and that could be fed, leading to the inevitable diaper change. Really, it pooped itself. Hey, it seemed adorable at the time.
As a teenager, I played the fantasy “name our children” game with both my boyfriends (“We’ll have a boy and a girl, and they’ll be perfect like you”) and girl friends (“Our boy will be named Kieran and his sister will be Mollie”).
By the time I graduated from college, I had stopped playing these games, but I still expected that I would get married and have children before I had wrapped up my 20s. Didn’t happen. Well, I did get married. Briefly. (The wedding was longer.)
By the time I hit 30, I was divorced and living in Miami, well on my way to a successful career as a copywriter for the travel industry. I wanted to commemorate the grand milestone of turning 30 with a solo voyage to Key West, but my father decided to fly down from New Jersey to celebrate the big day with me. I then planned to spend at least part of my birthday 90 feet below the surface of the ocean, but rough seas meant the dive boat wasn’t going out.
Instead, I found myself taking a contemplative walk along the beach, reflecting on my so-called life. I was distracted, however, by a very loud ticking sound. I looked all around me—in the water, on the sand, even in the lifeguard tower—but I couldn’t find the source of that ticking. And then it dawned on me: the sound I heard was the ticking of my biological clock.
The thing of it is, I just wasn’t panicked by the idea that time was running out if I wanted to have a baby. And that’s when it dawned on me that I didn’t want to have children. But, being from a generation where women were still expected to marry and have kids, I thought others might think there was something wrong with me. So I kept it to myself.
In the meantime, my female friends were popping out babies left and right. One endured painful infertility treatments until she finally got pregnant, while another began artificial insemination with a donor, since all she wanted in life was to be a mother and didn’t want to wait to meet a man. (Ironically, she actually met a man halfway through the process and got pregnant by him.)
Shortly before the Y2K celebrations kicked off, I met a charming South American man who swept me off my feet. But after three months, he revealed that he had our whole future planned out, including when we’d get married and the number of children we would have. I had a major anxiety attack and ended the relationship.
Five years later, months before my 40th birthday, I entered into a year-long relationship with a man nearly eight years younger. One night, while driving to dinner, he said to me, “Wouldn’t it be funny if, a year from now, we were married and pregnant?” I thought it a very romantic thing to say, but didn’t mention to him that I had no plans to get pregnant. (Or married, for that matter.) It was only after we broke up that I finally “came out” and admitted that I didn’t want children.
Most people, including my father, weren’t surprised. Others replied that I was still young enough to change my mind. And then there was the contingent that actually made me laugh out loud with these words: “You’re not really a woman if you don’t bear a child.”
I heard this comment in several different variations. My replies also diverse, ranging from “Trust me. I can do things to a man that leave little doubt that I’m all woman” to “Hey, while you’re wiping poop from your kid’s ass, I’ll be walking through some vineyard in Italy.”
But I suppose a more serious, straightforward reply is that I chose an unfettered life, because that’s the way I like it. I prefer flying off to parts unknown at a moment’s notice or buying a ridiculously expensive handbag on a whim to the restraints of raising a family. My life isn’t for every woman, just as motherhood isn’t for me.
