I Am Selfish For Wanting Children

I recently came across an Instagram post that struck the EXACT chord in me that drove me to write this blog in the first place. Yes, I focus a lot on the slowly unfolding catastrophe of climate change and how our kids will live in a more hostile and resource-scarce world, but more than that I’m struggling to accept the fundamental selfishness at the heart of my wish to conceive, gestate, and birth a human being that is half Jack and half me.

This particular Instagram post comes from Dr. Ayesha Kahn and her handle is “wokescientist”. The first page reads: “Children are the most vulnerable, at-risk population in the world. That is why parenthood is a lifelong ethical responsibility, commitment, and service. Yet, childhood trauma is widespread because people often have kids for selfish reasons.”

BOOM. Yes, precisely. Anyone who can, as I so very crassly wrote in my previous post, “bareback fuck” can become a parent. That doesn’t mean they have stepped up to the demands and requirements of the lifelong task before them.

Dr. Kahn says it better. “Some basic facts we can all agree on: 1) No child chooses to be born. They are brought into this world fundamentally without consent by the laws of nature. 2) Adults in various capacities are solely responsible for bringing a child into this world and hence, are entirely responsible for serving the child’s needs and wants as caregivers. 3) Adults are not doing children a ‘favor’ by birthing them or raising them. Children did not ask to be here and raising them is the bare minimum ethical responsibility of bringing life into this world. Your parents shouldn’t guilt you about your mere existence being a burden.”

But as I continued swiping through the slides of her post, I realized that however well-intentioned I am in my desire to provide a stable, loving environment for a child as my parents did for me, I am ultimately and inescapably selfish for even having the desire to procreate. Dr. Kahn continues: “Why do you want to have children? No matter which way I’ve thought about this or which way people have answered, the answers have always been selfish to varying degrees: Because I’ve always wanted to be a parent. Because I love my partner and want to create a child that is half of each of us. Because my parents want to be grandparents and have me continue my family’s lineage. Because I think the idea of me bringing life into this world is a beautiful thing that I’ve always wanted to do. Because it seems like the next step in life is to have a family. Everyone does it.”

I have, if not literally written those words verbatim, expressed nearly every single one of those sentiments from my second post in this blog onward. I talk about how much I love Jack and want more of his DNA around in the form of a cute kiddo. I talk about my desire to experience the magic of growing life first-hand. I arrogantly presume that I will be a sufficient mother, and when I doubt myself I callously throw other struggling parents under the bus screeching, “At least I won’t fail THIS hard!” Every single “justification” I can concoct fails to stand up to scrutiny. Every single one of them is selfish. It centers me. My desire. My vision for my life. My want for Jack to blend his body with mine into a new human.

I am selfish. It cannot be described any other way.

I could VERY easily fuck everything up as a mother. I could very easily fail at every junction. Traumatize my kid. Fail to prepare them for the trauma of living in an ecologically collapsing world. A dying planet. The existential dread is almost too much for ME to handle. What if I pass on my anxieties to my children? What if their anxieties are even worse? It would certainly be understandable if that were so. Much of what we take for granted now will be gone or unrecognizable in just a few decades. And I want to ask my son or daughter to forgive me for my selfishness? I brought them to a dead planet . . . . because I wanted to play house? How can I be viewed as anything other than a self-centered bitch? I’m truly asking myself this question, every day. Constantly. Always thinking about motherhood and parenting and the swirl of emotion around it.

Then we throw in Jack’s hesitation and his own doubts and fears about fatherhood. More than anything he wants to love, protect, and defend his offspring, but he struggles with his temper in emotionally triggering moments. Hey, the guy literally survived a ton of childhood trauma. Years and years’ worth of it. I don’t blame or begrudge him one bit, knowing what he’s been through. He knows the lasting effects of physical abuse better than I do, and he wants to break the cycle and avoid passing it down at all costs. It will be a tall order. Rigorous. Demanding. Exhausting. Triggering.

But parenthood is also rewarding. Fulfilling. Humbling. Inspiring. Even when parents say they aren’t necessarily more happy than their childless counterparts, they do report overall higher levels of purposefulness and satisfaction when they look back on their lives and the growth and evolution of their children. I understand why people become parents, and I think there should be more financial and social support available for parents specifically to reduce the amount of childhood trauma experienced today. There has to be a way for us to ethically bring humans onto this planet without setting them up for failure and removing their ability to meet their own needs in the future. We obviously haven’t figured it out yet and continue to get knocked-up willy-nilly, so all we can do is work within the messy, inefficient system we currently have in place.

I feel simultaneously obligated to adopt and somehow resentful that it would fall upon me. My boss offered her point of view last week. “I don’t think you need to feel obligated, Megan. It would certainly be kind and altruistic of you to adopt, but there’s no need to feel morally forced into it. Have children if you want them.” Then I think of the literal hundreds of thousands of kids in foster care in the U.S. alone and I’m all the more aware of my own wretchedness, insisting that I have my own because I somehow think I’ll be successful and worthy of the venture.

I’m not a mathematician by any stretch of the imagination, but numbers do hold quite a bit of weight in my mind. How can this country have failed so badly that we have hundreds of thousands of unwanted children falling through the cracks of our broken, abusive foster care system? And why do I feel like the fate of each of those kids rests on my decision to get pregnant or not? It makes no sense. It’s not logical. I try to vote in a manner that increases funding for social programs. I advocate for reform. But it’s not enough and it certainly doesn’t feel like it’s enough.

I’m so emotionally drained, every single day. My brain is hard at work, thinking, bargaining, imagining, speculating, debating, visualizing. I work full-time writing CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) documents for clients, I teach six dance classes a week, I write for the Trinity Journal, and now I’ve picked up a few writing assignments for the S.A.F.E Newsletter (Safer Alternatives for our Forest Environment). I fill my time because what else am I going to do? If I don’t keep myself running at full bore, I’ll stop and cry for God only knows how many days.

To be a dreamer is to be perpetually broken-hearted, envisioning a world that could be so much better than the one we’re currently in, and finding the strength to cope with the crap that comes day after day after day. I love my jobs. I love every single one of them. I want to be spending my time this way. But the capitalist grind is wearing me down before I’ve even entered the prime of my earning years. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. I know other people are far more worse off and burned out than I. I know people are still busting their asses for too little pay, with no benefits, no supports, and no safety nets. I’m so grateful for my husband, my parents and siblings, my friends. I’m grateful for meaningful work and multiple creative outlets. I’m grateful to have a roof over my head and food on my table. I’ve crafted a life that, if it weren’t for this damn global warming, is my idea of perfect. My vision. My dream.

But to fulfill the next stage of this dream, to find myself pregnant with Jack’s child, is more selfish than anything else I’ve ever done. And I’ve done a LOT of selfish things in my life. This post is already too long, so I won’t exhaust the list here, but I need to be gutsy enough to openly state how absolutely, inarguably selfish I am. What I want in life (motherhood) centers me, potentially at the cost of my offsprings’ mental health. Their physical health, even! And for the life of me, I just can’t come up with a good reason to have children, a reason that center’s our child and their needs and wants . . . and not us, the parents.

If you think of one, let me know.

The Clock Ticks On and the Pressure Builds

Ah, don’t you love the crushing weight of parental expectations? Now I have two mothers (unintentionally and 100% without malice) wordlessly scolding me for not being pregnant or already a mother. I’m the younger of two daughters. Jack is the third of four children. Our older siblings have more or less determined that they don’t want to be parents, or if they entertain the life-altering role of parenthood, do not plan to undertake the endeavor for another few years, at least. Jack’s younger brother and his wife already have a child, who is nearing his first birthday. Needless to say, eyes have shifted to Jack and I in a way that says, “Those two have done it. What are you waiting for?”

Normally, I try to keep this blog focused solely on Jack and I, two consenting adults who are fully aware of the topics of discussion being presented. Up until now, I don’t think I’ve really mentioned a lot of detail regarding any family members. But this past week, Jack received a package from his mum. In it were a few stickers, a t-shirt that said “Hit the Road Jack” with a picture of a donkey (jackass) in the back, and a note that read, “Shall I call you dog father?”

I wouldn’t have thought much of it, except for that one question on that one little note. Yes, we acquired a second dog named Arturo. Her first question when hearing the news of the new puppy was, “Ah, so no human babies for you, then?” Ouch. I know the shirt was supposed to be a funny gag, but coupled with that note, it just made us feel like jackasses. “So that’s what you think of us. We’re taking our time making the decision to start a family and somehow WE are the useless assholes, the butt of the joke.” It cut pretty deep, but I know that wasn’t the desired outcome for sending the parcel.

Without any conscious effort and without any intent to do harm, this mindset of “BABIES BABIES BABIES” discounts all that we’ve worked to achieve: stable and fulfilling careers, a nice first home, two cute, fluffy dogs. “Oh. No children? Let me swipe through to the next cutest baby photo.” Even though any family member reading this would ardently disagree, I can feel the gaze on my uterus, can feel the penetrating eyes of mothers who came before waiting for me to take up the mantle, can feel the lack of deep, reverent respect emanating from those who wish Jack would just knock me up already. The expectations and the pointed looks and the frequent questions make me feel as though I’m not a full person, won’t ever be a full person, until I grow another human inside me. And then the moment I do become pregnant, I’m sure strangers who don’t know me will think all kinds of things. Whore. Slut. Conceited. Self-obsessed. What have you.

Now, I don’t actually believe anyone, least of all my own family, is actively disrespecting me, or Jack, or our decision to wait until we’re ready. It’s all subtle and implicit, more likely the result of my over sensitivity. Obviously I have a lot of emotional baggage about motherhood and the state of the world. Seriously, who writes an entire blog about being an anxious climate scientist madly in love with their whip-smart, sexy husband, dreaming of bearing and raising his children all while being horrified by the ramifications of our collective human damages on this life-giving planet? Just me, I guess. Writing into the void, grappling with all that I want and all that I feel lies in the way, preventing me from reaching that elusive summit. Life, even in the wealthiest nation in the world, is just so damn dangerous and feels incrementally worse every morning I wake up. We aren’t making progress, we’re just slowly battling the elements and each other.

How can I be reasonably sure that we will provide safety and stability for our kids when we can’t realistically depend on our food, transportation, and social infrastructure to deliver the goods and services we’ve come to expect? Are we savvy enough to learn to forage and hunt when Big Agro fails and we must turn to more regionalized, localized food webs? Where is the best place for us to move to ensure we have adequate waters supplies in the future? These are all the questions I’m thinking of, but all I ever get asked is: “When are you and Jack having children?”

Well, frankly, there doesn’t appear to be a good time to gestate, birth, and raise children. And because Jack and I hesitate, we are not family members that make our elders proud. Parenthood is, in this culture, the pinnacle of achievement, the milestone that transforms childless coupled adults into respectable partners worthy of praise and celebration. The most cynical side of me thinks, “Just because some jerkwad can successfully ejaculate without a condom doesn’t make him good father material.” But here we are. Anyone can become a mother or father just through the force and magic of biology. Not everyone is well-suited or even interested in the responsibilities and obligations required of them, even after the child has entered the world stage. Folks rush to show support and joy for people who probably should have used protection (looking at you, teenage parents), but skimp on grace, patience, and humility for those who take their time and contemplate the full scope of the journey before taking the plunge.

The fact is, we’re only physically capable of procreating at a young age (seriously, how unsettling is it that girls get their periods around 12 years old?) because live was brutal and deadly before we revolutionized the way we obtain food, shelter, and medicine. Emotional maturity, especially emotional maturity in parents, is a topic that doesn’t get discussed nearly enough. Learning to delve deeply into one’s inner self, to understand how emotions swell and deflate, what internal and external triggers stimulate certain reactions, requires lifelong commitment. It takes a lot to know oneself, to know how best to conduct behavior in a way that benefits everyone. It’s a repeating cycle of dysfunction to have emotionally stunted or immature young humans going on to raise more humans. Who is the role model for anger management? For stress relief? For conflict resolution? For loving, supportive, long-term, committed romantic partnerships? The U.S. has one of the highest divorce rates in the world. Yikes.

I know for a fact that Jack and I will never divorce. We joke frequently about how we got our “slut years” out of the way. (Sorry, mom, if you’re reading this! I honestly have no idea who, if anyone, takes the time to read this blog or any of my other writings). Jack and I both “sampled the wares”, if you will, before finding one another. And when at last we met, we recognized quickly that we were “The One” for each other. The One better than all the others, the best fit, the best friendship, the best camaraderie, the best inside jokes, the best sex, the best snuggles, the best musical duets, the best dancing, the best of everything we each had to offer, given freely and enthusiastically to one another, like a freshwater spring gushing forth in perpetuity. So doesn’t that qualify us for parenthood? Wouldn’t we make a good enough team to be successful in keeping our children fed, housed, and mentally and emotionally stimulated? Haven’t we proven ourselves responsible and thoughtful enough to grow happy, healthy, well-adjusted humans (in theory)? I suppose we won’t ever know until Jack and I find ourselves with child.

Four or five days before writing this post, I had my first ever pregnancy dream. I wasn’t visibly pregnant. In fact, I had no idea I was pregnant in the beginning. Jack and I were traveling internationally, staying in a hostel. One of the other guests, a woman about our age said, “Please excuse me, I don’t mean to make assumptions. I noticed your wedding bands and um . . . your ample . . . um . . . features.” Finally she spit it out. “Are you pregnant?”

I laughed at this dream woman. It’s important to note that I didn’t recognize a single other soul in this dream beyond Jack. “Pffffff, no. I can’t be. I have an IUD. How could I be pregnant?” Then I looked down and remembered the alcoholic beverage in my hand, cursing myself. “Am I really pregnant?” I wondered silently. And, in classic nonsensical dream logic, the woman offered me a fresh, unused pregnancy test. I went to the shared bathroom, closed myself in a stall, and took the test. Lo and behold, a little pink plus sign.

Fuck.

First, I panicked. I had been drinking! Right off the bat, I failed. My fetus was swimming in alcohol. I was killing my own dream baby. What kind of stupid irresponsible idiot drinks while pregnant? I loathed myself in that moment.

Next, I became lucid enough to start questioning my reality. “This can’t be happening. Jack and I aren’t traveling. We had no plans to leave the country.”

Then, the inklings of my waking life became more tangible. “I can’t be pregnant! I won’t fit into my wedding dress in five months’ time!”

I can’t say I enjoyed this dream. It was shameful. Stressful. I felt like the scum of the earth, unknowingly poisoning my own flesh and blood and then being vain enough to give more of a damn about my wedding dress than about the dream consequences of my dream actions.

To reiterate and be perfectly clear: I am not pregnant. I have never been pregnant. I have no idea what it feels like, how the bodily sensations unfold over time, what it feels like with the spine and organs shift to accommodate the new baby. But I'd like to know someday. When I’m ready. If I’m ever ready.

For anyone reading this who reached the end, I’m planning on keeping my IUD inserted for the full duration of its 10-year lifespan. I had it inserted in December 2013, when i was 21 years old. After that, Jack and I may still choose to wait, opting for birth control options that don’t require the presence of painful, T-shaped metal sitting inside my womb. So much effort for so much cultural shame and stigma. For now, I’ll continue to endure the loaded questions, the endless images of everyone else posting multiple pictures and videos a day of their children. Women like me, women who hold complex and critical opinions of our child rearing culture, are not particularly popular. Baby or bust! It’s all about winning the game of evolution. Those who don’t wish to participate by their very nature don’t deserve the best life has to offer.