Why I don't want to have kids. #6

Some people are mortified to hear I don’t plan on having kids. “Never?” I’m pro-choice but don’t think I would ever have an abortion, so the only way I could have kids would be if we got pregnant on accident.

I love children, and I love babies. I have our kids’ names planned, if we were to have them. The girls would be Talis Fern and Nest. The boys would be River Victor and Bram Channing.

I also think about how we would parent. We probably would send the kid to preschool then homeschool until the kid was old enough to choose, and then the kid would go to private school, not public school, if he or she wanted regular school…. We wouldn’t let the kid watch TV either, at least until they were ten.

These are the things I think about on long car rides when I get in a certain mood. Having kids is regular. Lots of mothers and fathers don’t think twice. They don’t need reasons—instinct is enough, or maybe they have thought about it but when they were little, or at an unconscious level.

I’m on the Shot, and it fails only rarely. I’m 27 now with still no strong desire to have my own kids—or rather, any desire to have kids is cancelled out by a stronger desire not to.

1. I don’t want my body to be inhabited. I’m afraid that being pregnant for me would feel like being parasitized. I’m afraid of pregnancy’s hormonal changes. I’m also afraid of the whole birth experience, especially considering how backward things are in the US—if I did have a kid, it wouldn’t happen in a hospital.

2. I don’t want to have the entire focus of my existence changed.

3. I don’t want to end up like Sylvia Plath with my head in the oven. I want to be able to write whenever I need to and call in sick at work sometimes. There’s no vacation from motherhood.

4. I don’t want to develop an oppressive relationship with Erik. Have you read stats on how relationships change after a child is born? Even the most progressive couple usually lapses into traditional gender roles.

5. I don’t want to sacrifice career and dreams.

6. Post-partum depression and the crippling feelings of isolation and worthlessness that many new mothers experience.

7. The possibility that I would abuse my child.

8. The possibility that I would resent my child. Loss of solitude, loss of privacy.

9. The possibility that my child would die (causing us the most intense grief imaginable).

10. The way people think they’re allowed to stare and talk to you if you’re pregnant or have a baby with you: “Oh, look how cute!’ etc.

11. Diapers, sleepless nights, pastel colors, and all that gender trouble with pink and baby blue.

12. Overpopulation, pollution, predators, the dangers of the world.