As if only sociopaths and narcissists make bad mothers

On how to explain being child-free

This week Literary Hub published my essay Beyond Mothering: Considering Ann Patchett’s Novels of Maternal Ambivalence. The short piece below includes some content that I cut from the essay.

Most years, my family rents a big house in the Outer Banks in North Carolina. All my aunts and uncles and cousins and sisters and nieces and nephews go. It is a big house. By day, we lounge on the beach or by the pool; in the evenings we play Rock Band, procured on Facebook Marketplace, and tell ourselves we’re just as good as we were fifteen years ago. We take turns preparing dinner for the whole house. There is taco night and pasta night and seafood night. We walk across the road to buy an ice cream every day.

One evening, I was sitting on the barstool, sipping one of my uncle’s fancy cocktails while he prepared dinner. He asked me if people often hassle me about when I’ll have a baby. It wasn’t a weird question because he follows me on Instagram, where I review and highlight books that feature child-free narrators and ambivalent mothers. I suppose, to him, it looks like I complain a lot about people assuming women of a certain age are supposed to have babies. He wants to know where this irritation comes from, do I personally experience such assumptions, and are they so frequent that I am now on a crusade to educate people about bodily autonomy and privacy.

I’m too old now for people to assume I’m going to have a baby (and it’s a relief). But my ‘complaining’ on social media is my way of speaking up for women younger than me, who are at the age when almost everyone is telling them -- just because they quieted a friend’s baby or are very organized or baked a delicious cake -- that they will make a great mother. This is what I used to hear, always, when I was complimented for taking good care of my younger siblings: This is such good practice for having your own kids. You’ll make a wonderful mother. I hate the presumption that caring about other people’s happiness means I should raise children. And I think that if I were a mother, I’d be even more annoyed at the presumption that the ability to care is all it takes to be a good one. As if only sociopaths and narcissists aren’t suited to or destined for motherhood.

It's the presumption. The presumption that because I have a uterus I will of course want to have a baby. The presumption that I am not a unique human. That we are all alike. It’s insulting. And this presumption often extends to abortion access restrictions. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett has insinuated that women need only more equal distribution of housework or else to utilize infant safe haven laws to continue unwanted pregnancies; the mere idea that pregnancy could be anything from entirely undesirable to catastrophic is simply not within her comprehension.

I know some women look forward to motherhood and plan their lives around it. But I am not one of them, and I don’t think I’m strange. I also don’t think they’re strange. I just think, like all people, we’re different. So why does the world think we’re all the same in this specific, singular way?

The problem I’ve found is there isn’t really a simple way to explain the decision to be child-free to someone who is truly skeptical of it (not that it should need to be explained). I view motherhood very much like a job, because it would take most of my time and focus; it would be extremely difficult; and it would probably prove very rewarding. So I try to explain by comparing having kids to choosing a specific career.

Would it be fair to assume someone is going to be a ballet dancer or a Michelin star chef or a violinist? I imagine all of those jobs would be very difficult and very rewarding (of course not on the same scale as parenting, but stay with me). I took ballet lessons as a kid, I can follow a recipe, I played an instrument in middle school. The opportunity was there, and I just didn’t want it. In other people’s cases (certainly not mine), maybe there was even real talent on display at those ballet lessons. Does that mean there is an obligation to pursue it for life? To make it the center of my world until I die?

People would never just assume that because someone has potential to be a ballerina, that she would of course do it. Imagine…Why aren’t you pursuing ballet? You’re so good at it! I know it’s hard work but you have a natural talent for it! What are you going to do that’s so much more important? How will you ever be happy knowing you let this opportunity pass you by? That would be insane.

I think of motherhood the same way. It is an all-consuming job, a labor of love. But it is also a choice, one option of many others. And it is personal.

One of the things I love about literature is reading about characters who ask the hard questions about mothering, or who know themselves so well they don’t have to wonder. One writer who does that incredibly well is Ann Patchett, and I was so pleased when Literary Hub offered to publish my essay on how her novels have impacted my life. I hope you’ll read it.