children

interrogating my ambivalence

Fairfield Porter, October Interior, 1963

Yesterday, I underwent the procedure to “preserve my future fertility” a.k.a retrieve and freeze my eggs. It’s been a physically and emotionally taxing experience, but ultimately, the decision felt right. It’s been the only decision regarding children that I’ve been able to make with certainty.

The truth is, I’m more afraid of regretting not having kids than I am desirous of having them, which doesn’t seem like sufficient reason to bring a human being into the world. My ambivalence has bothered me a great deal. I could be ambivalent about what brand of toothpaste to purchase or where to go for dinner (to an extent). But raising a child is one of the most consequential life decisions one could possibly make, so not having strong conviction in either direction seemed wrong.

With anything in my life that feels like it needs fixing, I did a ton of introspection, talked to friends, and read a lot. I understand the pro-natalist and anti-natalist arguments. But no amount of intellectualizing could sway me because ultimately it’s a very personal decision, and the desire must be felt, not just rationalized. 

Many people have kids simply because they take for granted that it’s a necessary passage of life. From one angle, it baffles me that a decision so weighty can be made so lightly or not even made at all. From an evolutionary point of view, it’s not surprising. We’re programmed to procreate. And the nuclear family is so engrained in our culture, so deeply entwined with the American dream of the house with a yard and white picket fence, that it’s almost impossible to separate your own values from that of family, friends, and society. And maybe that’s O.K. Maybe it’s O.K. to be influenced by people’s whose opinions you care about. We don’t live in a vacuum, so why should the decision to have kids be made in a vacuum? I thought about this with regard to my own parents. They don’t pressure me to have kids, but they do think it’s best for me, which is, in a way, a kind of pressure because an important part of my identity is being a good daughter, and I find it hard to reconcile being a good daughter with rejecting something that my parents strongly believe is good for me.

Sometimes, I think the desire to have children would be kindled if I were with the right partner. By“right” I mean the type of person with whom I would want to start a family. I don’t mean the “best” partner. It’s an important distinction because I could be in a relationship with someone wonderful, someone I want to spend the rest of my life with, and yet I don’t see myself having kids with them. Put another way, for me, the desire for children doesn’t come first. The relationship comes first. But of course, people change, which is why freezing my eggs was the best decision for me. 

I’ve been told that when you have a child, they become the center of your universe, and raising a child is one of most beautiful, selfless things you could do. I believe this, but I also believe that it’s not entirely selfless because when you have children, so much of your identity becomes wrapped up in them.

We no longer get work out of our children; today, we get meaning.

— Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity

Children can bring great joy into our lives, but there is also the danger of placing too much hope in them. Lauren Berlant writes about relations of “cruel optimism,” in which we attribute a lot of value to something that’s precarious and will most likely bring disappointment. Attachment to our children is a quintessential example of a cruelly optimistic attachment because of the sheer weight of the fantasy we want our children to fulfill.

Maybe underneath my ambivalence is a fear that I might become too attached to my children, and they can break my heart in a million different ways. Some people see relationships as strong and not easily destructible, but also not very changeable. I see them as full of potentiality and therefore also tenuous. Relationships are very mysterious. It’s part of the reason I started this Substack: to try to understand why people think, feel, and behave the way they do with each other. As you can probably tell, I am very aware of the fragility of romantic relationships. As much as I want to be optimistic about finding a life partner, I believe that the constancy of romantic love is the exception, not the norm. But I do believe that the love a mother has for her child is forever, which is why the prospect of having a child is equal parts thrilling and terrifying.

When you become a mother, you become totally vulnerable to this other person. You want them to love you back just the way you want to be loved, and when they don’t, when they go against your desires, the disappointment can be so crushing. You do your best to raise them, to help them become the best versions of themselves. But just like with romantic partners, you have to let go of the illusion that you have any control over them. You have influence, yes, but you can’t control them like marionettes. And the more you try, the less influence you have over them. Children have their own hearts and minds, their own hopes and dreams. Ultimately, they make their own decisions and choose their own identities, and you have to be at peace with that. This is why I find the concept of “disowning” one’s children so absurd. You never owned them in the first place.