In Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids
, the book I reviewed
here last week, Tim Kreider, one of the few male authors in the book, says that
he makes a point of telling the women he dates early on that he does not intend
to have children and that he will not change his mind. “In my experience,” he
writes, “people have a bottomless capacity to delude themselves that their
partners will eventually change.”
, the book I reviewed
here last week, Tim Kreider, one of the few male authors in the book, says that
he makes a point of telling the women he dates early on that he does not intend
to have children and that he will not change his mind. “In my experience,” he
writes, “people have a bottomless capacity to delude themselves that their
partners will eventually change.”
I think this statement is so important to our Childless by
Marriage discussion. We do delude ourselves. I know I did. With my first
husband, I told myself we would have babies eventually. Maybe we would have if
our marriage hadn’t died. My ex didn’t want kids, but he often buckled to
pressure from his parents on other subjects and his mother couldn’t wait to be
a grandmother. So, maybe. But the evidence doesn’t support that. Now 66 years
old, he has been married three times, and he
never had any children. Surely at least one of those other wives wanted
them, too. But no babies. Dogs yes, children no.
My second husband, Fred, told me he didn’t want any more
children. He already had three kids, the oldest already in their late teens.
He’d had a vasectomy after his youngest son was born. And yet for years, I did
exactly what Tim Kreider said. I deluded myself that somehow something would
change and at least one of his sperm would hook up with at least one of my eggs
and we’d make babies. Hello, there’s only one Virgin Mary. It did not happen. I
menopaused, he died, game over. I’m living alone with a dog.
If you read back through the comments for past posts, there
are hundreds, mostly from women, that talk about partners who say they don’t
want children. What should I do, they ask. Will he change his mind? He says he
might be ready in a few years. He said we’d do it right after X, and now he
says no. He won’t talk about it. Etc.
You can’t blame people for hoping. Sometimes their partners
are not clear about what they want. Maybe they don’t even know. Sometimes
things happen and people change their minds. But when a person says flat out
that he or she does not want to have babies with you and they’re not going to
change their minds, I think we have to believe that they mean it and that being
with them means you will not have children. If that is not acceptable, don’t
delude yourself into thinking things will change. Either accept it or move on.
It’s a harsh reality, but it’s the truth. What do you think
about this? I welcome your comments.
. I have not read it yet, but I’m planning to. Apparently it leans hard
to the childfree-by-choice side, but maybe we can identify with some of it, and there's a lot of wisdom in Loribeth’s review.