No Wrong Answers

A letter to the undecided

I've heard some parents say, "I don't know what I'd do with all my time if I didn't have kids." I cannot relate.

I was proactively child-free by choice until my late thirties, and I fucking loved it. I had been with my husband for 13 years before we had a child, and for most of that time, I went back and forth on whether motherhood was for me at all.

The problem with parenthood is that it is a binary and irrevocable decision. You can’t test it out. You can’t hypothetically parent. There is NOTHING that can prepare you for it. So some of us, myself included, are tortured by indecision.

Now that I have a baby, I thought I'd share my experience of life after ambivalence for the undecided out there.

My baby is now 9 months old, and instead of having some sort of epiphany, my thoughts on motherhood have not really changed. I adore my baby with every bone in my body, but now that I have experienced it, I can unequivocally say I could not have done this, and I would have been absolutely fine… in fact, I would have been great.

For some people, it seems that parenthood is the missing piece of the puzzle—the bit that, when it arrives, makes everything fall into place. For others, I think it can do the opposite. It can take something away from them. This is rarely spoken about and one of the few taboos left in our culture. There is a brilliant book called Regretting Motherhood that explores this.

I believe I am neither of these examples. My BIGGEST fear was that when my baby arrived, I would quietly regret the decision. I am thankful every day that I do not feel this way.

Instead, I feel… well… ambivalent still.

Here is what I will say. If you take me and my personal experience out of the equation, the fact that I have created a person who will get to experience human life is thrilling to me.

Watching my boy slurp up spaghetti for the first time makes me SOOOO HAPPY! (Can you imagine eating pasta for the first time ever?!)

Knowing one day he will hang out with a friend, and they will laugh so hard their abs hurt and they struggle to catch their breath. Then they will reference that joke for the rest of their friendship and still laugh 10 years later. That makes me SO HAPPY.

Thinking about how, on a boiling hot day, he might jump into a cool body of water and float, looking at the sky, and think, Life is good. That makes me SO HAPPY.

I LOVE being alive with all the joy and heartache that brings. And now he gets to be alive with all the joy and the heartache that brings.

Saying that, does that mean I want to have more children and bring more life into the world? Absolutely not. I. AM. DONE.

So if you are reading this, and you too are ambivalent, searching for a sign of what decision to make, here is my advice:

If you know in your gut that you don’t need children to have a fulfilling life, you are right.

If you know having a child would be fulfilling for you, you are right.

How lucky for you—there are no wrong answers.

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