Baby, baby

When I was about ten, I announced that I intended to have eight children.  I assume that my intent was to shock or impress someone but, having said this, I stuck with this idea for the next several years.  Until I neared adulthood and a time when I could have actually had children.  Then I realized I wanted no children.  None.

This shouldn't have surprised anyone.  When my sister wanted to play with baby-dolls, I had her line them up on the bed and we played 'adoption'; I had her fill out paperwork and take 'home' a 'baby'.  I never touched the dolls.  I'm pretty sure I never had a doll that cried or 'wet' or took a bottle.  I'd have certainly been given one if I'd asked, but I don't think they ever appealed to me.  The dolls I enjoyed were 'adult' dolls - Barbie and her ilk - and I had them go to college and embark on careers and take fabulous vacations.

When my mother's friends would come to visit and bring their children, I resented being sent out to play with those kids.  I wanted to stay indoors and listen to the adults talk.  They had interesting conversations, didn't find it necessary to run around outside, and they rarely got dirty.  So somewhere along the way, I realized that not only did I not want children, I didn't like children.  I still don't.  I don't like anything about them, the cries/smells and needs of an infant, the way toddlers always seem to have sticky hands and make annoying sounds, the interrupting adult conversations ... until a child is at least able to participate intelligently in conversation and wait to take a turn to speak, I don't want to meet it.

From about the age of 20, on, I made it very clear to anyone and everyone that I Would Never Have Children.  The way this blog would be expected to go is that I'd, somehow, wind up having a child and realize that being a mother is The Greatest Thing in the World.  That's not what happened.

I never did have a child.  I consider deciding not to have children the best decision I ever made.  There is nothing about it I regret.

Society disapproves less now than it did when I was 20, but the expectation is still that women want to be mothers.  People still shake their heads sadly, assume that you must be infertile, or fret about the fact that you will "come to regret" this decision.  I've even had a boyfriend's parents (whom I'd not yet met) point out to my boyfriend that I'd probably want to get married soon because I wouldn't want to wait (at my age) to have children.

This paternalistic belief that a woman who chooses to be childless can't possibly really know what she wants is more than annoying; it's dangerous.  Every ob/gyn I had refused to tie my tubes because I "might change my mind" down the road.  No matter that if I had, I'd have been the one to have to live with that choice, no matter that I'd shown no signs of ever changing my mind, no matter that it is MY body, they were convinced they knew best.  And female ob/gyns were often the most self-assured on this point!  So I took birth control pills for decades and, had I ever gotten pregnant, I'd have had to undergo an abortion, because the medical profession felt that I wasn't capable of knowing what I wanted.

It was with real relief that I passed my child-bearing years.  No more birth control pills and no more disappointment from self-righteous physicians.  I can say "I can't have children" and no one dares judge me for that.

This choice has had effects on my life.  More than once, I dated lovely, desirable men and knew the relationship was doomed because they wanted children.  More than once I've walked away from friendships with women I've loved because they had children and I couldn't pretend to want to be around their offspring.  But overall, it remains the best decision I ever made.

Yes, I have some friends who've reared truly lovely children, people whom I now enjoy.  But to get them to that point, they had to endure things that strike terror into my heart:  teething, two a.m. feedings, teen-age years.  And I have other friends who, knowing what they now know, would have likely decided to remain childless.  In fact, I don't think I have a single friend who, whether they remained child-free by choice or not, now wishes for motherhood.

I am truly thrilled for all those who want to do - and do - become mothers.  The world has to keep procreating if it is to survive and I appreciate the willingness of many to do this job.  I am grateful.

But society owes to those of us who've chosen not to have children, gratitude, also.  It's unlikely anyone who really doesn't want/like children would be a good parent, so isn't it wonderful that some of us realized that and have volunteered not to add another dysfunctional family to the world?

Automotive Darwinism

Every day or so, there is an article in the paper about a pedestrian killed while crossing the street.  Sometimes, the article is just tragic - a pedestrian following all the rules killed by a driver who didn't even stop afterward.  But, sadly, most of these articles are about what I've come to think of as automotive Darwinism.  Whether the pedestrians who dart out in front of a driver in the middle of the street - no crosswalk - or wait until the Don't Walk sign turns solid to start across - are daring, suicidal, or just plain stupid isn't a question I can answer, but I do feel that if Survival of the Fittest is the rule, these people are playing right along.

This used to be an occasional occurrence but lately not a day has gone by that some pedestrian hasn't, in effect, dared me to hit them.  And sometimes they've made it awfully hard not to do so.  Mind you, I won't pretend I always follow the letter of the law myself, but I spent ten years as a pedestrian in NYC where you either break the laws intelligently, not at all, or you die.  I cross against the light or in the middle of the street - if no car is coming!  I just have never been under the illusion that drivers would slow or stop for me if I was in the wrong.

This is not to say that pedestrians (and I am often one) are the only offenders.  Not much point in even talking about cyclists.  No one who has driven on a city street in the past decade has missed the joy of finally being able to safely pass one only to watch him sail through a red light that you have dutifully stopped for so that you are again behind him.  I don't know if they are practicing Cycling Darwinism but I fully expect to start reading articles about cyclists being driven off the roads by the drivers they have intentionally pissed off.

In the past, I have gone sky-diving, lived in crime-ridden cities, and taken a fall (or two) from a pole that could have ended poorly.  But, by far, the most dangerous thing I do is drive.  In DC.  Now I firmly believe that most cities are filled with bad drivers.  I'm not sure you could pay me to get in a car in Rome or Athens again and I haven't been many places where drivers tended to be polite and law-abiding.  But this is a city of powerful, arrogant "important" people (at least when they look in the mirror), and those are not qualities likely to make one a more thoughtful driver.  It occurred to me some time ago that the problem isn't that people don't know how to drive.  It's that they truly believe that the laws should apply to everyone else - but not them.  That their time is so much more valuable than anyone else's that they DESERVE to run that red light/stop sign/ignore that pedestrian lawfully walking in the crosswalk.

Frankly, I don't think it's possible to invent laws that will impact stupidity, arrogance and selfishness.  Our only hope is the driverless car.  Yes, I love the idea of knowing that no cars will be driven by people who are drunk or falling asleep or paying more attention to their phones than the road, and I am delighted at the idea that the elderly will be able to get around on their "own".  But I think the biggest impact is going to be that the cars, not the drivers, will be making the "decisions", and no matter how little one cares about laws or others on the road, the car will overrule their impatience.

So.  Now all we have to do is figure out how to save pedestrians and cyclists from their stupidity - and the rest of us from pedestrians and cyclists!