- At 23 I started moving from city to city, and eventually found my partner.
- I never felt the biological clock ticking or rushing me to become a mother.
Whenever the topic of childless people comes up in conversation, and I am asked — as I invariably am — why I don't have children, the auto-reply in my head is pulled directly from the vast archives of my brain where episodes of "Sex and the City" are stored. Perhaps it's a bit flippant to invoke SATC when there are, of course, more serious arguments to consider involving the patriarchy, or feminism, or capitalism, but I can't help that my mind just flits there when the subject arises. After decades of watching too much SATC, my inner monologue is sometimes voiced by Carrie Bradshaw.
In this particular episode, 38-year-old Carrie is asked by her new boyfriend (The Russian) if she has ever thought about having children. Sheepishly, eyes cast downward, she replies in her trademark stammer, "Oh, uh, I've always thought that I might, I just haven't gotten around to it yet." I remember watching that when I was that same age and thinking, "Same, Carrie. Same."
Now, at 47, my body and my brain are at odds with one another. It doesn't seem possible that, biologically, I am likely unable to have a child — at least the old-fashioned way — and maybe deep down, there is a version of me that still believes I just "haven't gotten around to it yet." Magical thinking aside, the reality is that I am accidentally childless — and I am actually perfectly happy about it.
Having children was not in my mind
I never feel bereft or unfulfilled, or any of those other emotions women are warned will come to haunt our middle age if we don't have children. If there is a 'sliding doors' version of my life where I am pushing a stroller, I can't see it now — even if I squint.
I can't truthfully say that the thought of having children never crossed my mind at all because throughout my 20s, there always loomed the specter of inevitable motherhood.
I consider that now to be a vague assumption I held simply because I was a product of a certain generation — that having children one day was something people just did - rather than an actual fully-formed opinion on the matter. And truthfully, back then, it was quite the opposite — any time spent thinking about babies was taken up by figuring out how not to have one.
I wasn't worried about my biological clock
At 23, I knew it was time to make moves when even Texas began to feel too small, and I've been traveling ever since. Along the way, I would trade a home in Miami for Madrid and, eventually, Los Angeles for London, making friends in each place who would profoundly change my life. And, after suffering life's guaranteed heartbreaks and the various tragedies allotted to me by the universe, I found a partner that I don't deserve — whose love can only be explained by my good luck.
The ticking of the biological clock did not keep me up at night, and no alarm ever went off to tell me that my time was up. I didn't feel pressure from my parents, my friends, or the world around me. By sheer virtue of human biology and living my life how I liked, I simply never got around to having children.
I don't know for sure if my life would have been more fulfilling with kids than the one I already have, but I do know for certain that I would not have been able to live the life I did — and still do — under the constraints and responsibilities of motherhood.
Because of the peculiar fascination with women who choose to remain childless, sometimes I would answer with an emphatic "no" whenever I was asked the question. Maybe because I would have rather been seen as a proud feminist who wore her childlessness like a badge of honor rather than an irresponsible woman who let the clock run out on one of life's most important decisions. Internal sexism would leave me questioning myself, thinking, "What kind of woman am I if I didn't care whether or not I had children?"
I need only return to that vast archive in my brain for the answer.
As Carrie Bradshaw bemoans her plight of the possibility of a childless future — over cocktails, of course — Samantha Jones replies, "There are lots of fabulous things in life that don't include a baby. What would that be like?"