In the airport waiting for my flight to Mexico City, it happened again.
I was with my parents. We were going to a destination wedding, and we were thrilled. The groom was their grandson, my nephew.
See what I did there? I dropped my nephew into the scene. It’s something childless women do to make people with kids feel comfortable.
The boarding gate was packed with passengers for both our flight and the flight before ours. I parked my parents in the wheelchair area, and squeezed into a seat across the aisle where a little boy was jumping around.
I’m bad at guessing children’s ages, but let’s put him at five. He came in close to my face to tell me about his shoes. They light up, he said, marching around to demonstrate.
I asked him to test them out, to walk on tiptoe, and on just heels, and then to creep very, very softly. His shoes delivered every time, and we were glad for that, both of us believers in things being what they say they are.
Mary Clark
He jumped his celebration and then I watched him with his parents get in line for their flight. He waved from over there. I waved. He jumped some more, said something to his mother, let go of her hand, and came running back to hug me.
This was nothing new. He was like the baby in the highchair at the restaurant in Tuscany, her body twisted all the way around to flirt with me while I ate my cacio e pepe.
That baby was like the teenager by the bike rack. “How do you break on that thing?” In answer, I handed over my no-speed and said: “Peddle backwards.”
And that teenager was like my girlfriend’s boys when the three of us play Extreme Catch in the ocean, a game we invented, with multiple balls and lightning-fast turnovers.
When it comes to being childless, it’s not the children who have a problem with me. It’s the parents. Some parents.
I’ll answer the question. The one most people know not to ask but might want to ask: Why? I’m of the childless by choice/by circumstance category. Or else, of the I‑liked‑my‑life‑as‑it‑was/put‑it‑off‑too‑long category.
I’m a person who aims for the big things I want, so I guess I didn’t want to be a mother enough to make it happen. Who knows, maybe my body would not have let me anyway.
I had no idea not having kids would come with so much guff. I’m glad the conversation’s in the open, so readers can hear what women like me have been hearing. Opinions leak in various ways: Indirect, direct, well-meaning, and overheard behind my back.
There’s the rush to tell me that I’m not really childless because I have nephews. Or, hopefully, pets. “Not even a dog?” a man once asked me. “No. Sorry,” I said.
Another told me he couldn’t imagine a life without children. “Same.” I smiled. “But, you know, the opposite.”
Whenever I’m told, “You’re so good with kids,” it’s intended as a compliment, but it has a for not having any yourself note, and maybe a what a shame note. It’s hard to say thank you to that one, because I’m just being who I am, not an aspiration.
There’s the “How many do you have?” assumption in the checkout line after the out-of-the-blue comment on her own kids, a bonding attempt between us moms.
And the worst, the preface on TV after school shootings: “As a mother…” Not as THE mother, but as a person who wants to remind me that her sorrow weighs heavier than mine ever could.
There’s the new mother who tells me: “I used to be so selfish before I had kids.”
Selfish: The moniker of childless women.
It’s campaign season, so now I hear it all the time from the candidates: The wish for what we all wish for, a better life for our children. And our grandchildren. I’m supposed to hear that as a better life for the nation’s children in general.
My candidate is a stepmom. Oh, the hierarchy! Sure, I believe in a bright shining future. I support policies that help other people’s families.
I want the kids of this nation, heck, I want the children of the world to go to great schools, be healthy, and have their dreams met.
Childless women, and men for that matter, are experts at silently practicing altruism. The children we wish a good life for don’t have to be our own. What a concept.
Mary Clark is a writer living in Baltimore, Maryland. She just finished writing her novel about a childless woman who falls in love with a man who has kids.
All views expressed are the author’s own.
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