The Baby Decision

by Merle Bombardieri

  4.You have as much right to be “ordinary” as anybody else. You have not committed a sin by not having children; you have nothing to atone for. Your talents will emerge more easily if you don’t impose excessively high expectations on them.

  5.Revel in solitude and quiet time. Ironically, some people who decide to remain childfree because they crave solitude never take advantage of it. They get caught up in a whirlwind of activities that precludes any quiet time. Why? They fear solitude because when there are no distractions, unwanted thoughts and fears can’t be ignored or repressed as easily. Few of us like to face our problems head-on or admit that our marriage, our work, or other parts of our life are not as satisfying as we would like them to be. But solitude is a golden opportunity for growth and a rare commodity for new parents. Don’t pass up your special opportunities to meditate, daydream, fantasize, pray, or plan. Sometimes just staring out the window or mindfully petting your cat can be sublime.

  Don’t overload yourself with activities that prohibit solitude and relaxation. Ironically, even pursuits that seem to encourage growth, such as journaling, or attending yoga or dream workshops, can actually hinder your development if you overdo them. You could wind up spending so much time rushing from one activity to another that you don’t get that wonderful, slowing down, centering effect from any of them.

  6.If you are in a relationship, make the most of it. You’re lucky. Because you don’t have children, you have time and energy to lavish on each other, and you’ll both benefit from taking advantage of that fact. Research indicates that childfree couples are quite happy, possibly happier than those with children. Susan Lang’s book Women Without Children gives many examples of couples with strong, enjoyable relationships. Set aside time for each other. Even though some couples choose to be childfree in order to protect their relationship, they may become so involved in various activities that they spend little time together. This could be due to some fear of intimacy, or it can happen if you don’t prioritize couple time.

  7.Share. One of the advantages of parenting is a satisfying, longterm project the couple engages in together. Consider a special project you can work on together. For many childfree couples, such projects evolve naturally. If this isn’t the case for you, choose one consciously; for instance, consider environmental work or volunteer vacations.

  8.Develop a family system. Who would you turn to if your partner died? With whom do you spend holidays? Do you have any ties with people under sixteen or over sixty? Family ties are important, and if you’re not close to “blood” family—either physically or emotionally—create a “chosen” family with friends, colleagues, neighbors, and so on. (See Chapter 5, “Which Way Happiness.”)

  9.Let go of guilt. Do you feel that you are getting away with something, as if you are relaxing in a hammock while others are weeding the garden or mowing the lawn? No need to feel bad. You have avoided the burdens of parenthood, but your life has its own burdens.

  10.Get together with other childfree people to socialize and share ideas and possibilities. See Appendix 2 for childfree resources.

  Looking to the Future

  Some people who make the childfree choice feel no need to make new decisions because they are concentrating on the good life they already have. But many of you who have just made this choice may be uncertain what you want to do next.

  This can be a fruitful time of brainstorming and fantasies. Journaling, life planning workshops, meditation, and books such as Gregg Levoy’s Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life can jumpstart your explorations.

  When Tamara was in her mid-thirtiess she realized that she wanted to go back to school for a doctoral degree in clinical psychology. This clearly felt like her life’s mission, but she and her partner were also looking at the possibility of parenthood. They worked hard on this decision, including working with a therapist to review and weigh various choices. She concluded that while becoming a mother was something she was interested in doing, she was not yet ready to be a mother, especially as she recognized that the timing was such that doing both at the same time was not realistic. With heartfelt clarity, she made the choice to opt out of becoming a mother, but then she also made a personal promise to herself going forward to help children and their families. She added:

  At that critical moment in time, I dedicated myself to honor and express my mothering impulse in this way. To this day, I am filled with gratitude for the children and families whose lives I touch in my professional and personal life, and whose lives touch mine.

  Once I realized that I wasn’t going to be a mother, I realized that through my clinical work with children, I could honor and express the mothering part of myself. I get to be close to my clients and their mothers in a way that is healing for them and satisfying for me.

  For Katie, a health administrator, thinking about what to do next has been fun. She had thought she wanted to have children in order to be playful and do new things. Then she attended my workshop, did the exercises on her own and then with her husband. They decided to be childfree and have begun doing some of activities that she had been postponing, such as music, dancing, exploring nature, and studying mindfulness. She realized that she didn’t need to have kids to do these activities.

  Since she made her decision, she is swimming, preparing for a triathlon, and getting certified as a fitness instructor.

  She has enjoyed her own decision process so much that she has become an advocate, encouraging friends to have a sense of adventure about the baby decision, whatever they decide.

  Katie adds, “This is the happiest and number one fact that has guided me to remain childfree with my husband: There is no shortage of love in the world, and we can decide how and who we want to love. For us, this includes welcoming children of all ages into our lives.”

  To get a sense of the range and possibilities that men and women are enjoying in their childfree lives, I highly recommend the facetiously titled book, Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids, edited by Meghan Daum. And Laura Carroll’s Families of Two and The Baby Matrix are also excellent.

  Making It Final—Sterilization

  Have you considered sterilization? The decision to be sterilized actually involves two separate decisions: first, the decision not to have a child; and second, the decision to close that option off forever.

  Sterilization offers the following advantages:

  1. An end to worry about contraceptive failure. Many couples report that their sex life improves after sterilization. Women in particular say they never realized how much fear of pregnancy affected their sex lives.

  2. An end to anxiety about possible long-term effects of contraception and an end to contraceptive inconvenience.

  3. A rite of passage. Sterilization can be a turning point that results in a burst of creativity in another area of your life. By closing the door to parenthood permanently, you may be more open to new possibilities and interests, and you will have more time and energy to pursue them.

  4. A sense of closure: an end to a long, involved decision-making process. You have taken time to think things through. If you are in a relationship, you’ve spent time talking about the advantages listed above, as well as any disadvantages. The major disadvantage of sterilization is its irreversibility. Like a decision to have a baby, a decision to be sterilized is irrevocable. For this reason, I suggest the following guidelines.

  If You Are Considering Making It Final

  Be cautious about getting sterilized in your twenties.

  Some people are so certain they would never want children that they undergo sterilization procedures while in their early or mid-twenties. If you and your partner are quite sure you will never want children, if you would find an accidental pregnancy or abortion totally unacceptable, if you are worried about contraceptive side effects, sterilization may be the contraceptive of choice. And more and more people in their twenties are making that choice. However, it is possible th
at you will change your mind about children when you’re older. For that reason, it may be a good idea to wait awhile before making this decision.

  Childfree television commentator Betty Rollin described to me her doubts about sterilization in the under-thirty crowd: “You can’t assume your present feelings are going to be with you forever. People often change their attitudes as they get older. I think that choice is one of the great gifts of life and, in a sense, early sterilization deprives one of having that choice.” Likewise, in my interview with Carol Nadelson, a Boston psychoanalyst and vice-chairman of psychiatry at Tufts New England Medical Center said, “I see a lot of people who decide to become parents in their late thirties or early forties.”

  One of the reasons people change their minds in their thirties or even early fortys relates to psychologist’s Erik Erikson’s concept of generativity—a concern with nurturing and guiding future generations. For many men and some women, this need generally doesn’t surface until midlife. And although you can meet this urge in other ways through creative work or by associating with other people’s children as many childfree people choose to do, you may wish to reconsider parenthood at that time.

  For women, a change of heart is possible when they reach their late thirties or early forties, especially those women who embarked on a career at age twenty-two and have had fifteen years of professional success by age thirty-seven By that time, many are:

  Ready for a change. They want to try something new and different.

  Ready to shift from a work ethic to a family ethic. Whether they take a few years off, continue working full-time, or switch to part-time, they are ready to shift or widen their focus.

  So well-established in their work that it’s easier to combine career and motherhood, and the frustrations of coping with a double life may seem less taxing when they’re older and wiser.

  Their partner may also shift their psychic energies from career achievement to personal relationships. If both partners are now willing to spend time parenting, having a baby becomes more feasible than it was when they were in their twenties and too busy establishing their careers to consider parenthood.

  But suppose you’re in your twenties, have given this matter quite a bit of thought, and want to be sterilized. Is there an acid test for sterilization readiness?

  According to Maxine Ravech, sterilization counselor at Preterm in Brookline, Massachusetts, at the time I interviewed her in the 1980s, taking responsibility for oneself is the dividing line between the twenty-three-year-old who’s mature enough to be sterilized and the one who isn’t. “If I hear someone saying to me, ‘I know I could be wrong, but I do understand that sterilization is irreversible, and I believe this decision is right for me,’ I think that person is mature enough to understand the meaning of sterilization.” If you can agree with this statement, if you think you could live with regret should it ever materialize, you are making a mature choice.

  If you are in a relatively new relationship, consider postponing the procedure until you have been in a committed relationship for at least a year. Feelings about children are sometimes linked to our feelings about our mates or lovers. One woman who didn’t want any children with her first husband couldn’t wait to get pregnant with her second. In fact, happy parents who thoroughly planned their parenthood report that conceiving and giving birth was a way of celebrating their union and their love for each other.

  Although your image of a child in the abstract may seem repulsive, the idea of making a baby with your loved one could become attractive as you and the relationship mature. Therefore, give yourself some time to ensure that your feelings about your partner and your relationship won’t affect your feelings about a child.

  1.Give yourself time to let the decision jell. If you are considering sterilization now, wait six months to a year before taking any action. Does your interest in the idea fluctuate depending on your moods or how you feel about your love relationship? Obviously, this should not be a spur-of-the moment decision. You’ll be more certain about the plan if you have given it the test of time.

  2.If your partner originally wanted a child, and would prefer that you not have a sterilization procedure, give yourselves some extra time. I’ve already stated my belief that you should never have a child unless you both want one. By the same token, it’s probably best to postpone such a final sterilization decision until your partner has come to terms with the childfree decision. Your relationship will go more smoothly if your partner has a chance to express anger and disappointment, mourn, and find substitute ways to nurture. If you simply make a unilateral decision and top it off with an unalterable sterilization procedure, your partner is going to feel steamrolled. That extra time prepares your partner to support your choice, and to support you through any physical discomfort the procedure might cause.

  3.The partner who is more committed to being childfree should be the one to undergo sterilization. I suggest this because the partner who has at least some positive feelings about parenthood might choose to have a baby with a future partner in the event of widowhood or divorce.

  Even when both partners agree to remain childfree, typically, one will be more certain than the other. “I had a tubal ligation,” Angela reported, “because I was more committed to being childfree than Doug. I’ve known ever since I was a child that I didn’t want children so it makes more sense for me to be sterilized. He was willing not to have children for my sake. He enjoys the peace and freedom of our life and gets ‘fatherly’ satisfaction from his activities with his Boy Scout troop. But if something happened to me, or if we split up, it’s quite possible that he would want a child with a different partner.”

  4.If you do get sterilized:

  a.Don’t panic if you have some qualms just before or after the procedure. It’s natural to have a few regrets, but if you’ve made a careful decision, you’ll probably live quite happily with it.

  b.Seize the opportunity to make plans. Now that you don’t have to use your nest egg for a nestling, how might you test your own wings? Perhaps it’s time to realize your dream of owning your own business, or to take a less profitable, but more exciting job. Or perhaps you can take the trip you’ve always longed for, up the Himalayas, or down the Amazon.

  c.Be choosy and careful in announcing your action. Should you tell, and if so, how and to whom? The advantage of an announcement is that it will put an end, once and for all, to all those tiresome questions and pressures. It also allows you to share your excitement, relief, and your sense of freedom, and it keeps your communication clear.

  On the other hand, if you don’t share the news, you won’t have to deal with possible rejection, anger, and hostility, often in the form of endless lectures. And if you have any lingering doubts about the wisdom of your decision, these lectures can be intolerable.

  If you’re like most people, you’ll probably start telling those people who will support your action and delay or avoid telling many who would disapprove. But there are some people, your parents, for example, who may have to be told even though the telling won’t be pleasant. Even if you decide against sterilization, you may decide to tell your parents that you’ve decided to remain childfree, or you may choose to say nothing unless they ask. Either announcement may evoke shock, hurt, disappointment, and anger.

  Now let’s talk about telling your family regardless of whether you’ve undergone sterilization:

  i.Try to keep the conversation current and focused on your respect and concern for them. As we have previously discussed, you’ll want to avoid slipping into old parent-child patterns. Your partner, a supportive sibling or a therapist could help you plan what to say if you are at a loss.

  ii.Empathize with their feelings of disappointment, hurt, and anger. Let them mourn. You’ve taken away what they had believed was their “right” to grandchildren. Don’t take away their right to their own reactions. You don’t have to agree with their attitude or feel guilty about it, but you can say, “I can understand why
you feel that way.” Or you might say, “I’m sorry to disappoint you.” If they have other grandchildren, remind them of this.

  iii.Listen carefully. You and your parents may never agree, but you can offer each other compassion, understanding, and authentic conversation.

  iv.Realize that their expectations of grandparenthood are understandable. Society in general doesn’t know enough about the childfree choice or fully accept it yet. When your parents raised you, they assumed they would have the pleasure of knowing your children. It’s hardly surprising they’re disappointed. Try teaching them about the childfree choice. Give them this book and offer other resources (see the Appendix). Share with them what you’ve learned from your own experience, from other childfree couples, and from your reading. If they are not likely to pick up a book, offer them a few carefully selected excerpts.

  v.Give them time. They may come to accept your decision once they get used to the idea, especially if they see that you and your partner are happy with your lives.

  vi.Help them find other satisfactions. If they already have other grandchildren, or if you have siblings who might eventually have children, remind them of this. Try to help them find other ways to get involved with children. When you think they might be receptive, perhaps in a conversation a few weeks after the announcement, gently and tactfully suggest that they consider:

  Becoming substitute grandparents to a family whose “real” grandparents have died or live far away.

  Becoming special friends to the children or grandchildren of their friends and neighbors.

  Volunteering at a day care center or a Big Brother or Big Sister program.