“I shouldn’t say never but I’m dreading motherhood.” I saw that tweet years ago and haven’t been able to forget it. It sticks with me because I used to feel that way. In my first post-high school relationship, as a girlfriend to the guy who’d become my first husband before I turned 20, I sensed … Read more
But I didn’t change my mind about kids One of the questions frequently posed to childfree people is a two-parter: A: “What if you regret it?” B: “Aren’t you afraid of dying alone?” My reason for not wanting kids was so simple (I just didn’t want to be a parent) that those weren’t questions I … Read more
As young as five years old, I understood without real understanding that when I grew into a woman I would someday, inevitably, become a mother. As a little girl, I semi-regularly played the game of House with a friend who lived in the next apartment building, and we’d choose our roles before each game: Husband … Read more
Last year I was visiting my childhood friend, now a mother, when dinner time arrived. She squirted ketchup onto her daughter’s plate and then her son’s. And then mine. I looked at it. She immediately recognized her mistake and laughed. She knew I could squirt my own ketchup, she said, but she was just so … Read more
