Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids

by Meghan Daum

A student sent me an e-mail telling me she was dropping out of my private writing group: “I love the group and will really miss it,” she wrote, “but I can’t see spending the money I ought to be spending on my children’s education on my own.” I pictured her imagining, as she wrote the e-mail, a bunch of women standing around giant pieces of brightly colored plastic playground equipment in the town where she lives nodding sagely at her sacrifice. But what I wanted to ask was, Why not? Why is their education more important, inherently, than yours? You are a very talented writer with immense potential. What if your children turn out, even after that expensive education, to be just a couple of dolts? The median home price in the town where she lives is $904,000, so we can rest assured that her kids are in no real danger of remaining uneducated. I do understand that it is noble to want what is best for one’s children. But I worry that we have taken a big step backward if it is perceived as nobler still when doing for one’s children comes at great expense to oneself.