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

by Meghan Daum

In contrast to our predecessors, we seldom ask ourselves whether we serve a greater social purpose; we are more likely to ask ourselves if we are happy.

this is the sort of statement that many a childless woman—or man, for that matter—of my generation might honestly make but that you will rarely read: “I’m an atheist. I’m a solipsist. As far as I’m concerned, while I know intellectually that the world and its inhabitants will continue after my death, it has no real meaning for me. I am terrified of and obsessed with my own extinction, and what happens next is of little interest to me. I certainly don’t feel I owe the future anything, and that includes my genes and my offspring. I feel absolutely no sense of responsibility for the propagation of the human race.

A graduate student of mine tells me, with some heat, “I do plan to have kids one day, but I certainly hope they won’t be the most important thing in my life!” Am I wrong to think that perhaps, if this is how she feels and continues to feel, she ought at least to consider not having kids? I can hear her respond, with equal heat, “But that’s not fair. You wouldn’t say that to a man.” In any case, she will learn soon enough that her honesty isn’t likely to be met with understanding. When Michelle Obama (to name just one prominent, accomplished woman) announces, “I’m a mother first,” she is of course saying what most people want to hear. (It is inconceivable that any woman running for public office today could get away with explaining that although she loves her children dearly, for her, being a leader comes first. President Obama has often been heard to say, meaningfully, “I am a father.” No one leans in expecting to hear first.)

Because, in the end, it came down to another question I kept asking myself: Can I be the kind of mother I would have wanted to have?

And not too much time passes in the course of my days without my remembering that I have missed one of life’s most significant experiences. But let me say this: the idea of having it all has always been foreign to me. I grew up believing that if you worked incredibly hard and were incredibly lucky, you might get to have one dream in life come true. Going for everything was a dangerous, distracting fantasy. I believe I have been incredibly lucky.

“When you look into your baby’s eyes,” my friend Sarah once said to me, “that will become your Tibet.” I have no doubt that looking into one’s own baby’s eyes is many inexpressibly wonderful things, but one thing it is not is Tibet.