Childless Petless Plantless Lady: Part 2

 

When I was in elementary school, my aunt periodically suffered from benign cysts and the associated pain in her breasts. She was unmarried, without children, and in her 30s. Once a doctor told her, “Having children may resolve these issues.” In one family gathering (composed of my parents, my grandparents, my aunt, and I), this doctor’s comment prompted the discussion among the adults (meaning everyone but me) on why my aunt wasn’t still married and her possible marriage prospects. As they were discussing, I, not yet 10, blurted out “She doesn’t have to get married to have a child.” This put an end to the discussion, and the adults’ attention re-focused on whatever was on TV.

Last year, I had a mammography for the first time. It was not a routine check; I am not yet old enough for that. It was due to what felt like a lump causing unusual pain in one of my breasts that became more disruptive than what I am used to before and during my period. I am now slightly older than the age my aunt was back when she was told “to have children” to resolve her pain. Unlike the pre-10-year-old me, I now know that benign cysts have nothing to do with having children or not, unlike breast cancer.

On a night when you are having a hard time falling asleep due to pain waiting for your mammography day to come, you start questioning if, in addition to the societal expectations, you are now also fighting with your own body. I thought getting older was helping me be more aligned with my body instead.

I had the mammography singing Green Day’s Basket Case in my head, which is what I do during all the uncomfortable clinic/hospital/doctor visits. (I may have to take break from this due to the Basket Case scene in Bugonia.) In the end, all the checks were clean. “It is your hormones”, the doctor said, the cliché reason for all the women’s issues. That pain left over time, just like it left my aunt.

 

When I was thinking of the pop-culture references to include in this post, the two that came to my mind were both from shows created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, who does not have children herself but nurtured one of the most iconic shows on mother-daughter relationships on TV; i.e., Gilmore Girls.

 

Sookie: Kids don’t like me, and I am not so sure I like them.

Lorelai: You’ll like your kid.

Gilmore Girls, Season 4 – Episode 3

 

Cheyenne: All of these years, I am here. I gave up everything - family, children.

Genevieve: Oh, you hate children.

Cheyenne: Because they are a drain on the world and are boring to talk to, but that doesn't mean I did not give them up.

Étoile, Season 1 – Episode 1

 

“Do you like children?” is what people ask you when they poke for whether you want to have children. I love children. I spent several children’s birthday parties in Bay Area playing with the children instead of talking to their parents. I don’t think this strictly correlates with wanting children. Similarly, not being sure if you like children in general doesn’t mean you shouldn’t become a parent. Most of my close friends are mothers now. Their relationship with children and dilemmas about having a child before they became mothers were all different. Today, while they have been facing the common challenges of becoming a mother, the way they mother their children is also different and uniquely their own and continues to amaze me.

Even if you do not have a strong will to have children, the choice of not having them is still a choice where you give them up in place of something else. How much you grieve for that choice later in life makes the difference. In her answer to a letter-writer who is trying to decide on whether to have children or not, Cheryl Strayed writes, “I’ll never know and neither will you of the life you don’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore.”

When I try to imagine my way older self, still childless, petless, and plantness, the image I see does not look like something that I would regret. Of course, I cannot know for sure how I will feel in the future, let alone if I will live that long. It is all a “gut” feeling. This also doesn’t mean that I am against having children or pets. I may even buy a plant one day. (Technically, I have a plant in my office, gift of one of my PhD students, that I care for. All the other plants I received, I killed. And I have never bought a plant myself.)

I am aware that I am writing from a place of privilege on this matter, and I don’t want to undermine the challenges others go through. Specifically, I would like to acknowledge that not everyone has the luxury to contemplate the choice of having children; reproductive rights are still not where they should be around the world, and there are many who struggle to have children despite really wanting them. (For the latter, I recommend Chloe Caldwell’s latest book Trying, which I finished in one day.)

 

One of the highlights of this year for me was my two-week London-Edinburg trip this September. I got to spend wonderful time with close friends in London and visit Edinburg for the first time (by myself). This is the type of thing my childless/petless/plantless-life grants me, which I cherish. While in Edinburg, after discovering a gem of an underground movie theater, where my phone had no reception and I watched the illegally downloaded version of the never-ever released The Fantastic Four (1994) with a bunch of strangers, I was pondering “Why do you have a higher drive to be at that theater than having children? Why can’t you even have plants in your house? Do you lack the ability to nurture?” The answers here are not straightforward, but to simplify it boils down to what you choose to nurture over others.

I of course heard from many mothers, including my own, that having their children was the best thing they had ever done in their lives. I value the voices of these women. There is nothing in my life that I can refer to as the best thing I have ever done. I accept the uniqueness of experiencing that kind of love. But I refuse imposing the desire for it on everyone.