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The Introverted Duckling

Why I think millennials (or at least this millennial!) are so ambivalent about kids



I've wanted to write this post for a while but refrained, as my mind has changed at least twice about the topic, and will continue to do so, I've no doubt.


It's hard to write about something that so many people have such passionate views on. Especially people who ought to know more about the matter at hand, since they themselves have spent many hours of their lives bringing up little people. As for me, the only little person I've ever brought up is a furry, four-legged one who was toilet-trained by six months old.


I've reached that age where everyone around me either has kids or has thought long and hard about a future with or without them. Most of my friends who are around my own age don't have children yet, and I can't help but wonder if the reason is that all the things I am about to outline; pros and cons if you will, according to my own narrow world view and youngish years; make them struggle to decide, as well.


I say youngish. I am, however, at the age where maybe just forty years ago (and much more recently too; it still seems to be an overwhelming popular opinion) when other people and even medical professionals would say that my time is running out. At 32, I don't think I'd quite be a geriatric mother (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!) but I wouldn't be far off it. If you think about, if someone of my age wanted a few kids, or even just two, they'd probably have to get the ball rolling very soon.


Not that 'older' women aren't capable of producing offspring. My own dear mother gave birth to me at 41 and my sister at 43. My dad was 38, I believe, when I was born. Not that the age of the father is very important, rather unfairly. My cousin had her second child in her very early forties. My Gran (Mum's mum) had my mum at 40. I come from a family of 'older' mothers. My genes are in my favour. I could probably wait a while to get pregnant, if I wanted, looking at my family history.


But it's not all about the genes, is it? Well-meaning people remind me that it gets harder as you get older, because you have less energy. At 32 I don't feel like I have much less energy than I had in my twenties, but maybe things start to go downhill faster the closer you get to 40. I don't know, of course. Just speculating.


Not to sound like an entitled millennial, but I really think things are quite hard for our generation, when it comes to the kid-decision. Never before have we been presented with so many options. We have the freedom to choose our path and so much information available at our disposal to make a well-informed decision. I don't imagine that when our parents were younger they even questioned whether they would have kids or not. It was just the done thing. You met someone, married them, and popped out some children, if you were able.


Max and I met when I was twenty-three. If we'd followed that blueprint, we could have had an eight year-old by now. Scary.


We've always known that there were many things we wanted to do before even thinking about kids. Travel, get married, get a dog, get a house. We've already accomplished three out of the four, but we don't feel any more ready to tackle the question.


Besides, we'll need a house before we could even consider starting a family. I would argue that out of the four 'criteria', this is the most important. (Not to downplay getting Gus; our furry child has given us much experience when it comes to caring for something that is completely and utterly incapable of doing up its own shoelaces or picking up his own poo!)


Our view of the experience of those around us with kids definitely consolidates fears and forces us to put the breaks on our final decision. People that for the most part we've known without kids, have suddenly become stress-ridden, depressed, and desperate for 'me-time'. We also see their joy, of course. We hear their reassurance that having their babies has been the best, most fulfilling part of their lives to date. But we're not so naïve as not to see what it has cost them. Things that used to light them up - travel, hobbies, friends - are no longer a big part of their lives, or even part of their lives at all. To us, this feels so sad.


To those with kids who I love dearly, I think you're all amazing parents and I take off my hat and fill it with wads of money and bottles of alcohol and give it back to you, because at this moment I don't feel like I could do what you do. To me, you are super-human.


I have literally years of experience in working with children. I work with them because I love them. I love their funny, endearing little ways. I love holding them and being around them and showering them with love and attention. But I've always loved that, at the end of the day, I can hand them back to their respective guardians.


I've changed twenty nappies a day at a nursery where I worked. I've cleaned up their sick, given them snacks, played hour long games of hide-and-seek. I love how I feel like a big kid myself around them. Their innocent, joyful little souls are infectious. There's not much about a child that would put me off having them. Not their tendency to leak out of both ends. Not their inability to string together a complete sentence until they're at least 2 or 3. Not the direct things they say which make you question your self-worth. ("Do I really have dracula teeth??")


But the one thing about them that puts everything into question for me is the noise they make, and the neediness they ooze. Perhaps it is because I'm an introvert, but a squealing child in a shop can set me on edge. A child demanding my attention with a pleading voice for fifteen minutes while I slowly drain my cup of tea - the only 'break' I get before spending hours catering to their every whim so they'll stop squealing at me - makes me grit my teeth.


Maybe we as millennials are too selfish. Maybe we value our free-time and our money and our well-being a bit too highly. Maybe we shouldn't care about having enough time to do a daily yoga session or afford a weekly coffee in some indie coffeeshop with great books, but we can't help it. We've known so much freedom. We've travelled, made lots of friends, enjoyed days of leisurely meandering from coffee shop to pub, spending the money we make doing jobs that are probably much easier than our ancestors'. We've enjoyed a child-free life far longer than our ancestors as well. Most of our young adult lives are spent discovering ourselves and what we want out of life. Those who came before us probably didn't have that luxury.





But we need to accept that there is a biological drive to reproduce, and that no amount of trailing through reddit forums entitled 'I regret my kids' can stop that occasional twinge that makes us wonder if maybe we'll soon find ourselves desiring to leap into the adventure of creating new life and rearing it and loving it like the majority of people around us.


I had a strong desire to have kids when I was in my early twenties, but it soon went away as I began to settle into a life I was finally creating for myself, and that I actually liked. I had minimal desire to reproduce in my mid to late-twenties, although there's been a few times where a pregnancy scare has left me actually hoping that I was pregnant, bizarrely. Perhaps my biological or maternal instinct has always been lurking there in the shadows, and I've just been ignoring it.


Very recently, from seemingly out of nowhere, I had this intense and overpowering desire to have a baby. I literally don't know where it had come from. Suddenly, all the babies around me looked really cute. I was coming up with baby names in my head, and doing quizzes online to find out the likelihood of our future child's eye colour.


I actually lay on my bed and cried one night. So strong was the desire.


Then it went, as fast as it had come.


It's confusing. I do wonder how it's possible for two opposing views on the topic to coexist in me, but they seem to do so quite happily. I logically and psychologically see the disadvantages to giving up a life you love and a lot of yourself to love a small creature who is hard-wired to need you. But sometimes my womb cries out to the contrary.


At this very moment, sitting child-free in a coffee shop on a Thursday, I am very content to remain so for the rest of my life. I envision a future where we can put money into making our home beautiful, travel and go out to dinner with friends. I see myself progressing in my line of work, writing books and maybe even selling a few paintings. And let's not forget, having time to do music.


But I can also accept that one day my maternal instinct might get too strong. I might decide that the joy I will find in having a little person of our own to love and teach and watch grow will equal that of the joy of my current freedom. Maybe I'll decide that being a mother is it's own kind of freedom. That it may be the springboard into an even greater life and sense of satisfaction.


I am ambivalent. Just like so many of my millennial counterparts, or so I have read online.


But this word feels too weak, too milky. It's more than ambivalence. It's about trying ; straining, even; to come to a decision that truly aligns with your heart and your values. It's about having all the options and doing your best to choose the right one.


It's taken me longer than most, I feel, to actually start living for myself. I used to think that looking after 'me' was selfish. I had thought that we were put on this earth to serve, to the detriment of our own wellbeing.


Loving relationships and listening to my intuition have taught me that I must look after myself before I can look after others. It's the 'put your own mask on first' concept. Also, if we don't look after ourselves, who will? We can't expect others or things outside of ourselves to meet all our needs. That's immature, or so I've come to believe.


In recent years I've discovered the benefit of carving out time to be alone, to work-out, to socialise, to spend time in silence. I recognise that all of these things are necessary to being a whole and fulfilled person.


I think I'm scared that if I were to have a child, I would have to sacrifice some or all of these. I'm scared of losing myself again. The self I've only recently discovered, and who I am growing to love.


I've spent so much time pushing other people ahead of me. I'm so scared of being swallowed up and lost forever in others' needs.


But then... but then I look at the cute, chubby baby at the table next to me and wonder. I wonder how my ideas about having kids could change and evolve. I wonder how much I might be capable of in the future. Maybe I'll be able to protect my own needs, as well as cater to the needs of my child. Maybe I won't let myself get unhealthily meshed, as I see happen to mothers everywhere. Maybe I'll be able to enforce healthy boundaries, which is what we all need, at the end of the day.





All this to say, for me, the question of kids isn't a full-stop; it's a question mark.


Maybe all that's necessary to come to a concrete conclusion is more time. But whatever choice I make, I will choose to be happy; because ultimately I know that happiness is a choice; and no-one can take that choice from me.







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