As an older person now with lots of regrets, the one thing I know for sure is that time passes and we all die and that's that. It doesn't really matter that much how we spend our lives ultimately. I look at Agatha Christie and think wow, they're changing her writing so younger generations will want to read her but they never will anyway because time passes and we die and that's that.
As much as I wanted a baby (and I did have one child) I wasn't prepared for the pain that followed. I was a single mother and am still single. Meaning, I didn't really have a life before I had a baby. Then she was my whole life, then she left and now she's living her own life and I'm stuck back where I was before. So even though I am a mother -- I am really just a person now. Writing. Being alone, etc. It's almost as if I never had a kid at all. This was completely unexpected outcome...I guess I could hover around her at all times and never let her go but all I would be doing was trying to fill a void in myself... Your complicated feelings about this subject resonated. Thank you.
“when I see the way many gender-dysphoric young people can get maniacally focused on transitioning, often to the exclusion of just about everything else, there’s a piece of me that understands on a visceral level where they’re coming from.”
Absolutely. Ditto. I’ve been there for sure. With me it was punk rock as a teen. I was religiously tied to the lifestyle--I dressed, talked, acted, became the part. I was angry, at my parents, at God, at school, at life. I felt abandoned and lonely. I simmered with fear and rage. The rebellion of punk (the middle finger of every aspect of it) allowed me to get attention and reflect the hate of myself back onto others. It was my whole identity. I was “punk.” And fuck you. But then I hit a wall and got sober. Everything changed after that. I get these kids nowadays, the fear and angst, the desire for connection and belonging. Same feelings, different social mask. And of course a tiny number of them genuinely have body dysmorphia, and should carefully transition. But many are just young and confused, pulled along by a trendy vapid TikTok culture that encourages groupthink. So I empathize. But: That doesn’t mean we just sit back and encourage 100% of 12-18-year-olds who want to transition to do it.
Mar 28, 2023·edited Mar 29, 2023Liked by Meghan Daum
Thank you for this. It completely illuminates the same trap I'd found myself in around the same time you were at your most prolific when it came to The Motherhood Question, and in fact it formed many of my strong opinions at the time. But yes, alas, my thrashing against the monogamous-married-couple-status-quo was just my thrashing against my (codependent) former relationship. (He wanted children, and my general ambivalence hardened into a firm no-kids stance rooted in what turned out to be the fact that I was just in the wrong relationship. That didn't stop me from marrying him, though his eventual acceptance of a child-free life did at least settle the The Motherhood Question so that I would. We're now divorced anyway. Codependency is a hell of a drug.)
In the interest of full disclosure, I am a GenXer with two beautiful young adult children and I could not imagine my life without them.
Yet as a libertarian, I'm inclined to let people make their own choices: Are you an Orthodox Jew/Evangelical Christian/Mormon who wants five kids like Bethany Mandel? Knock yourself out.
Are you an atheist climate change activist concerned that overpopulation is destroying the earth and you won't have any kids like Greta Thunberg? Again, knock yourself out. (I know Greta is still very young, but I can easily imagine her taking this position at age 30).
Aside from all that meta-analysis, I think you may have omitted a key difference between the child-free mindset and the transgender movement: the strident desire of the latter to make the rest of us go beyond acceptance/tolerance and accede to demands that impinge on the rights of others.
The transgender activists DEMAND that we allow post-pubescent men to compete in women's sports. (This one really burns me up).
The transgender activists DEMAND that men be allowed to enter female bathrooms and locker rooms.
The transgender activists DEMAND that we compromise women's safety in prisons and shelters.
The transgender activists DEMAND that we allow men into women's colleges (I'm hoping the few remaining women's colleges hold the line, but I am not optimistic.)
While there may be a small handful of child-free people who DEMAND that the rest of us stop reproducing, I seriously doubt that telling other people what to do is a central tenet of the child-free belief system.
One final note: since we can't force people to have children, I don't know how to solve the replacement rate problem that will plague social security and Medicare.
I deal with quite a bit of obsessive thoughts and the similarities to activist rhetoric are so strong! Over ten or so years, I've gotten pretty good at categorizing distorted thoughts (a la David Burns of The Feeling Good podcast, one of the godfathers of American CBT).
-I'll never feel at home in my body! (Emotional reasoning, all or nothing thinking)
-I'm irretrievably flawed! (All or nothing, self-blame, "should" statement)
-I'll be a total failure now and forever because I left medicine (Fortune telling, overgeneralization, labeling)
The list goes on. I think it was in The Coddling of the American Mind that Lukianoff and Haidt proposed that social media activism is rife with crippling thought distortions and the best way to overcome them is to FACE THEM. The opposite of safe spaces.
I haven't read the Shallow essay collection yet, but I look forward to it. I also enjoyed Motherhood by Sheila Heti. She used a game of chance to "decide" whether she wanted to be a Mom, with lots of self-awareness. It was easy to read and thoughtful. A little arch, but that's her voice.
Mar 28, 2023·edited Mar 29, 2023Liked by Meghan Daum
There seem to be more high-needs kids than ever before, a daunting possibility that does not seem to stop the urge to procreate. Whether an outlier in the childless-by-choice camp or on the continuum between that and infertility, there are so many issues that follow a woman without children. It has become one of the more defining aspects of who I am, but I am rarely asked a thing about it. I like what you say: "My life isn't a movement or revolution; it's just my life." New issues arise as one enters the 60s and a new generation of babies are being born to nieces and nephews, children of friends. They make such a big deal of it with gender reveal parties and extravagant baby showers. The role of grandparent seems to take on a magical status. As you say, it is what most people do. I appreciate that you, Ruby Warrington, and a few others are keeping a conversation alive. ALSO, about the replacement issue ... our society must begin to offer greater financial reward to women who choose to make this sacrifice. Years ago, I may have gone the way of parenthood, if the economic puzzle had not been so daunting. It is even more complicated today for young women living in our pricey world.
A seminal piece of honest reflection, Meghan! I’d also ask : is repeated or first rejection the main reason why “outliers” find deep rabbit holes of confirmation bias (online or otherwise)? Is advancement to middle age required for the plateau of self actualization, or can one courageously accelerate the process sooner?
"And make no mistake, I’m certainly not saying that gender dysphoria itself isn’t real."
I have trouble with this statement, which I think is often a way to say "I'm not a bigot, I have empathy". Gender dysphoria is as real as any human feeling is real, and is as verifiable as any emotion, which is to say, not at all. People are notoriously bad self-reporters. We change our own narrative, we re-frame our feelings...as you so eloquently wrote.
To call gender dysphoria a social contagion doesn't make it any less "real" than anorexia, also a social contagion. It doesn't mean it should be dismissed. But I don't think we would say the same thing about social contagions which are outside of our culture, like koro, the fear that one's penis will retract into one's body, generally found in South-East Asia. Would you say that was "real", too?
Megan, your book “Selfish, Shallow and Self Absorbed” was incredible and it changed lives!! Regardless of the fact that it was written in a fit of passionate rage against the pressures of becoming a parent :) it was amazing for anyone trying to be intentional about a really, really difficult decision.
This is lovely writing.
As an older person now with lots of regrets, the one thing I know for sure is that time passes and we all die and that's that. It doesn't really matter that much how we spend our lives ultimately. I look at Agatha Christie and think wow, they're changing her writing so younger generations will want to read her but they never will anyway because time passes and we die and that's that.
As much as I wanted a baby (and I did have one child) I wasn't prepared for the pain that followed. I was a single mother and am still single. Meaning, I didn't really have a life before I had a baby. Then she was my whole life, then she left and now she's living her own life and I'm stuck back where I was before. So even though I am a mother -- I am really just a person now. Writing. Being alone, etc. It's almost as if I never had a kid at all. This was completely unexpected outcome...I guess I could hover around her at all times and never let her go but all I would be doing was trying to fill a void in myself... Your complicated feelings about this subject resonated. Thank you.
"[P]ersonal pain can lead to a life of obsessive confirmation bias" -- boy howdy!
“when I see the way many gender-dysphoric young people can get maniacally focused on transitioning, often to the exclusion of just about everything else, there’s a piece of me that understands on a visceral level where they’re coming from.”
Absolutely. Ditto. I’ve been there for sure. With me it was punk rock as a teen. I was religiously tied to the lifestyle--I dressed, talked, acted, became the part. I was angry, at my parents, at God, at school, at life. I felt abandoned and lonely. I simmered with fear and rage. The rebellion of punk (the middle finger of every aspect of it) allowed me to get attention and reflect the hate of myself back onto others. It was my whole identity. I was “punk.” And fuck you. But then I hit a wall and got sober. Everything changed after that. I get these kids nowadays, the fear and angst, the desire for connection and belonging. Same feelings, different social mask. And of course a tiny number of them genuinely have body dysmorphia, and should carefully transition. But many are just young and confused, pulled along by a trendy vapid TikTok culture that encourages groupthink. So I empathize. But: That doesn’t mean we just sit back and encourage 100% of 12-18-year-olds who want to transition to do it.
Michael Mohr
‘Sincere American Writing’
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
The only place I ever felt out of place is when I tried to fit in someplace.
And this is as true today of the so called "literary citizenship" community as it was when I got off the bus after school in first grade.
Thank you for this. It completely illuminates the same trap I'd found myself in around the same time you were at your most prolific when it came to The Motherhood Question, and in fact it formed many of my strong opinions at the time. But yes, alas, my thrashing against the monogamous-married-couple-status-quo was just my thrashing against my (codependent) former relationship. (He wanted children, and my general ambivalence hardened into a firm no-kids stance rooted in what turned out to be the fact that I was just in the wrong relationship. That didn't stop me from marrying him, though his eventual acceptance of a child-free life did at least settle the The Motherhood Question so that I would. We're now divorced anyway. Codependency is a hell of a drug.)
You could write a book on how to be a proper outlier.
The clarity of your introspection on this subject is sublime.
This could be titled My Empathy Journey. What a smart and honest perspective.
Meghan,
In the interest of full disclosure, I am a GenXer with two beautiful young adult children and I could not imagine my life without them.
Yet as a libertarian, I'm inclined to let people make their own choices: Are you an Orthodox Jew/Evangelical Christian/Mormon who wants five kids like Bethany Mandel? Knock yourself out.
Are you an atheist climate change activist concerned that overpopulation is destroying the earth and you won't have any kids like Greta Thunberg? Again, knock yourself out. (I know Greta is still very young, but I can easily imagine her taking this position at age 30).
Aside from all that meta-analysis, I think you may have omitted a key difference between the child-free mindset and the transgender movement: the strident desire of the latter to make the rest of us go beyond acceptance/tolerance and accede to demands that impinge on the rights of others.
The transgender activists DEMAND that we allow post-pubescent men to compete in women's sports. (This one really burns me up).
The transgender activists DEMAND that men be allowed to enter female bathrooms and locker rooms.
The transgender activists DEMAND that we compromise women's safety in prisons and shelters.
The transgender activists DEMAND that we allow men into women's colleges (I'm hoping the few remaining women's colleges hold the line, but I am not optimistic.)
While there may be a small handful of child-free people who DEMAND that the rest of us stop reproducing, I seriously doubt that telling other people what to do is a central tenet of the child-free belief system.
One final note: since we can't force people to have children, I don't know how to solve the replacement rate problem that will plague social security and Medicare.
I deal with quite a bit of obsessive thoughts and the similarities to activist rhetoric are so strong! Over ten or so years, I've gotten pretty good at categorizing distorted thoughts (a la David Burns of The Feeling Good podcast, one of the godfathers of American CBT).
-I'll never feel at home in my body! (Emotional reasoning, all or nothing thinking)
-I'm irretrievably flawed! (All or nothing, self-blame, "should" statement)
-I'll be a total failure now and forever because I left medicine (Fortune telling, overgeneralization, labeling)
The list goes on. I think it was in The Coddling of the American Mind that Lukianoff and Haidt proposed that social media activism is rife with crippling thought distortions and the best way to overcome them is to FACE THEM. The opposite of safe spaces.
I haven't read the Shallow essay collection yet, but I look forward to it. I also enjoyed Motherhood by Sheila Heti. She used a game of chance to "decide" whether she wanted to be a Mom, with lots of self-awareness. It was easy to read and thoughtful. A little arch, but that's her voice.
Cheers!
These days, I don’t remember much of what I read, but I’ll remember this piece, and especially the emotions that go with it. Congratulations.
There seem to be more high-needs kids than ever before, a daunting possibility that does not seem to stop the urge to procreate. Whether an outlier in the childless-by-choice camp or on the continuum between that and infertility, there are so many issues that follow a woman without children. It has become one of the more defining aspects of who I am, but I am rarely asked a thing about it. I like what you say: "My life isn't a movement or revolution; it's just my life." New issues arise as one enters the 60s and a new generation of babies are being born to nieces and nephews, children of friends. They make such a big deal of it with gender reveal parties and extravagant baby showers. The role of grandparent seems to take on a magical status. As you say, it is what most people do. I appreciate that you, Ruby Warrington, and a few others are keeping a conversation alive. ALSO, about the replacement issue ... our society must begin to offer greater financial reward to women who choose to make this sacrifice. Years ago, I may have gone the way of parenthood, if the economic puzzle had not been so daunting. It is even more complicated today for young women living in our pricey world.
What a fascinating parallel. Great piece.
A seminal piece of honest reflection, Meghan! I’d also ask : is repeated or first rejection the main reason why “outliers” find deep rabbit holes of confirmation bias (online or otherwise)? Is advancement to middle age required for the plateau of self actualization, or can one courageously accelerate the process sooner?
"And make no mistake, I’m certainly not saying that gender dysphoria itself isn’t real."
I have trouble with this statement, which I think is often a way to say "I'm not a bigot, I have empathy". Gender dysphoria is as real as any human feeling is real, and is as verifiable as any emotion, which is to say, not at all. People are notoriously bad self-reporters. We change our own narrative, we re-frame our feelings...as you so eloquently wrote.
To call gender dysphoria a social contagion doesn't make it any less "real" than anorexia, also a social contagion. It doesn't mean it should be dismissed. But I don't think we would say the same thing about social contagions which are outside of our culture, like koro, the fear that one's penis will retract into one's body, generally found in South-East Asia. Would you say that was "real", too?
Megan, your book “Selfish, Shallow and Self Absorbed” was incredible and it changed lives!! Regardless of the fact that it was written in a fit of passionate rage against the pressures of becoming a parent :) it was amazing for anyone trying to be intentional about a really, really difficult decision.