Grow Up, Seriously Already

That title is ironic. Or it’s meant to be, anyway.

This afternoon, my wife and I drove down to Staten Island (about 1.5 hours away) to visit our friends, who have 3-year-old twin girls. I got home about three hours ago, and I need a nap. My wife just went to get a massage. Being around kids, even calm, well-behaved kids like these girls, is exhausting. This is an official shout-out to anyone who’s parenting actively: you are amazing.

We know some really not-good parents: they’re so tired, or so wrapped up in their own selves, or so mystified about how to handle tough situations with their kids that they just check out. The result is, often, rather ugly; we had one nine-year-old in our house throwing a tantrum because she hadn’t learned to occupy herself for an hour while her parents talked to other adults. (There were books here, and dogs and a cat, plus she had a car’s load of her own toys, and there is a big, fenced-in back yard… Plus a sink full of dishes and several loads of laundry that needed doing… I’m only sort of joking.) Her mother tried bargaining with her while her father ignored the whole ordeal entirely.

We know some really great parents, too. The parents we hung out with today, for instance, are great: they pay attention to their kids, but also manage to let them know that sometimes their attention will be on other people. They teach their kids how to amuse themselves (puzzles, books, coloring, playing with their dog–not plunking them in front of the TV, either).

My wife and I have chosen not to have children. Neither of us is so inclined, though both of us like our friends’ children and both of us have worked for 20 years with college-aged kids. But we know we just don’t have the energy or desire to devote to raising kids of our own, and since we’re monogamous lesbians, having kids would most likely be an active choice on our parts, one we’re able to categorically decide against. I like being an auntie instead–I’m “auntie” to several kids, and many more of my former students keep me around as some sort of friend-mom combo. I get all the fun parts of being around kids and young adults, with minimal poop and tantrums and guilt. (I’m not saying whose poop, tantrums or guilt it is… make your own assumptions, but I’ve watched enough parents to know the answers are probably not as obvious as you might assume. Also, please note that I have never been pooped on by one of my former college students–with them, it’s mostly the guilt and maybe the occasional tantrum.) I’ve had to give a few sex education talks and have spent more than one evening in an emergency room or at a hospital bedside. (Once, I had a student who had sickle cell anemia, and visiting him in the hospital during one of his more severe attacks was the hardest, most heart-breaking thing I can remember. My heart goes out to his parents.)  I do the worry thing, and the caring thing, and I get lots of rewards, but all parts of it, I imagine, are quite a bit less than they would be if I were a parent. Plus, with the older ones, I get to be a friend (one to whose advice they tend to listen), which means most of that stuff is given to me, too.

When my wife and I first got “married” (maaaaaaany years before we were legally married, of course, since that only just became a possibility, hence the quotation marks), several people asked us whether we were going to have kids. My wife has never wanted children, so the answer was pretty quick and easy to give. But we both began to feel really frustrated, because lots of people didn’t take us seriously because (1) we were not legally “married” and (2) we were non-reproductive (two uteruses, no testicles) and (3) we did not intend to bring children into our relationship at all. In many peoples’ eyes, you’re not an adult (and not in a “real” relationship) until you have children.

The combination of these 3 factors meant that, in many peoples’ eyes, we were not a “real” couple, even if those folks considered themselves enlightened enough to imagine a lesbian couple as potentially “real.” My wife has never wanted kids, and when she would say this when she was very young, everyone would tell her to wait until she was older, because her mind would change. It didn’t. From knowing young folk, I found out that a young woman in many states cannot get a doctor to tie her tubes until she is 25, because doctors do not want to help her make that decision “too early.” (Meanwhile, it’s fine for you to go into the armed services and kill people, sweetie, but we need to make sure there is at least the potential that we can knock you up.)

When you’re a lesbian, there’s an odd combination of sexism and homophobia (often called “heterosexiusm”) that comes to bear down on you. People assume because you are a woman you must have/want to have children, and if you are in a non-reproductive relationship, it is not real and, furthermore, you would have kids if you only could find a man to give you some genetic material with which to do it.

Understand: I am not vilifying anyone who chooses to have children. I know many, many fabulous parents who are making the world better by raising great kids. I am vilifying the notion that a woman must have kids, and if she does not, she is not a “real” woman and to be suspected of green-faced witchcraft; I am vilifying the notion that any relationship that is non-reproductive is not “real.”

My relationship with my wife has lasted longer than my parents’ (straight, reproductive, legal from day one) marriage.

I could go on for a long time and list out the relationships denegrated as not legit (non-monogamous, polygamous, non-reproductive, non-hetero, and in many cases, non-white and non-upper-middle class), but you can figure that one out on your own. I would, in tryin to make an exhaustive list, inevitably leave something out.

Points are:

1. If someone defines their relationship or their being as important, then you best step to and respect it.
2. Having kids is great, but not everyone needs to (or should) do it.
3. Liking your friends’ kids doesn’t not equate to wanting your own.
4. I like not having a lock on my toilet.