Loved this! Excellent advice. I went through a deep, difficult discernment process over having children, despite not wanting them the majority of my life. Having a supportive partner whom I can envision raising a child with successfully and family pressure (I am the only one of my siblings in a reasonable position to have children now and potentially ever) had me rethinking what I always thought I wanted.
Spending even a little time with families who have kids has allowed me to see that it's a lifestyle I do not want. The realization felt like coming home to myself. It's amazing how outside pressures and even fantasies (my best friend lives in my building--how fun would it be to raise our kids together?) influenced my thought process. In the end though, through much deliberation and soul-searching, I feel confident having kids is not for me. Always happy to be an Auntie though!
Shanna, you make such a good point about the lure of the fantasies of parenting! The two that really hooked me were 1) the thought of getting to see my children with my parents (who already have nine grandchildren and are EXCELLENT grandparents); and 2) getting to be friends with my kids when they are adults like I am friends with my parents as an adult. Both of those were so hard to let go of.
One thing I'd add is to try to spend prolonged portions of time with kids-without their parents around. I had already decided to be childfree but after spending 5 days taking care of two kids while their parents (my dear friends) were away while NOT working a job it cemented for me how much I didn't want that life. I had amazing moments with them AND the monotony of it wasn't for me which I think, as your post suggests, best mimicked parenting. I had done an overnight or two but it was the three day mark that it really gave me the barometer for what the experience was like. I'm now also about to me much more empathetic AND more excited about my personal life choice. I was disappointed that your footnote 3 didn't link to research about regret for parents. I've had two mom friends say they'd be interested to see this.
Oh, man, Zoe, a 5-day stint is a GREAT way to get some realistic intel on what parenting is like. Many parents will say, "oh, but it's different when they're yours," and do believe them when they say that. But also, the relentlessness is the relentlessness no matter whose kids you're taking care of.
As for research on parental regret, Orna Donath is the go-to. Her book is Regretting Motherhood, and although I haven't read the whole thing (it's short), what I did read was heartwrenching. There's also an article from one of the major newspapers or magazines (NYT, The Atlantic, somewhere like that), which really shaped my thinking on this topic. I was trying to find it and I came across this Guardian article, which links to some Facebook and Reddit groups for parents and also cites a 2013 Gallup Poll in the US in which 7% of respondents reported wishing they could go back and not have children.
I appreciated how you acknowledge there can be pressure to have or not have children. As someone who lives in a conservative area and has mostly childfree friends, I often feel out-of-place. It feels like everyone is telling me either "you have to have kids and you have to have them right now" or "kids are awful and bad for the environment." It's frustrating.
Also on false binaries, I hate how conversations on the fertility industry always focus on the individual level (not a critique here just reminded of this because the price of IVF is a major problem). Years ago, I tried to become an egg donor and that become the inspiration for my master's thesis. The US fertility industry is unregulated and predatory because of how profit-driven it is. Most people who pay for IVF have to take out a loan to do so and sometimes that loan comes from the fertility clinics themselves -- something that should be a clear conflict of interest. Unfortunately, there is little push to do anything about this in part because people (rightly) fear that regulation will be used by fundamentalists to restrict reproductive care.
Mia, it is so helpful for me personally to see the word "predatory" applied to the IVF industry. I had never put that label on it before, but that's exactly how it felt to me. Thank you for this insight and perspective. In fact, I was talking to someone this morning (after I'd read your comment but before I had a chance to respond to it), who was telling me about her own extremely-messed-up experience with IVF, and I told her about the label "predatory" that you'd applied and we both had a moment of like, nodding our heads in deep solidarity.
I love the idea of informed consent for becoming a parent. And I think your encouragement to spend time with multiple different families (including families with children who have special needs) is KEY. My husband and I both spent a lot of time with kids before becoming parents. He grew up with an in-home daycare at his house and had coached multiple youth sports teams. I babysat and nannied for many families, and taught youth dance classes. We thought we knew what we were getting into. But I've realized in the time since that we both had a big gap when it came to neurodivergent kids and kids with special needs. And I think there's a good reason for that: those families are less likely to hire a babysitter, have a nanny, use daycare, or put their kids in sports and activities. All of those things are really stinking hard for some neurodivergent kids, and we know that firsthand now, because of our own wonderful kids. Boy were we blindsided in some areas (did you know some neurodivergent babies have extreme insomnia? I did not, until we had a baby who did not sleep more than 7 hours total in any 24 hour period).
We're very grateful for our amazing kids, and we are extremely fortunate to have a strong community of support (including several heroic aunties) as well as the financial means to get our kids the care they need. But even with all that support, we are exhausted and overwhelmed most of the time, almost a decade into parenting. At the bare minimum, I wish we'd had a better idea of what to expect. And ideally, we would have carefully weighed whether we were equipped for a parenting journey that included managing special needs, and taken classes to prepare.
Jeannie, you make such an important point that families with kids with special needs are often less "out there" in the community -- less likely to use babysitters and daycare, enroll in sports and activities. This means the rest of us are less accustomed to being around kids with special needs, which is a loss to us, and families who have kids with special needs become even more isolated even as they often need more support. All this is making me want to just double down on my suggestion that prospective parents should hang with families that have kids with special needs.
And this is also making me recall that the popular imagination regarding what counts as "special needs" is very limited. A lot of us picture visible disabilities when we think of people with special needs -- someone who uses a wheelchair, or has Down syndrome. But actually, many, many special needs, in people of all ages, aren't necessarily immediately perceptible to outsiders. (Your example about neurodivergent babies' insomnia, Jeannie, is such a good example of this).
I have a SIGNIFICANT number of friends whose kids are neurodivergent in various ways, and these kinds of special needs can be equally demanding on parents, but people outside their immediate circle often don't even know. Those families may somewhat withdraw from public spaces and often nobody notices or asks why.
And when we're contemplating whether to have kids, the conversation, again, often focuses on visible disabilities but doesn't take into account the large numbers of kids, with, say, sensory processing issues. Even if you do all the genetic testing, there's still a pretty high chance you'll have a kid with special needs. It would be so much better if we could normalize this as a society, recognize that kids with special needs aren't a problem that needs to be gotten rid of or cured, but also build cultural norms around providing more community support to these families.
I’m curious to know how many people do spend extensive time with families and children and then freely go on to choose having a child. I feel like the majority of women I know who do not want them feel this way precisely because they have spent extensive time as caregivers of other people’s children and they’ve realized it’s not for them.
I too am curious about this! It's interesting to me that a lot of the comments so far today have been from people who were like "I spend a lot of time with kids and that's how I figured out I want to be an Auntie instead." Of course, this is a self-selecting audience: there are LOTS of Aunties here, in particular, and it stands to reason there'd be a high proportion of "informed no's" to parenting among Auntie Bulletin readers. There's a certain degree of "knowing too much," which was definitely part of my own deciding experience.
But in the meantime, my social science researcher brain wants to conduct a study: among people who spend a lot of time with kids and families while they are trying to decide whether to become parents themselves, what proportion tips one way and what proportion the other? Maybe we could do some informal surveying among Auntie Bulletin readers sometime. Although we'll continue to have a disproportionate representation of Aunties here, so maybe it should be a collaboration with a parent newsletter. (Anyone know Claire Zulkey, find out if she wants to do an Evil Witches/Auntie Bulletin reader survey collab!)
Love this advice! I am in the lucky situation of living with a friend and her 6 year old and I've learned so much about what parenting really entails. It's helped me see that it's probably not right for me especially given my circumstances (health, finances etc) but if I had decided I did want to be a parent it would have given me so many insights into what I would have found hard and needed to prepare for (emotionally as well as practically).
Sarah, you're living the dream! (By some definitions of "dream.") Certainly it sounds like you're in a premium Auntie set-up. I bet your friend and her kid are so happy to have you in their lives.
This was a beautiful essay, I’m going to send this to my friends contemplating the decision! To respond to your question at the end quickly - I really appreciated when my friends let me talk about breastfeeding struggles and wins, even though it was probably a little weird/gross/more intimate than they were used to. The reason being, my experience of having a newborn was like 90% breastfeeding - like that felt like all I was doing day and night - so I deeply when people asked me about it and gave me space to talk. Just like, generally acknowledged that it was a huge aspect of new parenthood for me.
Thank you so much, Liz! I forgot to ask in my initial request, above (because I was finishing this essay at 3am, if you can believe it, and my eyes were swimming), but is it okay if I quote you on talking about breastfeeding in the Baby Bill of Rights article? I could do that with or without your name...
As a child-free-by-choice bestie of someone who had a baby last May, hearing about breastfeeding was one of my favorite things she's shared about her new parent journey! I will never experience it, but I am theoretically capable of physically doing it, so I had tons of questions about what it's like and how she was handling everything. I found it so fascinating to hear about this new, very all-consuming aspect of her life.
This is really solid guidance. Taking that step into spending lots of time with kids and families certainly is not for the faint of heart! Which is also how I would describe parenting.
As a parent I will say that parenting in the absence of a social safety net can feel like regret about having children, when I know that I have no regrets about having children. Also, to children, having parents who lack sufficient support can also feel as bad as having parents who regret having children. These aren't fully distinct experiences.
The drum I will beat until the end of time is that aunties or not, childless people have a responsibility to families that is largely unacknowledged. Do you want a healthy society? Do you want less homelessness and crime? Do you want to be cared for by a kind and loving caretaker in your old age? Do you want the person in the car behind you to scream at you or let you merge? Many (most?) societal ills stem from difficult childhoods, and many difficult childhoods stem from lack of structural support. Most, I would argue. Have we all heard of ACEs? Most ACEs are catalyzed by extreme stress placed on parents in highly unsupportive environments.
You can choose to be an auntie by actively being involved in child's life (yes!), and you can use some of that abundant spare time to passionately advocate for the many policies that would provide parents the supports they need to raise healthy, well adjusted children. Wouldn't you have wanted those supports for your parents? I sure as hell would have.
What policies, you say? Universal healthcare. Paid family leave - lots of it. Universal free pre-k. Adequately funded public schools. Part time work opportunities. Zoning and land use laws that encourage co-housing. Public bathrooms everywhere. Family friendly affordable housing for all. That's just a start.
Eva, I LOVE this point: "Parenting in the absence of a social safety net can feel like regret about having children, when I know that I have no regrets about having children. Also, to children, having parents who lack sufficient support can also feel as bad as having parents who regret having children. These aren't fully distinct experiences."
Actually, I love this whole comment. Could I share it in the Auntie Bulletin mail bag on Monday? If so, should I include your name or just "an Auntie Bulletin reader"?
Also, FYI, your view about our responsibilities to other people's children is one I really share and am deeply interested in. I'll be writing about this later this month when I put out The Auntie Bulletin Strategic Plan, but my 3-5 year vision is to expand to a project? nonprofit? larger newsletter umbrella? called Other People's Children that focuses on what members of a society owe to kids who are not their own (and to strangers generally). This ties into my academic research, which I don't think I've written much about yet at The Auntie Bulletin -- if at all -- which focuses broadly on supporting public schools.
So basically, look for me to be beating the drum alongside you more publicly, soon.
This is an interesting take. I want to try and thoughtfully push back on this a bit but know that sometimes these kinds of discussions can become fraught/divisive. I’m hoping that when you are saying that childless people have a responsibility to families you are meaning that in the same way that we all have responsibility onto each other—just as humans, kids or no kids. The way this is stated makes it sound like people raising kids are doing everyone a favor (and there’s something expected in return) and while certainly we need people to continue as a species, I’d venture that’s not the motivation of most parents. I agree that we want a better society and for kids and families to function well, but to point at childless people, assuming they aren’t fighting for these policies, and say you aren’t holding up your end of the bargain feels unfair. It feels especially unfair in a culture where plenty of parents and families actively vote against the policies you mentioned that would make life better for kids/families/everyone.
I do think that everyone, childless or not, is responsible for children. Not in owing, but in being involved in the care of people who cannot care for themselves. Just as everyone is responsible for people with disabling mental illness, people with disabilities, and the unhoused. All capable people are responsible for all people who cannot care for themselves.
I made no assumption, either implicit or explicit, that childless people aren't advocating for policies that benefit children. I know that there are advocates and detractors among parents and non-parents alike. I do think that it goes largely unacknowledged that childless people do have a responsibility to children, whether through direct care or through policy advocacy or any other number of ways people without children choose to support children. A childless person's role is often painted as opting in, and if they do opt in, it is an act of generosity or selflessness. I argue that it is actually in everyone's interest to chip in for the welfare of children. We could probably predict the results of a hypothetical survey of parents and non-parents, showing where the lion's share of child-supportive advocacy and care is coming from. It doesn't mean many people aren't doing the work, it just means that a lot more people could, and should.
I see what you are saying—maybe I was a bit peeved at the abundance of time comment and that clouded how I understood this. My apologies! Maybe this responsibility goes unacknowledged because the dominant culture (speaking from a United States perspective) doesn’t agree that that responsibility to take care of anyone unable to care for themselves exists. Most examples that I can think of are an exemption to the rule of individualism that permeates our society. I wish that we lived in a society where taking care of those that need it (in all ways that can take shape) was the dominant way of going about life.
I agree so much! And I also agree that I didn't have to dig on the abundance of time part. Call it a generalized envy that's not directed at anyone in particular. Everyone has stressors and time constraints, children or no children. And I totally agree on the dominant culture paradigm. I do believe our American dominant culture of individualism is truly unwell, and parents play into it too. I also feel guilty about how selfish I was when I didn't have children, and how I wish I had known better about how to care for my friends who had children. Truly though, I was not fully grown until I had children, so I was unable to see outside myself. Not everyone has that problem. ;)
Geez, way to de-escalate, you two. Can we all just live in a society where everyone responds to minor miscommunications and slights with this level of grace and care? Thanks for modeling such wisdom here.
I appreciate this post! As a parent, I didn’t really know or like kids before having them but my partner and I knew we wanted kids. I feel like being a parent is my favorite thing I’ve ever done (my partner would say the same), but/and being around other families is often annoying and I like my own kids best, ha. So. I dunno! I’m not sure there’s a great formula for knowing.
Jojo, this is such a great contribution. I think you're right that if we're looking for a formula, we're going to end up disappointed. Your comment is making me think about the fact that you already knew you wanted kids -- you didn't have to do the fence-sitting thing for months or years like some. I wonder if that pattern holds among a lot of folks in your boat: they knew they wanted kids, and being around other people's kids wouldn't necessarily influence that. I wouldn't be surprised!
Appreciated this piece and great advice! Spending time with families has been a big contributor to my thoughts against becoming a parent after a lifetime of thinking I wanted to be one. In theory I love the idea of raising a little human and fostering their development over time and guiding them into adulthood and beyond. In reality, seeing how much resources that it requires (mentally/physically/financially) has made me realize that parenting is likely not for me, but auntie hood is a great fit. I think it’s especially important to see families with kids outside the baby/toddler stage. People get really excited about babies/toddlers like puppies or kittens, but the real hard work seems to come as they get older and the stakes are higher. I’m sure many parents would say the rewards are even greater then too, but the unrelenting aspect of that journey feels especially daunting to me.
That's so interesting that you went for a long time believing you DID want kids, Taylor. It's making me realize that I had assumed that people who find themselves on the fence must be like me, and have believed for a long time that they DIDN'T want kids. But that's just pure taking my own experience and assuming it applies to everyone, LOL. Thanks for the broadened perspective!
You wrote that you don’t think having children without knowing what you’re doing isn’t necessarily a doomed choice but I’d say it CAN be. I think a lot of folks are dealing with shit precisely becuz their parent(s) struggled/didn’t know what they were doing. Raising a child is really hard on so many levels. It’s not a project you can cram for.
I also think your point about the nuclear family is spot-on. We’re all too isolated and it’s getting worse all the time. People think ‘doing away’ with the nuclear family is somehow boosting ‘non-traditional’ families but really, nuclear families are the non-traditional types, no? By historical definitions.
This is a really good point, Elle. I agree, a lot of the "doomed" family set-ups -- whatever we mean by that -- do tend to arise out of people becoming parents with no preparation. I'm certainly no expert on where good parents come from, and the last thing I ever want to do at The Auntie Bulletin is judge ANY parents.
So I guess I'll just say that I bet there are pretty large numbers of parents out there who feel like they're failing. Preventing parental distress around feeling like a terrible parent alone is worth creating a standard of informed consent.
I complete agree with you about the nuclear family being non-traditional at this point. This is a non-child example, but I didn’t change my name after getting married because none of my friends did (or they hyphenated) and it was just seen as the correct thing to do. But I recently changed it to match my husband’s after realizing that I was just keeping my surname for a weird sort of feminist cred, and it wasn’t what I actually wanted. There is a strong stigma amongst certain millennial/Gen Z populations against anything that can be deemed historically traditional. I don’t think anyone even 10 years ago would have an entire group of friends across the board who didn’t take their husband’s surname!
Elyse, this is so interesting! I had never thought about keeping our names out of feminist cred, but you're totally right. I love that you made the choice that felt right for you.
Really agree with you on the first point! It’s why hearing “no one’s ever truly ready, you just figure it out” when discussing concerns/worries about becoming a parent (especially when talking about money) grates me to my core. I am the product of parents that just “figured it out” and while my childhood wasn’t horrible, I couldn’t/wouldn’t willingly put another human through the stress and anxiety that marked my growing up and is now apart of my daily life as an adult. It worries me that we normalize going into parenthood so blindly without truly thinking about the consequences to the kid.
It's so hard to have these conversations in a way that doesn't judge parents AND holds kids' needs in view, isn't it? When I started this newsletter I honestly did not anticipate the level of emotional minefield I was blithely striding into.
I love this advice, and I don’t have any real beef with it, but as a mother who is soooo not a “little kids” person but loves my own kids so freaking much, I’m sincerely wondering if anyone (other than the special few who are made to be preschool teachers) would choose to have kids under this experiment. I’ll never love hanging out with other peoples’ toddlers in say, a vacation setting. It’s inconvenient AF. Does anyone like it? If someone likes it, then I would say hell yeah, you’ll love being a parent. But if you don’t? I dk if I agree that it means you wouldn’t like being a parent, overall. It’s super cliche to say but it really is different when it’s your own kids. You love them differently. If you’re lucky enough to be an aunt to your own sibling’s children that can probably give you the closest simulation of what it would be like to have your own because you love them and they’re probably being raised similar(ish) to how you would raise your own child, but I don’t think hanging with non-relative’s kids or families is going to give you as realistic of a “test run.”
I grew up Mormon and having kids is just what you did, so I didn’t really make the conscious decision to have kids. It’s just what you did. Now that I’ve deconstructed, I know having kids is not the only way to have a fulfilling, happy life, and I wonder what decision I would have made if I had deconstructed my faith a decade earlier. I don’t want this post to come across as me pushing anyone to have kids. It’s so freaking grueling. But I also love my kids and love parenting them. I just wanted to give this perspective in case someone was leaning toward having kids but left your post overthinking about how much they hated playing Barbies with their best friend’s three-year old.
Loved this! Excellent advice. I went through a deep, difficult discernment process over having children, despite not wanting them the majority of my life. Having a supportive partner whom I can envision raising a child with successfully and family pressure (I am the only one of my siblings in a reasonable position to have children now and potentially ever) had me rethinking what I always thought I wanted.
Spending even a little time with families who have kids has allowed me to see that it's a lifestyle I do not want. The realization felt like coming home to myself. It's amazing how outside pressures and even fantasies (my best friend lives in my building--how fun would it be to raise our kids together?) influenced my thought process. In the end though, through much deliberation and soul-searching, I feel confident having kids is not for me. Always happy to be an Auntie though!
Shanna, you make such a good point about the lure of the fantasies of parenting! The two that really hooked me were 1) the thought of getting to see my children with my parents (who already have nine grandchildren and are EXCELLENT grandparents); and 2) getting to be friends with my kids when they are adults like I am friends with my parents as an adult. Both of those were so hard to let go of.
One thing I'd add is to try to spend prolonged portions of time with kids-without their parents around. I had already decided to be childfree but after spending 5 days taking care of two kids while their parents (my dear friends) were away while NOT working a job it cemented for me how much I didn't want that life. I had amazing moments with them AND the monotony of it wasn't for me which I think, as your post suggests, best mimicked parenting. I had done an overnight or two but it was the three day mark that it really gave me the barometer for what the experience was like. I'm now also about to me much more empathetic AND more excited about my personal life choice. I was disappointed that your footnote 3 didn't link to research about regret for parents. I've had two mom friends say they'd be interested to see this.
Oh, man, Zoe, a 5-day stint is a GREAT way to get some realistic intel on what parenting is like. Many parents will say, "oh, but it's different when they're yours," and do believe them when they say that. But also, the relentlessness is the relentlessness no matter whose kids you're taking care of.
As for research on parental regret, Orna Donath is the go-to. Her book is Regretting Motherhood, and although I haven't read the whole thing (it's short), what I did read was heartwrenching. There's also an article from one of the major newspapers or magazines (NYT, The Atlantic, somewhere like that), which really shaped my thinking on this topic. I was trying to find it and I came across this Guardian article, which links to some Facebook and Reddit groups for parents and also cites a 2013 Gallup Poll in the US in which 7% of respondents reported wishing they could go back and not have children.
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2024/sep/26/regret-having-children-no-kids-cultural-taboo
Oh, and then this is the one I was originally thinking of, from R.O. Kwan at Time Magazine:
https://time.com/6966914/parental-regret-children-ro-kwon-essay/
I appreciated how you acknowledge there can be pressure to have or not have children. As someone who lives in a conservative area and has mostly childfree friends, I often feel out-of-place. It feels like everyone is telling me either "you have to have kids and you have to have them right now" or "kids are awful and bad for the environment." It's frustrating.
Also on false binaries, I hate how conversations on the fertility industry always focus on the individual level (not a critique here just reminded of this because the price of IVF is a major problem). Years ago, I tried to become an egg donor and that become the inspiration for my master's thesis. The US fertility industry is unregulated and predatory because of how profit-driven it is. Most people who pay for IVF have to take out a loan to do so and sometimes that loan comes from the fertility clinics themselves -- something that should be a clear conflict of interest. Unfortunately, there is little push to do anything about this in part because people (rightly) fear that regulation will be used by fundamentalists to restrict reproductive care.
Mia, it is so helpful for me personally to see the word "predatory" applied to the IVF industry. I had never put that label on it before, but that's exactly how it felt to me. Thank you for this insight and perspective. In fact, I was talking to someone this morning (after I'd read your comment but before I had a chance to respond to it), who was telling me about her own extremely-messed-up experience with IVF, and I told her about the label "predatory" that you'd applied and we both had a moment of like, nodding our heads in deep solidarity.
I love the idea of informed consent for becoming a parent. And I think your encouragement to spend time with multiple different families (including families with children who have special needs) is KEY. My husband and I both spent a lot of time with kids before becoming parents. He grew up with an in-home daycare at his house and had coached multiple youth sports teams. I babysat and nannied for many families, and taught youth dance classes. We thought we knew what we were getting into. But I've realized in the time since that we both had a big gap when it came to neurodivergent kids and kids with special needs. And I think there's a good reason for that: those families are less likely to hire a babysitter, have a nanny, use daycare, or put their kids in sports and activities. All of those things are really stinking hard for some neurodivergent kids, and we know that firsthand now, because of our own wonderful kids. Boy were we blindsided in some areas (did you know some neurodivergent babies have extreme insomnia? I did not, until we had a baby who did not sleep more than 7 hours total in any 24 hour period).
We're very grateful for our amazing kids, and we are extremely fortunate to have a strong community of support (including several heroic aunties) as well as the financial means to get our kids the care they need. But even with all that support, we are exhausted and overwhelmed most of the time, almost a decade into parenting. At the bare minimum, I wish we'd had a better idea of what to expect. And ideally, we would have carefully weighed whether we were equipped for a parenting journey that included managing special needs, and taken classes to prepare.
Jeannie, you make such an important point that families with kids with special needs are often less "out there" in the community -- less likely to use babysitters and daycare, enroll in sports and activities. This means the rest of us are less accustomed to being around kids with special needs, which is a loss to us, and families who have kids with special needs become even more isolated even as they often need more support. All this is making me want to just double down on my suggestion that prospective parents should hang with families that have kids with special needs.
And this is also making me recall that the popular imagination regarding what counts as "special needs" is very limited. A lot of us picture visible disabilities when we think of people with special needs -- someone who uses a wheelchair, or has Down syndrome. But actually, many, many special needs, in people of all ages, aren't necessarily immediately perceptible to outsiders. (Your example about neurodivergent babies' insomnia, Jeannie, is such a good example of this).
I have a SIGNIFICANT number of friends whose kids are neurodivergent in various ways, and these kinds of special needs can be equally demanding on parents, but people outside their immediate circle often don't even know. Those families may somewhat withdraw from public spaces and often nobody notices or asks why.
And when we're contemplating whether to have kids, the conversation, again, often focuses on visible disabilities but doesn't take into account the large numbers of kids, with, say, sensory processing issues. Even if you do all the genetic testing, there's still a pretty high chance you'll have a kid with special needs. It would be so much better if we could normalize this as a society, recognize that kids with special needs aren't a problem that needs to be gotten rid of or cured, but also build cultural norms around providing more community support to these families.
Phew, I obviously have a lot to say about this!
I’m curious to know how many people do spend extensive time with families and children and then freely go on to choose having a child. I feel like the majority of women I know who do not want them feel this way precisely because they have spent extensive time as caregivers of other people’s children and they’ve realized it’s not for them.
I too am curious about this! It's interesting to me that a lot of the comments so far today have been from people who were like "I spend a lot of time with kids and that's how I figured out I want to be an Auntie instead." Of course, this is a self-selecting audience: there are LOTS of Aunties here, in particular, and it stands to reason there'd be a high proportion of "informed no's" to parenting among Auntie Bulletin readers. There's a certain degree of "knowing too much," which was definitely part of my own deciding experience.
But in the meantime, my social science researcher brain wants to conduct a study: among people who spend a lot of time with kids and families while they are trying to decide whether to become parents themselves, what proportion tips one way and what proportion the other? Maybe we could do some informal surveying among Auntie Bulletin readers sometime. Although we'll continue to have a disproportionate representation of Aunties here, so maybe it should be a collaboration with a parent newsletter. (Anyone know Claire Zulkey, find out if she wants to do an Evil Witches/Auntie Bulletin reader survey collab!)
Or (for me) were forced to become the de facto parent as a child.
Love this advice! I am in the lucky situation of living with a friend and her 6 year old and I've learned so much about what parenting really entails. It's helped me see that it's probably not right for me especially given my circumstances (health, finances etc) but if I had decided I did want to be a parent it would have given me so many insights into what I would have found hard and needed to prepare for (emotionally as well as practically).
Sarah, you're living the dream! (By some definitions of "dream.") Certainly it sounds like you're in a premium Auntie set-up. I bet your friend and her kid are so happy to have you in their lives.
I hope so 🙂
This was a beautiful essay, I’m going to send this to my friends contemplating the decision! To respond to your question at the end quickly - I really appreciated when my friends let me talk about breastfeeding struggles and wins, even though it was probably a little weird/gross/more intimate than they were used to. The reason being, my experience of having a newborn was like 90% breastfeeding - like that felt like all I was doing day and night - so I deeply when people asked me about it and gave me space to talk. Just like, generally acknowledged that it was a huge aspect of new parenthood for me.
Thank you so much, Liz! I forgot to ask in my initial request, above (because I was finishing this essay at 3am, if you can believe it, and my eyes were swimming), but is it okay if I quote you on talking about breastfeeding in the Baby Bill of Rights article? I could do that with or without your name...
Yes, absolutely!
As a child-free-by-choice bestie of someone who had a baby last May, hearing about breastfeeding was one of my favorite things she's shared about her new parent journey! I will never experience it, but I am theoretically capable of physically doing it, so I had tons of questions about what it's like and how she was handling everything. I found it so fascinating to hear about this new, very all-consuming aspect of her life.
This is really solid guidance. Taking that step into spending lots of time with kids and families certainly is not for the faint of heart! Which is also how I would describe parenting.
As a parent I will say that parenting in the absence of a social safety net can feel like regret about having children, when I know that I have no regrets about having children. Also, to children, having parents who lack sufficient support can also feel as bad as having parents who regret having children. These aren't fully distinct experiences.
The drum I will beat until the end of time is that aunties or not, childless people have a responsibility to families that is largely unacknowledged. Do you want a healthy society? Do you want less homelessness and crime? Do you want to be cared for by a kind and loving caretaker in your old age? Do you want the person in the car behind you to scream at you or let you merge? Many (most?) societal ills stem from difficult childhoods, and many difficult childhoods stem from lack of structural support. Most, I would argue. Have we all heard of ACEs? Most ACEs are catalyzed by extreme stress placed on parents in highly unsupportive environments.
You can choose to be an auntie by actively being involved in child's life (yes!), and you can use some of that abundant spare time to passionately advocate for the many policies that would provide parents the supports they need to raise healthy, well adjusted children. Wouldn't you have wanted those supports for your parents? I sure as hell would have.
What policies, you say? Universal healthcare. Paid family leave - lots of it. Universal free pre-k. Adequately funded public schools. Part time work opportunities. Zoning and land use laws that encourage co-housing. Public bathrooms everywhere. Family friendly affordable housing for all. That's just a start.
Eva, I LOVE this point: "Parenting in the absence of a social safety net can feel like regret about having children, when I know that I have no regrets about having children. Also, to children, having parents who lack sufficient support can also feel as bad as having parents who regret having children. These aren't fully distinct experiences."
Actually, I love this whole comment. Could I share it in the Auntie Bulletin mail bag on Monday? If so, should I include your name or just "an Auntie Bulletin reader"?
Also, FYI, your view about our responsibilities to other people's children is one I really share and am deeply interested in. I'll be writing about this later this month when I put out The Auntie Bulletin Strategic Plan, but my 3-5 year vision is to expand to a project? nonprofit? larger newsletter umbrella? called Other People's Children that focuses on what members of a society owe to kids who are not their own (and to strangers generally). This ties into my academic research, which I don't think I've written much about yet at The Auntie Bulletin -- if at all -- which focuses broadly on supporting public schools.
So basically, look for me to be beating the drum alongside you more publicly, soon.
This is an interesting take. I want to try and thoughtfully push back on this a bit but know that sometimes these kinds of discussions can become fraught/divisive. I’m hoping that when you are saying that childless people have a responsibility to families you are meaning that in the same way that we all have responsibility onto each other—just as humans, kids or no kids. The way this is stated makes it sound like people raising kids are doing everyone a favor (and there’s something expected in return) and while certainly we need people to continue as a species, I’d venture that’s not the motivation of most parents. I agree that we want a better society and for kids and families to function well, but to point at childless people, assuming they aren’t fighting for these policies, and say you aren’t holding up your end of the bargain feels unfair. It feels especially unfair in a culture where plenty of parents and families actively vote against the policies you mentioned that would make life better for kids/families/everyone.
I do think that everyone, childless or not, is responsible for children. Not in owing, but in being involved in the care of people who cannot care for themselves. Just as everyone is responsible for people with disabling mental illness, people with disabilities, and the unhoused. All capable people are responsible for all people who cannot care for themselves.
I made no assumption, either implicit or explicit, that childless people aren't advocating for policies that benefit children. I know that there are advocates and detractors among parents and non-parents alike. I do think that it goes largely unacknowledged that childless people do have a responsibility to children, whether through direct care or through policy advocacy or any other number of ways people without children choose to support children. A childless person's role is often painted as opting in, and if they do opt in, it is an act of generosity or selflessness. I argue that it is actually in everyone's interest to chip in for the welfare of children. We could probably predict the results of a hypothetical survey of parents and non-parents, showing where the lion's share of child-supportive advocacy and care is coming from. It doesn't mean many people aren't doing the work, it just means that a lot more people could, and should.
I see what you are saying—maybe I was a bit peeved at the abundance of time comment and that clouded how I understood this. My apologies! Maybe this responsibility goes unacknowledged because the dominant culture (speaking from a United States perspective) doesn’t agree that that responsibility to take care of anyone unable to care for themselves exists. Most examples that I can think of are an exemption to the rule of individualism that permeates our society. I wish that we lived in a society where taking care of those that need it (in all ways that can take shape) was the dominant way of going about life.
I agree so much! And I also agree that I didn't have to dig on the abundance of time part. Call it a generalized envy that's not directed at anyone in particular. Everyone has stressors and time constraints, children or no children. And I totally agree on the dominant culture paradigm. I do believe our American dominant culture of individualism is truly unwell, and parents play into it too. I also feel guilty about how selfish I was when I didn't have children, and how I wish I had known better about how to care for my friends who had children. Truly though, I was not fully grown until I had children, so I was unable to see outside myself. Not everyone has that problem. ;)
Geez, way to de-escalate, you two. Can we all just live in a society where everyone responds to minor miscommunications and slights with this level of grace and care? Thanks for modeling such wisdom here.
I appreciate this post! As a parent, I didn’t really know or like kids before having them but my partner and I knew we wanted kids. I feel like being a parent is my favorite thing I’ve ever done (my partner would say the same), but/and being around other families is often annoying and I like my own kids best, ha. So. I dunno! I’m not sure there’s a great formula for knowing.
Jojo, this is such a great contribution. I think you're right that if we're looking for a formula, we're going to end up disappointed. Your comment is making me think about the fact that you already knew you wanted kids -- you didn't have to do the fence-sitting thing for months or years like some. I wonder if that pattern holds among a lot of folks in your boat: they knew they wanted kids, and being around other people's kids wouldn't necessarily influence that. I wouldn't be surprised!
Appreciated this piece and great advice! Spending time with families has been a big contributor to my thoughts against becoming a parent after a lifetime of thinking I wanted to be one. In theory I love the idea of raising a little human and fostering their development over time and guiding them into adulthood and beyond. In reality, seeing how much resources that it requires (mentally/physically/financially) has made me realize that parenting is likely not for me, but auntie hood is a great fit. I think it’s especially important to see families with kids outside the baby/toddler stage. People get really excited about babies/toddlers like puppies or kittens, but the real hard work seems to come as they get older and the stakes are higher. I’m sure many parents would say the rewards are even greater then too, but the unrelenting aspect of that journey feels especially daunting to me.
That's so interesting that you went for a long time believing you DID want kids, Taylor. It's making me realize that I had assumed that people who find themselves on the fence must be like me, and have believed for a long time that they DIDN'T want kids. But that's just pure taking my own experience and assuming it applies to everyone, LOL. Thanks for the broadened perspective!
You wrote that you don’t think having children without knowing what you’re doing isn’t necessarily a doomed choice but I’d say it CAN be. I think a lot of folks are dealing with shit precisely becuz their parent(s) struggled/didn’t know what they were doing. Raising a child is really hard on so many levels. It’s not a project you can cram for.
I also think your point about the nuclear family is spot-on. We’re all too isolated and it’s getting worse all the time. People think ‘doing away’ with the nuclear family is somehow boosting ‘non-traditional’ families but really, nuclear families are the non-traditional types, no? By historical definitions.
This is a really good point, Elle. I agree, a lot of the "doomed" family set-ups -- whatever we mean by that -- do tend to arise out of people becoming parents with no preparation. I'm certainly no expert on where good parents come from, and the last thing I ever want to do at The Auntie Bulletin is judge ANY parents.
So I guess I'll just say that I bet there are pretty large numbers of parents out there who feel like they're failing. Preventing parental distress around feeling like a terrible parent alone is worth creating a standard of informed consent.
I complete agree with you about the nuclear family being non-traditional at this point. This is a non-child example, but I didn’t change my name after getting married because none of my friends did (or they hyphenated) and it was just seen as the correct thing to do. But I recently changed it to match my husband’s after realizing that I was just keeping my surname for a weird sort of feminist cred, and it wasn’t what I actually wanted. There is a strong stigma amongst certain millennial/Gen Z populations against anything that can be deemed historically traditional. I don’t think anyone even 10 years ago would have an entire group of friends across the board who didn’t take their husband’s surname!
Elyse, this is so interesting! I had never thought about keeping our names out of feminist cred, but you're totally right. I love that you made the choice that felt right for you.
Really agree with you on the first point! It’s why hearing “no one’s ever truly ready, you just figure it out” when discussing concerns/worries about becoming a parent (especially when talking about money) grates me to my core. I am the product of parents that just “figured it out” and while my childhood wasn’t horrible, I couldn’t/wouldn’t willingly put another human through the stress and anxiety that marked my growing up and is now apart of my daily life as an adult. It worries me that we normalize going into parenthood so blindly without truly thinking about the consequences to the kid.
It's so hard to have these conversations in a way that doesn't judge parents AND holds kids' needs in view, isn't it? When I started this newsletter I honestly did not anticipate the level of emotional minefield I was blithely striding into.
So helpful, so thoughtful and empathetic. Thank you ❤️
People that brought prepared food after I gave birth are in my heart forever.
This makes so much sense to me, Holly. I think I would feel exactly the same.
Also, I was so happy you wrote about Lisa Frank today!
I love this advice, and I don’t have any real beef with it, but as a mother who is soooo not a “little kids” person but loves my own kids so freaking much, I’m sincerely wondering if anyone (other than the special few who are made to be preschool teachers) would choose to have kids under this experiment. I’ll never love hanging out with other peoples’ toddlers in say, a vacation setting. It’s inconvenient AF. Does anyone like it? If someone likes it, then I would say hell yeah, you’ll love being a parent. But if you don’t? I dk if I agree that it means you wouldn’t like being a parent, overall. It’s super cliche to say but it really is different when it’s your own kids. You love them differently. If you’re lucky enough to be an aunt to your own sibling’s children that can probably give you the closest simulation of what it would be like to have your own because you love them and they’re probably being raised similar(ish) to how you would raise your own child, but I don’t think hanging with non-relative’s kids or families is going to give you as realistic of a “test run.”
I grew up Mormon and having kids is just what you did, so I didn’t really make the conscious decision to have kids. It’s just what you did. Now that I’ve deconstructed, I know having kids is not the only way to have a fulfilling, happy life, and I wonder what decision I would have made if I had deconstructed my faith a decade earlier. I don’t want this post to come across as me pushing anyone to have kids. It’s so freaking grueling. But I also love my kids and love parenting them. I just wanted to give this perspective in case someone was leaning toward having kids but left your post overthinking about how much they hated playing Barbies with their best friend’s three-year old.