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.
I was wondering when someone would say this! I'm so glad you did, Ashley. It raises an interesting question, doesn't it? Is there a sense in which we need people to go into parenthood uninformed in order to even keep making more humans? Probably not -- even just the rates of "accidentally" making more humans ought to keep us pretty well supplied -- but it's something I'm intrigued to think more about.
Ashley, I came to post a similar position as you have.
I was 28 and immersed in my career when I had an unplanned pregnancy. While my husband was happy, I was sick about it until the moment my daughter was born. At that moment I became a mother to my core. The wiggly thing that had grown in my body CONNECTED to me...from whom I felt COMPLETELY DISCONNECTED...magically changed me instantaneously.
It was the most amazing moment of my life.
I always said I didn’t like kids. I grew up the oldest of four siblings and 16 cousins. I would tell you truthfully I did not like kids. Come to find out I didn’t like other people’s kids. 😂 That never occurred to me. Today as a grandmother to two little men, I am so grateful for my New Years Eve indiscretion 🎊😂
Some people shouldn’t have kids and thank goodness many make the right decision. If my experience is any indicator, some folks cannot know for sure until they have their own.
I love hearing both of your stories of becoming mothers and falling so in love with your kids! It’s making me think that there are two very basic things you ideally need in order to be a parent: a deep emotional connection to your children, and the capacity to physically care for those children. For me, like you, the deep emotional connection part has been no problem. But as a parent of neurodivergent children, the “physically caring for them” part has been nothing short of grueling. Brutal, even. I have gotten probably 10 full nights of sleep in 9 years. And that’s really just one tiny piece of the challenge.
I’d absolutely describe my kids as worth it. But even if I knew for sure that every person who became a parent would immediately feel a deep emotional connection to their children, I would still want to make sure that everyone considering becoming a parent was willing and able to put in the very demanding work of parenting. And that they understood the very real possibility that this work could include navigating special needs.
Jeannie, this comment BLEW MY MIND. You have put your finger on something I hadn't even known I was struggling to articulate. To me, the question of loving a child is a no-brainer. I'm sure, without a doubt, I would my children if I had them. But could I do it physically? I would if I had to, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be good for my wellbeing.
Of course, that cost might be worth it if having kids was going to make a huge difference to my net happiness in life, but being an Auntie and having a lot of community is sufficiently filling that love/belonging/nurturing need for me.
Jeannie, I CANNOT imagine how hard it must be. I admire you. May God give you the strength to continue to care for your children and yourself as well.❤️
I was similar in that I was ambivalent about other people's kids until I had my own, and then I became OBSESSED with all children. The process of having my own children made me see all children differently. I spent a fair amount of time with other people's kids before having my own. And I was not super jazzed about them, and frankly very annoyed by a lot of said children, but spending time with them did not make me say "no I don't want them". Maybe that matters? If someone does spend the time and it gives them the "hell no" response then that is something to listen to?
I will argue with the point you made below, Lisa ;), about what two things a person needs to be a parent: deep emotional connection and capacity to physically care for them. A lot of people have no idea whether they have these things beforehand. You can't know what it fully entails ahead of time. Yes, you can have an idea, and if that idea is telling you "NO I shouldn't be a parent", then it makes sense to listen. But for many people there is neither a strong no nor a strong yes, which can be very confusing. If you decide yes when you were unsure, the collective needs to be ready to help you if it becomes too much. Because the child is already there and is in need. I can't tell you how many people cry "you shouldn't have had children - it was your choice" when a parent says it is too much or too hard. What on earth do we expect that parent to do when they get that response? Also - we can note now an increasing number of people actually do not have a choice in the matter. This is an all hands on deck situation!!
Second, I would argue that we can't tell people what they need in order to become parents - I consider becoming a parent a right for all people (as is the choice not to become a parent). Once a child exists, it is our collective responsibility to make sure that child is cared for whether or not the parents have those two things - emotional connection or physical capacity.
I want to be careful to not place all the responsibility on a theoretical prospective parent. You just can't know what it will ask of you before you do it (especially speaking to parents of children with special needs), and if you find you are not meeting your own goals as a parent under the conditions we have created (in American society), that is not your fault. It is your responsibility to grow and learn how to get your child's needs met (all of them), but it is not your job to go into it with perfect awareness, because that is impossible.
Thank you, Eva. I think your point that we can't become fully aware of what parenting will be like *for us* ahead of time is so important -- to the extent that we can educate ourselves, we should, and from there everyone has to just take a leap of faith, which may or may not be able to be made with clarity.
I love your point that "Once a child exists, it is our collective responsibility to make sure that child is cared for whether or not the parents have those two things - emotional connection or physical capacity." I think the two components -- emotional and physical capacity -- are really helpful to think about ahead of time if that possibility is available, but regardless, every kid needs to be loved and every parent needs to be supported.
This is a really good point! I love and very much enjoy spending time with my younger siblings and cousins and children of family friends but I have also met and spent time with many children that were not a joy to be around. And it’s not just about behavior, although I definitely think that is a large contributing factor. It might also be one of the reasons why a siblings child would be the best approximation because they’re probably likely to raise their child in a way that’s more similar to how you would raise your own child than a random person would.
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.
This is such a thoughtful piece. I always “knew” I wanted kids, until the time came to move that desire from abstract (have a family someday!) to concrete (try to get pregnant now?!) — at which point I absolutely freaked out and realized I had never taken the time to actively choose the path of parenthood.
I took a few years — years I was pretty sure I didn’t have to spare, fertility wise — to really think through the decision. I’m so glad I did. I have always spent lots of time with kids and families, and was a nanny and then a teacher for years, so I had *some* small idea of the work of motherhood. But now I approached the hours I spent with kids and parents differently, studiously, reverently. I talked to a lot of moms about their decision to have kids and how they felt now. Crucially for me, I read a lot of Angela Garbes’ work. None of this gave me a rosier picture of parenthood (the opposite, in fact), but it made me confront whether the difficulties, as far as I could perceive them, would be ones I trusted myself to face.
I am now six months into motherhood and I have to say — the first two months were full of regret and pain for me. Postpartum was the hardest time I’ve ever experienced; my mental and physical health was in the gutter. I felt an absolute flood of relief and joy when I turned a corner and began to enjoy parenting. I no longer regret my decision. But I personally could not have gotten to this better and sturdier place without doing those few years of active decision-making.
It’s helpful for me to think this way: one choice could be right without the other choice being wrong, if that makes sense. I could be happy without kids, I think. But I am also happy with my daughter.
(Sorry for the novel. Thank you for writing about this! And thank you to each and every Auntie out there.)
Approaching the decision to become a parent "studiously and reverently" sounds like such a beautiful ideal, Catherine. I wish that possibility for everyone (especially women)!
And don't apologize for a long comment -- there are several others in this thread of about the same length. I love that this is a place where we can think deeply together about these really intense, consequential questions.
I had a similar experience but from the opposite side. I always knew I didn't want kids, but then in my late twenties actually had the opportunity to spend meaningful amounts of time with them via my partner's niece and nephews. I had always assumed I didn't really like kids, but it turns out that's not true! I love those kids and really enjoy spending time with them. This was a revelation to me!
Because of that, I have spent a lot of time over the last few years digging into the question and have come to the decision that I still don't want kids - I am sure I would love my own children, could care for them well and be a 'good mother', but it's still just not a role I want to take on or a life path I want to go down. I feel much more secure in my choice after spending the time investigating it more deeply. I also am more passionate about being a good Auntie to any children I am able to!
"One choice could be right without the other choice being wrong." Beautiful. It's something I'm working on applying to so many things, not just reproductive decisions, in my life :)
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.
These are the two fantasies that I struggle with the most and that give me the most grief around my (likely) decision not to become a parent.
After spending time with my friends’ families that include kids, I’ve come to notice that I’m not drawn to that life despite thinking I wanted children for most of my life.
While weighing whether to have kids (I landed on "no"), I certainly found myself feeling more urgent/active regret over not making grandparents out of my parents and, to a lesser extent, more active regret over not making my husband a father, than anything involving my own connection to said kids.
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 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 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!
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.
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!)
I did this. The more time I spent with my friends' kids, the more I realized I was blindingly jealous.
I also spent a lot of time with my dear friend who is a Montessori educator, and with her around kids, and it helped me realize some of the things I didn't like about some kids were...not about the kids. And that I might be capable of regulating myself and my/our environment enough to deal with the really hard parts of kids/parenting.
I love this, Lyndsey. It's a strong counterpoint to the concern someone upthread raised, that if people spend very much time with kids they might not want to have them. Different stripes!
I also found I was jealous of my friends with kids! I always knew that I wanted them, but the envy in particular when my friends started having kids was very instructive.
Emily, I feel like it would be pretty illuminating to survey adults who were parentified as adults about what they wish their parents had understood before having kids. I wouldn't be surprised if someone actually has done this in an academic setting (probably multiple someones), but I'd love to see it written for a popular audience. If I come across something, I'll be sure to share it in The Auntie Bulletin.
I haven’t read that book; I did once read an article stating that the majority of women (in their study? interviewed ?) who didn’t want children had been forced into the parental role to their siblings when they were children. I don’t remember whether this article was in English or German.
Besides myself, two women come to mind who both had 7-8 younger siblings they were largely responsible for. One entered a Catholic religious community so didn’t have children. The other knew she absolutely didn’t want children after her experience. And no, in case there are wonderers; these were not “soft modern” women. One would be 107 today. The other was about 10 years younger.
Myself, I feel exhausted, like I’ve already used up the necessary energy.
It seems some people involved aren’t capable of understanding what it means to have children, even years after. I am not sure that it could be solved by just knowing more beforehand. Especially if religious and/or psychological factors play a major part.
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.
Hi! Found this article through AHP’s Culture Study. I also recommend signing up for Big Brothers Big Sisters. My husband and I did it for four years and it definitely helped him decide that he would be okay not having kids (I’ve always known that I don’t want them). He just didn’t enjoy doing kid-friendly activities and didn’t look forward to spending time with our little, even though the kid was pretty pleasant and polite. He didn’t appreciate the encroachment on his schedule despite it only being a twice-a-month commitment. We also spent/spend a lot of time with friends who have kids. He is absolutely amazing with them and loves playing with them but he totally recognizes that he gets to do the fun stuff and not the difficult stuff, like sleepless nights or rushing out of work for daycare pickup. He saw how tired these friends are and how they have such limited availability for doing anything that doesn’t involve their kids, and he decided that he doesn’t want that path in life. I am so glad that he was able to reach that place on his own and not be stuck in the “I’m not having kids because my wife doesn’t want them” place. After 13 years of marriage we absolutely do not regret our decision to not have kids.
I love this story about how spending time with kids helped your partner reach a clearer decision even though you were already pretty clear on your desires, Michelle. It's a really good point: even if *we* know, our partner might not have formed a perspective yet -- in which case, spending time with kids can help with that, too!
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.
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.
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.
Lisa, thank you so much for this piece. I read it aloud to my partner as soon as it hit my inbox yesterday and it’s really made us think. My partner and I are both as ambivalent as it gets about having kids. We’re educators and have felt like we’ve had childful lives for several years. It’s going to get more childful - one dear friend, who is solo parenting, is expecting their kid to arrive any moment (I was asked to attend the birth!) and my sister-in-law delivered my first nibling last month. Our besties are on their TTC journey. We have other kids (non-students) in our lives but they live several hours away so it feels so exciting to have kids to take care of and love and get to know kids in our neighborhood and across the river. Without planning it, this season in our lives is an opportunity to level up our auntie game. We’re looking forward to this next year or two, and really hoping it will give us the right kind of data to make this decision. Will report back in the coming years!
Diya, I love this. I'm so glad you're in a position to make such an informed decision, and that you'll be in a position to have a childful life no matter what. I'm excited for you!
I also think there's SO much to say about teachers trying to decide whether to have kids. I think folks who don't spend all day around kids for their job may not quite realize how different that is from spending all day working on your own or with other adults. I'd love to write about this at some point -- maybe I'll do a survey of Auntie Bulletin readers who are teachers first. You're definitely not the only one!
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!
Maybe instead of saying I didn’t want to become a parent I should say I’m choosing not to become one. I wanted to be a parent until I saw up close the realities of being a parent in our current society. I still very much like the idea of being a parent, but our society does not currently provide the supports I would need to avoid being crushed by parenthood and I do not have the financial resources to soften the impact of that. So I guess I’m saying right now the risk of harm parenting could cause me, and thus my child feels too great and so I feel like the right decision/choice for me right now is to not have children but it also doesn’t quite feel like a decision. Rather complicated.
I've been friends with a gal named A since college (we're 38 now). A has worked in childcare almost that entire time (often early childhood ed, but sometimes elementary age too) and has one daughter of her own, whom she clearly adores, as does child's father/A's husband. They are fantastic parents who've raised a wonderful kid. During the years when I hadn't decisively gone to no-kids-for-me, A was very firm in her advice: Have kids if you really really really want them; if you don't have that burning, don't do it, because it is such a huge task. (I can't speak to exactly how much she was referring to the US's lack of support for parents, but I'm confident that wasn't the entirety or even majority of her experience.)
Now, full disclosure, my early 20s were "dude, no one will ever even partner with me, so why even wonder if I want kids"; my late 20s and early 30s were "I have a partner but we're not ready anyway"; and then once it started becoming more like, if we want to conceive without fertility treatments (the one opinion we *both* strongly shared for ourselves, no shade to those who use it) we might want to decide on the matter, I was realizing that I fit into the second half of A's advice.
Ultimately when Roe fell, I scheduled and went through with a tubal ligation, to ensure that external circumstances never forced me to carry an unwanted pregnancy. But in the year or two before that and the years since, I've done a lot of reflection, and I believe that, even growing up with a liberal mom and being liberal myself, I spent a lot of my life assuming that having kids was a thing people did and thus a thing I'd probably do. Not do-I-want-it, but more of, the thing you do after getting straight-married.
And so for the years of being with the person that **if** I had a baby, I would want him to be the father, most of my thinking about the question was trying to talk myself INTO wanting to have a baby, versus knowing I did or knowing I was interested, because even though I was thinking it subconsciously, I was thinking that this was what people did, and I am a person, so therefore I would most likely do it. Meanwhile, I grew ever more comfortable in being child-free. (Not even an auntie, for many of those years.)
And of course, I can't see an unbiased entirety of any couple's relationship/parenthood, but man, did a fair number of those in my social circle seem to paint the picture of, mom does the dirty, thankless, ongoing work, while dad still got to go out and act like a frat bro still. (A, referenced above, is definitely not in that scenario!) Add that to A's observation that years after pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding were done, her body still didn't feel like her own, which sounded like not-my-cup-of-tea, and the tubal felt like a damn good decision.
I will say -- in our late 20s/early 30s, I asked then-boyfriend/now-husband if we should offer to babysit the first baby in his friend circle, specifically saying, maybe that would help us decide on the kid question. He laughed and said that was the grandparents' job. And despite him saying once that he was an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10 in wanting kids, I rarely saw him engage with kids around us. Sometimes that was because, say, we were catching up with *his* out-of-state friends and thus I had less interest in the adults, or we were with my friend A, but it definitely wasn't always that scenario. So maybe he was among the type described in this comment section (and elsewhere) that would have been a wonderful loving parent to his own kids, with fairly low interest in others', but since all I can do is armchair-quarterback now, I find it interesting to reflect on this.
Your observations about your partner's behavior around kids are really interesting, Sadye. On the one hand, I think people who aren't used to kids don't tend to pay much attention to them, even if they want to, largely because they're intimidated. My own partner used to be like this (although these days he has spent so much time with the kids in our lives that he'll soon be quickly chatting away with any new kid he meets). So it's partly just a learned skill, which may or may not have to do with inclination.
On the other hand, I do think that anyone who wants to have kids will benefit from being VERY choosy about the person or people they plan to co-parent with. If I could wave a magic wand, I would make this part of the high school health curriculum: if you want to have kids you should do a thorough assessment of whether your prospective partner will pull their weight. And of course, this is hard to gauge. But here's another place where being INFORMED really helps, to the extent that it's possible! Maybe this is about just talking to a lot of people (especially women) about their experiences dividing the labor with their co-parents (especially if those co-parents are men).
My natural inclination at that time was also not to pay much attention to them, so I can absolutely understand and empathize with my partner if that was what he was feeling! I just remember thinking back to those moments *later*, when he and I were discussing "have our own or skip it," and finding it interesting that when I overrode the inclination in hopes of bonding with their parents / figuring out if I wanted kids of my own, I found myself less compelled to have any, while (at least from the outside) his experience was the opposite! Seriously, in the conversation where we declared our have-a-kid desire on a scale of 1 to 10, he said he was an 8, and I said I was a 2, and I think we were both so stunned at the contrast that we left it there.
And 100% on your remark about being choosy about your co-parent. An acquaintance shocked me once -- and the shock was only because she and I were not emotionally close at all -- by telling me that she had decided to stick with just the one kid because her husband was too hands-off with their current kid, and it was exhausting to her. I'm sure lots of parents would have benefited from having her insight and resolve :)
A postscript: long story short, in 2021, I had a particular medical scan done out of extreme caution, and no problem was found, but the doctor interpreting the results said I had a small uterus, and I googled whether that meant I couldn't conceive ... and I remember feeling disappointment when it only said, might make it more difficult but certainly doesn't rule it out. One of those moments that, looking back, held my answer right there.
My new baby bill of rights would include helpful visitors/meals/thoughtfulnesses between weeks 8 and 14. Often one partner (or both!) has had to return to work and all the cooing and hubbub has died down. But you still have a newborn!!! They change very little until after 3 months! The adrenaline has worn off but the sleep deprivation is cumulative! And brand new parents aren't often confident getting out of the house (/alone) yet. I've already been to visit one friend in that time period. She needed it. I needed it but didn't have it.
Thank you, Lyndsey! This point is so important. Would it be okay if I quote you in my New Baby Bill of Rights post in a few weeks? If so, would you like me to use your name or just "an Auntie Bulletin reader"?
“The adrenaline has worn off but the sleep deprivation is cumulative” is such a good way of describing that 2-4 month stage of parenting. And you’re right- it’s brutal that many of us in the US go back to work right in that window.
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.
I was wondering when someone would say this! I'm so glad you did, Ashley. It raises an interesting question, doesn't it? Is there a sense in which we need people to go into parenthood uninformed in order to even keep making more humans? Probably not -- even just the rates of "accidentally" making more humans ought to keep us pretty well supplied -- but it's something I'm intrigued to think more about.
Weirdly, I actually do like hanging out with other people's toddlers on vacation. Maybe that's my sensitive neurodivergent introvert talking. https://theauntie.substack.com/p/why-sensitive-neurodivergent-introverts?r=nbcpy
Ashley, I came to post a similar position as you have.
I was 28 and immersed in my career when I had an unplanned pregnancy. While my husband was happy, I was sick about it until the moment my daughter was born. At that moment I became a mother to my core. The wiggly thing that had grown in my body CONNECTED to me...from whom I felt COMPLETELY DISCONNECTED...magically changed me instantaneously.
It was the most amazing moment of my life.
I always said I didn’t like kids. I grew up the oldest of four siblings and 16 cousins. I would tell you truthfully I did not like kids. Come to find out I didn’t like other people’s kids. 😂 That never occurred to me. Today as a grandmother to two little men, I am so grateful for my New Years Eve indiscretion 🎊😂
Some people shouldn’t have kids and thank goodness many make the right decision. If my experience is any indicator, some folks cannot know for sure until they have their own.
I love hearing both of your stories of becoming mothers and falling so in love with your kids! It’s making me think that there are two very basic things you ideally need in order to be a parent: a deep emotional connection to your children, and the capacity to physically care for those children. For me, like you, the deep emotional connection part has been no problem. But as a parent of neurodivergent children, the “physically caring for them” part has been nothing short of grueling. Brutal, even. I have gotten probably 10 full nights of sleep in 9 years. And that’s really just one tiny piece of the challenge.
I’d absolutely describe my kids as worth it. But even if I knew for sure that every person who became a parent would immediately feel a deep emotional connection to their children, I would still want to make sure that everyone considering becoming a parent was willing and able to put in the very demanding work of parenting. And that they understood the very real possibility that this work could include navigating special needs.
Jeannie, this comment BLEW MY MIND. You have put your finger on something I hadn't even known I was struggling to articulate. To me, the question of loving a child is a no-brainer. I'm sure, without a doubt, I would my children if I had them. But could I do it physically? I would if I had to, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be good for my wellbeing.
Of course, that cost might be worth it if having kids was going to make a huge difference to my net happiness in life, but being an Auntie and having a lot of community is sufficiently filling that love/belonging/nurturing need for me.
Jeannie, I CANNOT imagine how hard it must be. I admire you. May God give you the strength to continue to care for your children and yourself as well.❤️
Thank you so much! I’m loving the community of empathetic and thoughtful aunties and parents who read this newsletter.
I was similar in that I was ambivalent about other people's kids until I had my own, and then I became OBSESSED with all children. The process of having my own children made me see all children differently. I spent a fair amount of time with other people's kids before having my own. And I was not super jazzed about them, and frankly very annoyed by a lot of said children, but spending time with them did not make me say "no I don't want them". Maybe that matters? If someone does spend the time and it gives them the "hell no" response then that is something to listen to?
I will argue with the point you made below, Lisa ;), about what two things a person needs to be a parent: deep emotional connection and capacity to physically care for them. A lot of people have no idea whether they have these things beforehand. You can't know what it fully entails ahead of time. Yes, you can have an idea, and if that idea is telling you "NO I shouldn't be a parent", then it makes sense to listen. But for many people there is neither a strong no nor a strong yes, which can be very confusing. If you decide yes when you were unsure, the collective needs to be ready to help you if it becomes too much. Because the child is already there and is in need. I can't tell you how many people cry "you shouldn't have had children - it was your choice" when a parent says it is too much or too hard. What on earth do we expect that parent to do when they get that response? Also - we can note now an increasing number of people actually do not have a choice in the matter. This is an all hands on deck situation!!
Second, I would argue that we can't tell people what they need in order to become parents - I consider becoming a parent a right for all people (as is the choice not to become a parent). Once a child exists, it is our collective responsibility to make sure that child is cared for whether or not the parents have those two things - emotional connection or physical capacity.
I want to be careful to not place all the responsibility on a theoretical prospective parent. You just can't know what it will ask of you before you do it (especially speaking to parents of children with special needs), and if you find you are not meeting your own goals as a parent under the conditions we have created (in American society), that is not your fault. It is your responsibility to grow and learn how to get your child's needs met (all of them), but it is not your job to go into it with perfect awareness, because that is impossible.
Thank you, Eva. I think your point that we can't become fully aware of what parenting will be like *for us* ahead of time is so important -- to the extent that we can educate ourselves, we should, and from there everyone has to just take a leap of faith, which may or may not be able to be made with clarity.
I love your point that "Once a child exists, it is our collective responsibility to make sure that child is cared for whether or not the parents have those two things - emotional connection or physical capacity." I think the two components -- emotional and physical capacity -- are really helpful to think about ahead of time if that possibility is available, but regardless, every kid needs to be loved and every parent needs to be supported.
This is a really good point! I love and very much enjoy spending time with my younger siblings and cousins and children of family friends but I have also met and spent time with many children that were not a joy to be around. And it’s not just about behavior, although I definitely think that is a large contributing factor. It might also be one of the reasons why a siblings child would be the best approximation because they’re probably likely to raise their child in a way that’s more similar to how you would raise your own child than a random person would.
Definitely depends a lot on the sibling, of course!
Oh absolutely lol
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.
Oh I just love this idea.
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.
This is the healthiest internet comments interaction I’ve ever seen!
This is such a thoughtful piece. I always “knew” I wanted kids, until the time came to move that desire from abstract (have a family someday!) to concrete (try to get pregnant now?!) — at which point I absolutely freaked out and realized I had never taken the time to actively choose the path of parenthood.
I took a few years — years I was pretty sure I didn’t have to spare, fertility wise — to really think through the decision. I’m so glad I did. I have always spent lots of time with kids and families, and was a nanny and then a teacher for years, so I had *some* small idea of the work of motherhood. But now I approached the hours I spent with kids and parents differently, studiously, reverently. I talked to a lot of moms about their decision to have kids and how they felt now. Crucially for me, I read a lot of Angela Garbes’ work. None of this gave me a rosier picture of parenthood (the opposite, in fact), but it made me confront whether the difficulties, as far as I could perceive them, would be ones I trusted myself to face.
I am now six months into motherhood and I have to say — the first two months were full of regret and pain for me. Postpartum was the hardest time I’ve ever experienced; my mental and physical health was in the gutter. I felt an absolute flood of relief and joy when I turned a corner and began to enjoy parenting. I no longer regret my decision. But I personally could not have gotten to this better and sturdier place without doing those few years of active decision-making.
It’s helpful for me to think this way: one choice could be right without the other choice being wrong, if that makes sense. I could be happy without kids, I think. But I am also happy with my daughter.
(Sorry for the novel. Thank you for writing about this! And thank you to each and every Auntie out there.)
Approaching the decision to become a parent "studiously and reverently" sounds like such a beautiful ideal, Catherine. I wish that possibility for everyone (especially women)!
And don't apologize for a long comment -- there are several others in this thread of about the same length. I love that this is a place where we can think deeply together about these really intense, consequential questions.
I had a similar experience but from the opposite side. I always knew I didn't want kids, but then in my late twenties actually had the opportunity to spend meaningful amounts of time with them via my partner's niece and nephews. I had always assumed I didn't really like kids, but it turns out that's not true! I love those kids and really enjoy spending time with them. This was a revelation to me!
Because of that, I have spent a lot of time over the last few years digging into the question and have come to the decision that I still don't want kids - I am sure I would love my own children, could care for them well and be a 'good mother', but it's still just not a role I want to take on or a life path I want to go down. I feel much more secure in my choice after spending the time investigating it more deeply. I also am more passionate about being a good Auntie to any children I am able to!
"One choice could be right without the other choice being wrong." Beautiful. It's something I'm working on applying to so many things, not just reproductive decisions, in my life :)
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.
These are the two fantasies that I struggle with the most and that give me the most grief around my (likely) decision not to become a parent.
After spending time with my friends’ families that include kids, I’ve come to notice that I’m not drawn to that life despite thinking I wanted children for most of my life.
While weighing whether to have kids (I landed on "no"), I certainly found myself feeling more urgent/active regret over not making grandparents out of my parents and, to a lesser extent, more active regret over not making my husband a father, than anything involving my own connection to said kids.
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 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 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!
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.
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!)
I did this. The more time I spent with my friends' kids, the more I realized I was blindingly jealous.
I also spent a lot of time with my dear friend who is a Montessori educator, and with her around kids, and it helped me realize some of the things I didn't like about some kids were...not about the kids. And that I might be capable of regulating myself and my/our environment enough to deal with the really hard parts of kids/parenting.
I love this, Lyndsey. It's a strong counterpoint to the concern someone upthread raised, that if people spend very much time with kids they might not want to have them. Different stripes!
I also found I was jealous of my friends with kids! I always knew that I wanted them, but the envy in particular when my friends started having kids was very instructive.
Or (for me) were forced to become the de facto parent as a child.
Emily, I feel like it would be pretty illuminating to survey adults who were parentified as adults about what they wish their parents had understood before having kids. I wouldn't be surprised if someone actually has done this in an academic setting (probably multiple someones), but I'd love to see it written for a popular audience. If I come across something, I'll be sure to share it in The Auntie Bulletin.
I haven’t read that book; I did once read an article stating that the majority of women (in their study? interviewed ?) who didn’t want children had been forced into the parental role to their siblings when they were children. I don’t remember whether this article was in English or German.
Besides myself, two women come to mind who both had 7-8 younger siblings they were largely responsible for. One entered a Catholic religious community so didn’t have children. The other knew she absolutely didn’t want children after her experience. And no, in case there are wonderers; these were not “soft modern” women. One would be 107 today. The other was about 10 years younger.
Myself, I feel exhausted, like I’ve already used up the necessary energy.
It seems some people involved aren’t capable of understanding what it means to have children, even years after. I am not sure that it could be solved by just knowing more beforehand. Especially if religious and/or psychological factors play a major part.
Well put
Actually, I'm under the impression that maybe this is that book. I haven't read it. Have you?
https://www.newharbinger.com/9781626251700/adult-children-of-emotionally-immature-parents/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAyoi8BhDvARIsAO_CDsAdxRBmMdneL-ZN5SoigGqNaBaCROzZzdnhRC8bvkMVcwaHOGCabnwaAv0IEALw_wcB
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/
Hi! Found this article through AHP’s Culture Study. I also recommend signing up for Big Brothers Big Sisters. My husband and I did it for four years and it definitely helped him decide that he would be okay not having kids (I’ve always known that I don’t want them). He just didn’t enjoy doing kid-friendly activities and didn’t look forward to spending time with our little, even though the kid was pretty pleasant and polite. He didn’t appreciate the encroachment on his schedule despite it only being a twice-a-month commitment. We also spent/spend a lot of time with friends who have kids. He is absolutely amazing with them and loves playing with them but he totally recognizes that he gets to do the fun stuff and not the difficult stuff, like sleepless nights or rushing out of work for daycare pickup. He saw how tired these friends are and how they have such limited availability for doing anything that doesn’t involve their kids, and he decided that he doesn’t want that path in life. I am so glad that he was able to reach that place on his own and not be stuck in the “I’m not having kids because my wife doesn’t want them” place. After 13 years of marriage we absolutely do not regret our decision to not have kids.
I love this story about how spending time with kids helped your partner reach a clearer decision even though you were already pretty clear on your desires, Michelle. It's a really good point: even if *we* know, our partner might not have formed a perspective yet -- in which case, spending time with kids can help with that, too!
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.
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.
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.
Lisa, thank you so much for this piece. I read it aloud to my partner as soon as it hit my inbox yesterday and it’s really made us think. My partner and I are both as ambivalent as it gets about having kids. We’re educators and have felt like we’ve had childful lives for several years. It’s going to get more childful - one dear friend, who is solo parenting, is expecting their kid to arrive any moment (I was asked to attend the birth!) and my sister-in-law delivered my first nibling last month. Our besties are on their TTC journey. We have other kids (non-students) in our lives but they live several hours away so it feels so exciting to have kids to take care of and love and get to know kids in our neighborhood and across the river. Without planning it, this season in our lives is an opportunity to level up our auntie game. We’re looking forward to this next year or two, and really hoping it will give us the right kind of data to make this decision. Will report back in the coming years!
Diya, I love this. I'm so glad you're in a position to make such an informed decision, and that you'll be in a position to have a childful life no matter what. I'm excited for you!
I also think there's SO much to say about teachers trying to decide whether to have kids. I think folks who don't spend all day around kids for their job may not quite realize how different that is from spending all day working on your own or with other adults. I'd love to write about this at some point -- maybe I'll do a survey of Auntie Bulletin readers who are teachers first. You're definitely not the only one!
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!
Maybe instead of saying I didn’t want to become a parent I should say I’m choosing not to become one. I wanted to be a parent until I saw up close the realities of being a parent in our current society. I still very much like the idea of being a parent, but our society does not currently provide the supports I would need to avoid being crushed by parenthood and I do not have the financial resources to soften the impact of that. So I guess I’m saying right now the risk of harm parenting could cause me, and thus my child feels too great and so I feel like the right decision/choice for me right now is to not have children but it also doesn’t quite feel like a decision. Rather complicated.
I've been friends with a gal named A since college (we're 38 now). A has worked in childcare almost that entire time (often early childhood ed, but sometimes elementary age too) and has one daughter of her own, whom she clearly adores, as does child's father/A's husband. They are fantastic parents who've raised a wonderful kid. During the years when I hadn't decisively gone to no-kids-for-me, A was very firm in her advice: Have kids if you really really really want them; if you don't have that burning, don't do it, because it is such a huge task. (I can't speak to exactly how much she was referring to the US's lack of support for parents, but I'm confident that wasn't the entirety or even majority of her experience.)
Now, full disclosure, my early 20s were "dude, no one will ever even partner with me, so why even wonder if I want kids"; my late 20s and early 30s were "I have a partner but we're not ready anyway"; and then once it started becoming more like, if we want to conceive without fertility treatments (the one opinion we *both* strongly shared for ourselves, no shade to those who use it) we might want to decide on the matter, I was realizing that I fit into the second half of A's advice.
Ultimately when Roe fell, I scheduled and went through with a tubal ligation, to ensure that external circumstances never forced me to carry an unwanted pregnancy. But in the year or two before that and the years since, I've done a lot of reflection, and I believe that, even growing up with a liberal mom and being liberal myself, I spent a lot of my life assuming that having kids was a thing people did and thus a thing I'd probably do. Not do-I-want-it, but more of, the thing you do after getting straight-married.
And so for the years of being with the person that **if** I had a baby, I would want him to be the father, most of my thinking about the question was trying to talk myself INTO wanting to have a baby, versus knowing I did or knowing I was interested, because even though I was thinking it subconsciously, I was thinking that this was what people did, and I am a person, so therefore I would most likely do it. Meanwhile, I grew ever more comfortable in being child-free. (Not even an auntie, for many of those years.)
And of course, I can't see an unbiased entirety of any couple's relationship/parenthood, but man, did a fair number of those in my social circle seem to paint the picture of, mom does the dirty, thankless, ongoing work, while dad still got to go out and act like a frat bro still. (A, referenced above, is definitely not in that scenario!) Add that to A's observation that years after pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding were done, her body still didn't feel like her own, which sounded like not-my-cup-of-tea, and the tubal felt like a damn good decision.
I will say -- in our late 20s/early 30s, I asked then-boyfriend/now-husband if we should offer to babysit the first baby in his friend circle, specifically saying, maybe that would help us decide on the kid question. He laughed and said that was the grandparents' job. And despite him saying once that he was an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10 in wanting kids, I rarely saw him engage with kids around us. Sometimes that was because, say, we were catching up with *his* out-of-state friends and thus I had less interest in the adults, or we were with my friend A, but it definitely wasn't always that scenario. So maybe he was among the type described in this comment section (and elsewhere) that would have been a wonderful loving parent to his own kids, with fairly low interest in others', but since all I can do is armchair-quarterback now, I find it interesting to reflect on this.
Your observations about your partner's behavior around kids are really interesting, Sadye. On the one hand, I think people who aren't used to kids don't tend to pay much attention to them, even if they want to, largely because they're intimidated. My own partner used to be like this (although these days he has spent so much time with the kids in our lives that he'll soon be quickly chatting away with any new kid he meets). So it's partly just a learned skill, which may or may not have to do with inclination.
On the other hand, I do think that anyone who wants to have kids will benefit from being VERY choosy about the person or people they plan to co-parent with. If I could wave a magic wand, I would make this part of the high school health curriculum: if you want to have kids you should do a thorough assessment of whether your prospective partner will pull their weight. And of course, this is hard to gauge. But here's another place where being INFORMED really helps, to the extent that it's possible! Maybe this is about just talking to a lot of people (especially women) about their experiences dividing the labor with their co-parents (especially if those co-parents are men).
My natural inclination at that time was also not to pay much attention to them, so I can absolutely understand and empathize with my partner if that was what he was feeling! I just remember thinking back to those moments *later*, when he and I were discussing "have our own or skip it," and finding it interesting that when I overrode the inclination in hopes of bonding with their parents / figuring out if I wanted kids of my own, I found myself less compelled to have any, while (at least from the outside) his experience was the opposite! Seriously, in the conversation where we declared our have-a-kid desire on a scale of 1 to 10, he said he was an 8, and I said I was a 2, and I think we were both so stunned at the contrast that we left it there.
And 100% on your remark about being choosy about your co-parent. An acquaintance shocked me once -- and the shock was only because she and I were not emotionally close at all -- by telling me that she had decided to stick with just the one kid because her husband was too hands-off with their current kid, and it was exhausting to her. I'm sure lots of parents would have benefited from having her insight and resolve :)
A postscript: long story short, in 2021, I had a particular medical scan done out of extreme caution, and no problem was found, but the doctor interpreting the results said I had a small uterus, and I googled whether that meant I couldn't conceive ... and I remember feeling disappointment when it only said, might make it more difficult but certainly doesn't rule it out. One of those moments that, looking back, held my answer right there.
Whoa, this is such a vivid example of your heart knowing what it wanted before your mind caught up, Sadye. I am going to remember this one.
My new baby bill of rights would include helpful visitors/meals/thoughtfulnesses between weeks 8 and 14. Often one partner (or both!) has had to return to work and all the cooing and hubbub has died down. But you still have a newborn!!! They change very little until after 3 months! The adrenaline has worn off but the sleep deprivation is cumulative! And brand new parents aren't often confident getting out of the house (/alone) yet. I've already been to visit one friend in that time period. She needed it. I needed it but didn't have it.
Thank you, Lyndsey! This point is so important. Would it be okay if I quote you in my New Baby Bill of Rights post in a few weeks? If so, would you like me to use your name or just "an Auntie Bulletin reader"?
You're welcome to, and to use my name. Thanks for asking!
“The adrenaline has worn off but the sleep deprivation is cumulative” is such a good way of describing that 2-4 month stage of parenting. And you’re right- it’s brutal that many of us in the US go back to work right in that window.