Via Pandagon, this article from a voluntarily childless woman whining that her friends are all consumed with *gasp* their husbands and children.
When we were both in our early 20s, you were my best friend. Now in our 30s, I've moved to the Bay Area and we speak only a few times a year. Most of those conversations seem to be consumed with your new baby, some function of toilet training or how your husband seems to do nothing around the house.
And it's not just you. It seems as if every girl I knew in my 20s now talks constantly about trying to get pregnant, being pregnant or motherhood. And worse, you seem to think I'm immature because I don't.
I don't hate children. I just don't have any. And about 10 minutes of discussing Junior's preschool pageant role as a tooth is all I can take.
And on the column goes in this same, whiny (while insisting she's not whining) way. I was amused at this part:
I know you're not that happy. I hear the regret when you say, "Sometimes I wonder why I got pregnant," or "Don't get me wrong, I love my children, but. . . ." I sense it when you get quiet sometimes when I talk about my childless life. But you and I both know there's no way to change your trip down the road most-traveled.
I chose to take my road without children. It doesn't make me shallow or immature, it makes me realistic. If I had children it would be to satisfy other people, not me. I am a lover, daughter, sister, writer and friend. I don't need the label of mother to make me more. I am enough.
And one day I hope you realize that you are enough. That you can allow yourself to go to Hawaii for a week, that you can connect with your husband over something other than taking the kids to T-Ball, and you can break out that miniskirt that made Kiefer Sutherland ask for your phone number.
The unintentionally hilarious part of this is that, of course, anyone with kids might occasionally wonder what life would have been without them. I've done it and so has every parent I know.
My husband and I get away alone together for a weekend about once or twice a year. Sometimes, we're just gone for a day, sometimes a weekend. During that time, we do all the things we don't do now that we have (relatively small) children: go to antique stores, plays, fancier restaurants, concerts, and any place that would probably be inappropriate to take people who think laughing out loud at butt jokes is subtle humor.
Usually, after about six hours (regardless of the amount of time we have) I'm ready to go home and back to our normal life. This isn't to say I'm not happy to spend some time away from my kiddoes, especially now that they are getting bigger and starting to develop their own lives and interests. But spending time doing other things makes me treasure the time I do have with them.
See, what the unfortunate Elisa Gonzalez Clark is missing is that as people grow, by marrying and having children, for example, they adjust what interests them and develop new friendships around the new interests.
This isn't to say college friendships have to collapse once one of the friends gets married. What it means is that both friends adjust their expectations about the relationship. So, rather than feeling either smug or left out, both people feel enriched by the experience.
God knows my friends could tell some hilarious stories about my wild and crazy youth (I live in fear of my kids asking me some pointed questions that won't leave wiggle room in the answers), but that was life in my 20s. It was fine and funny and thrilling then. But, frankly, I think Hank Williams Jr. had it right:
and the hang overs hurt more than they used to
and corn bread and ice tea took the place
of pills and ninety-proof,
and it seems like none of us do things
quite like we used to do
and nobody wants to get high on the town
and all my rowdy friends have settled down
Maybe the reason Clark doesn't see her old friends isn't because they now have children.
|