Spinster Life
This Christmas marked yet another Facebook baby announcement. Most folks I went to high school and college with are popping out their second or third kids by now, meanwhile I’m over here with three cats and zero babies on the horizon. I just celebrated my 33rd birthday and most times I wonder how I manage to take care of myself, let alone any additional humans.
My current boyfriend and I are very dangerous in our lovemaking, not using birth control. I’ve had to go behind his back and buy Plan B twice already. Sometimes I wonder why I’m so careful not to get pregnant when it seems to be the thing everyone else is doing. I guess I just have this thought that unless I’m well-off financially, it’s suicide having a child. It would certainly be non-ideal to bring a child up in poverty, on welfare. If my boyfriend and I were to have a child now, this would probably be the situation.
But then there’s the argument that there’s really never a “good” time for a child, so what are you waiting for? I do have reservations that I could truly pull off motherhood — the thought of a human relying solely on me for its every need is a little overwhelming. I might not be very well-suited for the job. My mom says I’m an excellent cat mother, but I don’t know how well that translates to parenthood. I admit that I can be kind of selfish, and kids require an unrelenting selflessness that I might not be able to handle.
Then there’s the added complication of my medications for bipolar disorder causing birth defects, so if I wanted a child, I’d have to switch to different medications and actually plan for a child. I don’t look forward to that process because I’m so stable on the medications I’m on currently, with no side effects, and who knows what I might get with different medications. Any medication change is a rollercoaster I do not relish. It’s hard to gauge how functional you’ll be in the midst of it all.
Part of why I want children is FOMO — fear of missing out. The holidays mark an especially child-centered time of year which highlight my childlessness. Aside from missing out on experiences with kids, what about when I’m old and need someone to take care of me? Right now I’m serving as caretaker to my 68-year-old mother, and I often think about how I won’t have anyone to help me when I’m in the same position she is. I even worry what will happen when my mom is gone, my boyfriend has left, and I have to administer medicine to my cats. It’s a two-man job! I have to do something to ensure I won’t die alone, so the only logical thing to do is reproduce.
I suppose children have been brought into the world for worse reasons than those, but I still feel like my heart isn’t quite in it yet. I just hope that by waiting, I won’t miss my chance forever. I had an abortion at age 24 and sometimes I wonder if that was my last chance at a child. I wonder how much different my life would have been had I had that child.
I’m never asked to explain my childlessness, but there is definitely a bias against the unmarried and/or childless in our society. They are seen as innately having less worth than those who have chosen to reproduce. I’ve never understood this. For all the reasons I listed above, it’s just not the right time for me personally. Maybe it will never be a good time, and if it ends up that way, that’s okay too. I hate to think that I face a lifetime of spinster jokes because of such a personal decision.
In the meantime, if I’m serious about this need to reproduce, I need to focus on creating a life worthy of bringing a child into. Moving into a house of my own, getting a better-paying job, and creating a loving relationship with the man I see being in my life for a long time to come.
