One of the funniest incidents I remember from grad school was during my final thesis committee meeting, when my committee members and I were discussing when I should schedule my defense. We had already agreed on the remaining experiments I would do and I had told them how long I thought these experiments would take, when my committee chair (a.k.a. Bigshot PI) turned to me and asked, "Do you have any other clocks ticking?"
For the life of me, I couldn't think of any "clock" other than the proverbial biological clock, and I was stunned speechless that my chair would actually ask me something like that. I must've spent several seconds trying desperately to think of something to say before my PI helpfully piped up, "What he means is do you already have a postdoc with a specific start date set up?"
Oh...that clock.
Bigshot PI only looked a little confused by the long silence before I managed to choke out that I hadn't found a postdoc position yet. My PI, on the other hand, was by now turning red from the effort not to laugh out loud. Bastard!
Anyway, I remembered this incident because I've been thinking about clocks lately. Specifically, biological clocks. See, March Hare and I decided a long time ago that we weren't going to have kids. We love our niece and nephew and playing with our friends' kids, but that has never translated for us into a yearning to have our own. At the end of the day, we've always been perfectly content to hand the kids back over to their parents and return to our kid-free life.
Neither March Hare nor I have changed our minds about this in the 15 years we've been together. But strangely, when I tell other people I don't want to have kids, very often their response is to tell me about some friend or cousin who spent her entire life not wanting kids until the day she woke up with a completely different opinion on the matter. Interestingly, it's always other women, not men, who come up with these "someday you'll change your mind just like my friend did" stories.
I gotta tell ya, I'm extremely skeptical that these stories can be true. Yes, people do change their minds about important life decisions, but I have a really hard time believing that one's interest in having children can unexpectedly go from 0% to 100%. More to the point, I don't generally vacillate from one opinion to another, and I can't imagine any likely circumstance under which I would have so profound a change of opinion. Then again, some female PhDs and MDs whom I know personally to be rational and decisive people have sworn up and down that they felt no maternal stirrings for years before mysteriously changing their minds.
So what is up with that? Does this actually happen and if it does, how and why does it happen? And if it doesn't, why the hell are all these other women trying to convince me it'll happen to me?
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17 comments:
I know what you mean. I can't imagine life with a kid, nor do I particularly want to. My parents believe that it is just me being 'non-conformist', just like getting a PhD, living with Dr R and not being married. Something I'll 'get to eventually'.
Actually, I think those that do not think they would be good parents will probably be the best parents - neither hyperactively maternal or paternal, nor ignorant of the challenges. At least they've thought about it and are probably less likely to screw up their kids lives than those who have kids to fill a gap in their mundane existence.
No, I have no idea who those women are.
I have a friend going through this right now. She met and married her husband when she was young, and neither wanted to have children. Now she's approaching thirty and the thoughts are creeping in, which is tough because her husband doesn't feel the same way.
Not to say that this is going to happen to you. And I, too, would also be skeptical of going from 0% to 100%. For my friend, anyway, this is a gradual thought process.
Yes, I think it can and does happen from time to time. I have a friend whose parents had her when the mother was in her late thirties and father in his late forties ... they had thought they didn't want kids, and then changed their minds later in life. On the other hand, I don't know how many of the people who 'changed their minds' are going from 0 to 100 percent. Presumably, they were never at zero percent or they would have probably had a vasectomy or tubal ligation.
But I think the majority of people who are 0 percent, or even at 10 percent don't change their minds, and anyway, its annoying when other people claim to know what you will decide later in life. Maybe you will change your mind, maybe you won't, but that's really only between you and your husband and it's no one else's damn business.
Like Ruchi said, if someone changes their mind, they were probably closer to 40% than to 0% to start with.
I'm showing no signs of changing my mind yet. We spent a few days with our favourite nephews (age 7 and 9) last month, and as we drove away at the end of the visit, my husband said "wow, even the most awesome kids are a MASSIVE amount of work and arguments and hassle. I'm feeling pretty good about our decision", and I have to say I agree!
I have an acquaintance who changed her mind, seemingly from 0% ("I'd get my tubes tied if I could afford it") to 100% (her partner is also a women, so she has to find a sperm donor). But so what? I agree with Ruchi that it's no one else's business and so people shouldn't act like they know you. It's condescending.
PD--Yeah, my mom is still holding on to the idea that someday I'll change my mind. At least your mother didn't tearfully ask if the reason you didn't want kids was because you had a bad childhood. Yeesh!
Candid--That does sound like a tough situation. I must admit I do have a secret fear that someday March Hare will change his mind and decide he wants kids. He really has much more parenting potential than I do!
Ruchi--Actually, part of the reason I wrote this post is because I am considering Essure, which is a new sterilization procedure which is less invasive than tubal ligation. The risks of taking birth control pills increases as one ages, so I really don't want to be taking the pills till I hit menopause (I'm 34, so I've got a few years to go). I'm just a little afraid that as soon as I do it, I'll decide I want kids!
Cath--March Hare and I had a similar experience the last time we visited our niece and nephew. We were driving away from their house and talking excitedly about how much fun it had been. All of a sudden, we both got quiet and looked at each other warily. March Hare said, "Um, you haven't changed your mind, have you?" I said, "No. You?" He said no too and we both breathed a huge sigh of relief! :-)
EGF--It's funny how the topic of having kids/being pregnant seems to be one on which all sorts of random people feel they have a right to offer unsolicited advice. Weird, isn't it?
I have always thought myself that one day I would wake up on a Saturday morning thinking "this is so quiet... how nice it would be to have a kid running around, or to take to the park...", and that would be the sign of my desire to be a parent. I have never seen it as a "decision" that one could make on any rational ground, for in that case nobody would ever have children , I think.
That day has never come for me, I still wake up thinking "this is so quiet ... I just love it". I would have made a terrible parent.
hm, I have a few friends who have "changed" their mind.. but most of them were men. In their 20ies and early 30ies they were very vocal about "hating kids" and "never wanting kids" and two of them even divorced their spouses since they wanted kids (in their early 30ies although when they married a few years earlier no-one wanted kids).
I think it is a bit like Cath and all the others say, that if you are decided 100% there is less likelyhood of changing. THen again, I do think that people change a lot during aging and some things that seemed important when younger might not be as important when older. Children might not be one of "those things" but it may?!
Personally I have always thought I would have a family with kids and the older I get I ponder if it really is a good idea. my main thing is that I can see myself with grandkids when I am 70 but the road there is very very murky.... I guess I will know hoe it turns out the next 6 years (if I am lucky to be fertile that long...)
I missed the part about my male friends stating no kids, getting divorced and then a few years later getting remarried and getting kids with the second wife and loving it.
I still find it a bit strange since they were so vocal about it.... then again, they were both over 35 when the children arrived...
Well, now, this is going way over the line I ranted about in my last comment, but why not a vasectomy for March Hare instead of tubal ligation for you? It my understanding that vasectomies are basically reversible, right? Oh, but is Essure that new squishy tube that they can take back out so it's reversible too? I think I saw that on tv...
Speaking of non-conformist, my mother accuses me of this too. But for me, the situation is reversed. I have ALWAYS wanted kids. Like 5 of them. Although I have never had any interest in marriage, I have dreamed about being a mother my entire life. In fact, all of my major life decisions have been made with this goal in mind. However, for the first time ever, at 30 I am reconsidering this.
Dr. A, I can totally relate. I've lived my whole life really wanting kids (just two though!) but as I'm starting to get older, I'm realizing how much I would have to give up in order to have kids, and I'm starting to wonder if I do want children after all. :)
I still think I probably do ... but I think I'm more at 80-90% now rather than 100%.
Massimo--For me, the part I love is waking up at 7am on Saturday and thinking, "You know what, I'm just going to go back to sleep till 11am." And as for being a terrible parent, you and me both!
Chall--Wow, going from divorcing your spouse because she wants kids to remarrying and having kids is a big change! I agree people definitely change as they get older. I just wonder how much older I have to get before I can be sure I won't change my mind on this?
EGF--I don't think Essure is reversible. As for the vasectomy, I'm working on it. There are very, very few things March Hare is unreasonable about (in fact, I can only think of one other thing in 10 years of marriage), but this appears to be one of them....
Dr. A and Ruchi--You know, there isn't a single thing I can think of that I have always wanted or always dreamt of. And I sort of envied you guys for having that kind of certainty.
"As for the vasectomy, I'm working on it. There are very, very few things March Hare is unreasonable about (in fact, I can only think of one other thing in 10 years of marriage), but this appears to be one of them...."
Mr E Man is the exact same way.
MadHatter> I know. I was and am a bit surprised but then again... maybe they weren't interested in becoming a parent but then they met the "right woman" and were older and richer (which they were) and thought that if she wants a child and I love her we can do it?!
(of course, one of them said "she got pregnant and we didn't plan it" which made me wonder at the time if he lied to me - or if she'd lied to him... it isn't that hard to refrain from getting pregnant if you are over 34? right?)
MH and Cath> it might be something with the "my manlyness is in my sperms" and being enourmously arbitary and not really what they want to feel... but subconsiously it is important to know that you are fertile?!?! I dunno... [i don't want to say something rude and unsensitive]
Then again, my best friend and her husband have the same problem (although after having a few kids). He can't see himself getting snipped but they don't want anymore children - and it is very invasive for women.
and I guess, thinking about other men I know who state "never want kids" - as far as I know, neither of them have had a vasectomy...
Chall--That's the other kind of story other women love to tell me when I say I'm not planning on having kids. "Oh, my husband's cousin's girlfriend totally didn't want kids and was on the pill, but she got pregnant anyway." Are all the women I know just trying to scare the hell out of me??? :-)
Chall & Cath--I do think a lot of men are squeamish about anyone messing with their, um, privates. I also think that many men aren't really all that interested in thinking about or discussing contraception. I mean, they don't get pregnant, don't go through labor, don't lactate, etc. I'm not dissing on fathers here, but suffice it to say that the "costs" are higher for women than for men, especially if the pregnancy was unplanned and unwanted. I just think men don't have as much incentive as women to really care about contraception.
Not that this is my business at all, but I know at least 2 people who got pregnant on the pill. Neither one is the type to make a mistake about something like that, and they both had used the pill as their only child prevention mechanism successfully for over 10 years. 98-99% effective is still not 100%! Even the FDA stats says 1-2 out of 100 women taking will get pregnant each year.
I got a tubal during my last c-section. We are comfortable with the 1/300 fail rate, so don't plan on using anything else. We used the pill alone before that, but always planned on kids, so an accident wouldn't have been so bad.
Chall, I had both of my kids after I turned 34. I was pregnant with #1 in my FIRST post-pill cycle (which my OB said was extremely unlikely--she said it usually takes 3 cycles to come to full fertility). For #2, it took 2 cycles (and I was 2.5 years older). If you are fertile, you are fertile. Lots of people stay really fertile into their 40's (though I wouldn't bet my family on it).
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