In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

No one escapes the Baby Inquisition

zuzu

Beth Ditto sure hasn’t:

All that said, as a 26-year-old lesbian, with a not-so-child-friendly career, I sure don’t have a burning desire to reproduce. You might think my circumstances would spare me from the inevitable baby pressure, but no! Just like my straight friends, I am repeatedly asked when I plan to have kids, and have been told many times, by various branches of my bloodline, that “even lesbians can have babies these days”. I have found myself in the midst of hour-long debates over artificial insemination v adoption, which I usually try to escape….

Thankfully, I am able to see through the fog and enjoy my life baby-free. For women who are worrying about this, though, I think the most important thing is to analyse where these feelings are coming from. Are they a result of outside pressure? Do they stem from the “I wanna be a grandma” funny business that so many of us encounter from our moms?

If so, then it’s time to separate their feelings from yours – outside pressure shouldn’t come into it. The recent travails of Britney Spears stand as testament to the fact that children aren’t the right choice for everyone, especially if you’re not really ready…..

Having children brings a lot of happiness, but it is also hugely romanticised. Consumer culture has created a soft- focus, nappy-commercial view of what parenthood entails. In moments when I question if I should be having kids, I think of all those phone calls from my sister-in-law, in which, 3,000 miles away, I hear my nephews screaming for her attention. I tell her I have to go because I am packing to leave for Europe, and her tone flatlines: “That must be nice.”

This archaic idea – that a woman who is unmarried and childless at 30 is somehow unnatural – will probably always exist, and, like most social standards, it is ridiculous. Please, let’s all make a pledge. Ignore it!

This goes two ways, as well: it’s all very well to advise women to ignore such questions, but there should also be some effort to send the message that it’s rude to ask such questions in the first place if the woman in question hasn’t indicated that she wants kids.

32 thoughts on No one escapes the Baby Inquisition

  1. I was having a conversation about this yesterday. Some friends were talking about the desire to have kids and the worry about not being great parents. And I asked the question – what’s your motivation for having children?

    I asked myself that before I had a child. My reason may not have been the right reason, but quite frankly, I don’t know what the right reason is. I do know that some of it was my desire to have a socially acceptable label attached to me at that time in my life. I could bypass a lot of questions and judgements about my life by saying “oh, I’m a mom”.

    Why isn’t enough to just be me? (not just me, but for everyone to just be “me”)

  2. The discussion isn’t limited to “why don’t you have kids”–women’s reproductive behavior is thought fair game for anyone to comment. If you do have a baby, you’ll be asked plenty of equally intrusive questions about why you had a child so early/late, whether your having a paid job or not (and the hours, and the job you have) is good for your baby, etc.

    Men are not asked these things.

  3. This archaic idea – that a woman who is unmarried and childless at 30 is somehow unnatural – will probably always exist, and, like most social standards, it is ridiculous. Please, let’s all make a pledge. Ignore it!

    I really hope it doesn’t always exist. If we continue to expose the patriarchal lies, it should become more of a relic, shouldn’t it?

    Childless should be a valid choice. Not everyone is cut out for having children, and it would be better for the kids if their parents actually wanted them. Not to save a marriage, not to make grandchildren, not to carry on a name.

    And for those of us who want/ed kids, 30 is not a big deal, and shouldn’t be used as a ‘threat’ that you need to hurry up and marry anyone with viable sperm.

    Genetic defects do not go up dramatically at 35, as is often quoted. Amniocentesis is a safe test, but it can cause a miscarriage 0.5% of the time (1 out of 200 women who take the test might have a miscarriage caused by the test). They don’t give you the test if your chance of any genetic defect are lower than 0.5%. At 35, your chances and the chances of amnio-miscarriage are about the same, so the risk is considered worth it from a medical point of view.

    Your chances of any genetic defect are still very LOW. They may have increased from your 20s, but they aren’t so scary that they should force people to marry earlier or have children earlier.

    I just gave birth at 39. Want to know my chances for any type of genetic defect due to my extreme age? Less than 2%.

    I bring this up to debunk the whole “must have babies before 30” meme. It’s such shit. So’s the ‘aging eggs’ meme. Every time my husband and I had unprotected sex, I had a baby. I really believe that if you have trouble conceiving after 30, you would have had trouble conceiving before 30.

    I’ve made sure my nieces know both how easily I got pregnant (even in my late 30s) and how low the chances for defects were. There’s no reason to marry and have children early unless you want to, and I’ll make sure my daughters know the facts, too.

    I think potential grandparents do have a right to ask if you are planning grandchildren, but they don’t have a right to nag you about it or pressure you about it. Everyone else…MYOB.

  4. I bring this up to debunk the whole “must have babies before 30″ meme. It’s such shit. So’s the ‘aging eggs’ meme. Every time my husband and I had unprotected sex, I had a baby. I really believe that if you have trouble conceiving after 30, you would have had trouble conceiving before 30.

    I remember reading somewhere that one of the biggest factors in female infertility is undiagnosed STIs, especially chlamydia. If you don’t have any STIs, or if they were treated promptly, your chances of having problems are much, much lower.

    If we do end up having a kid (waiting for job situations to level out), I’ll probably be at least 39, if not in my early 40s. I think I’d like one, but we’re still thinking about it. It’s just so fascinating to watch my niece and nephew grow from helpless drooling infants into individuals with hobbies and interests of their own that I think I might want to try that myself.

  5. People who feel that they are close to you will ask such questions without feeling they are being rude, and without being able to understand they had crossed a line. Although no one has asked me when I was going to start reproducing, after I had been married for some years, my mother-in-law started criticizing me. I asked her why, after treating me politely for so long, she suddenly felt free to point out what she believed to be my faults, especially because she did not act that way with her other son-in-law. She said that she really felt close to me, like I was really one of the family, and that she really didn’t understand her other son-in-law. Gee, thanks, I said.

    On the other hand, people have asked me if I had any kids, and when I have said no, left a pregnant pause for me to fill with my thoughts on reproduction, if any.

  6. Can’t say I’m the biggest fan of Ditto overall, but she made some excellent points. Choosing to be childfree is definitely a choice that leads to some level of annoyance as busybodies in your life feel the need to press the issue.

    I love love love that she suggested self-questioning for why someone who does feel pressured feels that way and whether it’s just external life-script crap.

    Although I definitely think that there should be more done than ignoring this ridiculous meme. It should be actively fought.

  7. Guess I’m lucky. Straight, white female, married twice, never had kids, never got hassled about it. Just never felt the urge to procreate, so I didn’t.

    Don’t understand the pressure to produce more people anyway. I didn’t realize we had a shortage of human beings on the planet. 😉

  8. magic words to escape the “when will you start breeding” inquisition:

    “oh, i don’t think i’d make a good parent.”

    worked for me every time so far.

  9. Hmm, should I be happy as a straight married woman to not be alone in this or depressed that this cultural phenomenon of insisting that women MUST MUST MUST have babies has gotten this far? Decisions, decisions.

    Another good rebuttal to those who nag you about why you don’t want kids, depending on the audience:

    “Because I don’t believe in child abuse, and think that we should prevent it in every way possible.”

    Unless the person is particularly slow-witted , it shuts them up really damn fast.

  10. I just got married a year ago (I’m 23) and every time I see a person I haven’t seen in a little while the first thing out of their mouth is “are you pregnant yet?”

    It makes me want to scream.
    How is it that this is anybodys business but mine and my partners? Although, considering the current political and social climate in the US, which does seem to bleed over into Canada at times, I really shouldn’t be surprised.

    Mostly, when this happens, I just launch into a rant about how everybody asks me that and how stupid it is.

  11. Best response I ever heard was the following, when someone asks you why you don’t have children/when you’re going to have children:

    “Oh, I had some.”

    Pause.

    Smile.

    “They were delicious.”

  14. Did I remember to mention that my mother started hinting in my late-20s that I should have a baby even though I wasn’t in a relationship and wasn’t even dating at the time? I think one of her phrases was, “You know, a lot of women have babies without being married these days.” She finally shut up when I got married, probably on the assumption that it would take care of itself.

    You’d think that having 10 grandchildren would be enough for the woman, but nnnoooooo ….

  16. Mnemosyne, are we related??

    For me, it was my DAD who did the anxious grandparent thing. I was 27 when I got married and of my own choice, waited until I was 30 to have my first. We had been living together 4 years before we married, which also irked Dad to no end. Quote: “I didn’t raise my children to LIVE IN SIN!” This from a man who has never been inside a church and has no faith whatsoever.

    Also from dear ole Dad (who couldn’t be bothered to come to the wedding!): “Why did you bother getting married if you’re not hurrying to have kids?”

    Then after daughter #2, along comes an especially nosy aunt to ask loudly in front of the entire family “when are you going to have a little BOY?”

    I am SO glad we live 100+ miles from nearest relative…

  17. It’s true that *no one* escapes it.

    Well, technically, no, that’s not true.

    No one has *ever* hassled me about whether or not I am going to have kids. I got involved at the age of 30 with a man who had two baby children, essentially adopted them, married the guy and at 34 and 36 had biological children. My grandmother was a nosy busybody with outmoded gender ideas who insisted that I should wear makeup and heels to my IT jobs, but she never asked me when I was going to have kids. My other grandmother was so tactless, she said in front of her then-32-year-old daughter, “The reason (daughter’s name) isn;t married yet is that no one wants her!” But she never asked me when I was going to have babies. My mom has great grandchild lust, a gay son, and a son who essentially lives in her basement, but despite my being her only hope for grandkids she never asked me when I was going to have any.

    Possibly the difference between me and at least some of the posters is that absolutely everyone in my family knew that I intended to have children someday when the time was right, so maybe they felt they didn’t need to ask. I can’t explain why anyone would be so rude as to ask a woman who just gave birth when she’s going to have another (aside from being an incredibly insensitive question to ask someone who’s just endured labor, it’s insulting to the baby — babies deserve the focus to be on them in their first days of life, not hypothetical future siblings.) But probably a lot of the pressure the childfree experience is occurring precisely *because* they’re childfree, and family who want more relatives (or well-meaning friends who are happy having babies and can’t imagine any other happiness) are trying to pressure them into changing their mind.

  18. I think my favorite “Are you going to have kids?” response was from a column in my local paper. The columnist was asked by her aunt (over Thanksgiving dinner) about having babies. She demurred and said that she didn’t want to discuss it. The aunt persisted, and asked if she and her husband were at least trying.

    The columnist put down her cutlery, looked her aunt in the eye, and said “Yes, as a matter of fact, we’re trying right now. Thank god for the tablecloth, huh?”

    That was the end of the matter.

  19. Men are not asked these things.
    Of course they are. Well, some of them, anyway. Questions about whether a woman’s job is good for her baby are obviously sexist bullshit, and men aren’t generally subjected to them. But pressure to reproduce (especially pressure from family members) is just something most adult human beings have to put up with, and, frankly, it’s no big deal.

  20. I got into an argument about this a few weeks ago. My wife and I will be married for 10 years in November, and we don’t have kids. We’ve talked about it maybe two or three times, but since I work nights, we barely see each other and it would be hard to give that time up, and we both are pretty set up in our careers. Plus, we both love to travel and I think I’m too selfish to be a parent. Our parents hinted early on, but gave up quickly. But this year, my sister had a baby, and her brother’s wife had one. So we were at the bris for the latter one, and some women who doesn’t know us asked me about kids and when I said we didn’t have any, she said “Oh, you will.” And when I said we probably won’t, she responded, “You’ll change your mind” and I almost yelled at her, “No, we won’t.” At least she gave up after that. My nephews are cute, but I like children I can give back!

  21. Yeah, I knew I didn’t want children pretty much when I was a teenager. My mum fairly regularly questioned me on the issue- “but you’d make a great mother” “but you’re so young right now, you’ll change your mind” “you’ll regret it if you don’t”

    When I met my other half I was delighted to find out he’d also come to the same conclusion at a fairly young age and had, in fact, been trying (albeit unsuccessfully) to get the snip.

    My mum, of course, won’t accept this. At first she assumed that he was “just going along with what I wanted” then she conveniently forgot the previous years of my life and my opinions during those years and I was “just going along with what he wanted”. Then “your lifestyles will change so you’ll be able to have children” and “you would make lovely parents”, then “just imagine how beautiful a baby by you two would be” and so on.

    My mum wanted a big family. Because my dad died when I was young, and she felt unable to love someone else until I was grown up, she left it too late to have any more (so she feels). So now she wants lots of grand children, and doesn’t have any other children of her own to badger for it.

    Her latest tactic is that I could “just get pregnant and then give it to her when it’s born.”. Considering that she miscarried 3 months before conceiving me, that she knows all the women in our family have an extremely high miscarriage and complications rate, that her own pregnancy with me left her with permanent damage to her spine and kidneys and that she would disown me as a child neglecter if I did give up a baby to her and show no interest in it…

    I love my mum to bits but… GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

  22. At 24, I felt huge pressure from my family to marry and have kids. My mother termed it–“she needs to settle down.” So I did. I had three miscarriages in a row and then finally my older son was born. Then it became–“oh when are you going to have another?” (forget it took 5 years and 3 traumatic miscarriages and a high-risk pregnancy to get the one I had AND I had a less-than-involved husband.)

    So I showed them. I divorced the husband, met a man 13 years younger than me and got knocked up (out of wedlock! the horrors!). They have never brought up the procreation question again.

    (Although I think that is because I am considered damaged goods now and not worthy of babies… and they don’t fully accept my younger son, because this was not a “proper” procreation… but that is a whole other issue)

    At 35, your chances and the chances of amnio-miscarriage are about the same, so the risk is considered worth it from a medical point of view.

    I was lucky because when I was 35 and pregnant with my younger son, I had pretty much resigned myself to either having an amnio or feeling guilty that I hadn’t. But luckily I was sent for genetic screening, where the doctor analyzed my history and also the ultrasound pictures. He was able to eliminate certain conditions (for instance, was able to rule out Down syndrome because of the shape of the baby’s feet). So my chance of birth defect because less great than my chance of miscarriage-by-amnio, and it became unnecessary (and even frivolous) to proceed with an amnio and I still had the reassurance that everything was “probably” okay (never any guarantees with babies). So I would highly recommend anyone in a supposed amnio-age pregnancy to discuss this option with their doctor.

  23. I have two boys (5 and 10)… I am often asked (not by family who–see above–does not think I should have more) when I’m going to have another so that I can have “finally have a girl…??”

    What is up with that?

  24. Kat: I have no idea. My fiancee’s cousins are getting a lot of that. Of all the grandkids on that side of the family, only 2 out of 9 are boys, and it gets commented on all the time.

    I also find it extremely interesting that a lot of fertility clinics will let you utilize sex-selection for the purposes of gender balancing your family, but not if you state you specifically want just a boy or a girl.

    This is an excellent question: what is up with that?

  25. But pressure to reproduce (especially pressure from family members) is just something most adult human beings have to put up with, and, frankly, it’s no big deal.

    Maybe not for you. But it IS a big deal when you can’t go a day without hearing about it, when even people you barely know (or don’t know at all) feel they have the right to ask you about when you’re going to have children, when no one refuses to take a “no” for an answer, when it crosses the line from a rude-but-probably-sincere question into browbeating and harassment….

    It is a big deal. It’s one more way to run roughshod over women’s boundaries. (And some men’s too, perhaps … do men generally get harassed by strangers about their lack of children? Honest question; I wouldn’t know.)

    On another note: my new favorite tactic for getting people to stop with the questioning is to pull out what Dad calls my “old stoneface” look and just stare at the asker until they shut up. Even better? It lets all but the most braindead know in no uncertain terms that they’ve just crossed the line with me, and all without me saying a thing.

  26. But pressure to reproduce (especially pressure from family members) is just something most adult human beings have to put up with, and, frankly, it’s no big deal.

    Well, depends. My SIL and brother have no children. There was much tongue-clucking about this. She was depriving him of children!! (of course, it was her fault… damn career woman that she was!)

    She later confided in me that they had never actively prevented pregnancy but had not actively sought it either–but they didn’t feel that was anyone’s business. She had been trying to deal with the mixed emotions of all this on her own without interference.

    So, yeah, those questions can be really hurtful.

  27. Actually, zuzu, the “Oh, I had some” works much better when followed by a sorrowful or stony face, because the implication is that you lost children and the asker is an insensitive fucking asshole for even bringing up such a painful subject.

    I remember reading somewhere that one of the biggest factors in female infertility is undiagnosed STIs, especially chlamydia.

    Bingo. And then you have to throw into the average women who have a family history of reproductive problems.

  30. I sometimes ask this question to people who crow about getting married because I think marriage and children are the two primary expectations of women and I’m always curious where personal human motives end and peer pressure begins.

    I think the force of this influence is even exhibited in the responses to this post, where many of the women that have reproduced feel the need to tell us just how many they’ve had, how old they were when they had their children and how many they’ve made. I’ve witnessed this same phenomenon many times, online and socially. It’s almost a litany people have as a way of introduction, like a PhD or something else tacked on to the identity.

  31. “where many of the women that have reproduced feel the need to tell us just how many they’ve had, how old they were when they had their children and how many they’ve made.”

    But then again, in threads about pets, people say those things about their cats. Or in threads about jobs, they’ll talk about hiring procedures. I think people just liketalking about their lives.

    I don’t mind being asked if I’m going to have children because I’m very ambivalent, and can sort of say “I don’t know,” as a way of trying to gain more information from more poeple about what their experiences with children or being childless are like. But then I don’t come across as exceptionally maternal, and I’ve never encountered anyone who really pressured me one way or another.

    Although, when I realized I may be infertile and told my mother, “Oh well. If we decide we want kids, we can always adopt,” she did seem oddly hostile to that. I’m sure she’ll get over it.

  32. I don’t get asked to often when I am going to have kids, but rather, how far along I am or just plain, are you pregnant?

    To which I reply,

    nope, just fat in all the wrong places.

    I want to have kids one day, but c’mon, I’ll tell you when I am pregnant, and ready to tell. You don’t need to ASK. It’s PRIVATE.

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