I am J.D. Vance’s worst nightmare. A single, childfree, millennial woman. I don’t even have a cat. Congress seems to think women like me are leading this lifestyle simply to defy them. Babes, I can promise you’re thinking about us far more than we are thinking about you. I am not single, and without children to commit a “fuck you” to the patriarchy, that’s just an added bonus to the life I choose to live. Well, sort of choose. Parts of it are complicated. The truth is, my lifestyle baffles a lot of people, not just conservative white men scared of losing control. And in a world of memes and sound bites, it’s not always easy to tackle the nuance of why someone’s life looks the way it does. Or how one can be content, even fulfilled, in their setup but still have moments of wanting the other. Or how 15 seconds can upend an entire life path; and while you’re grateful for where you ended up, you mourn the path not traveled.
When I hit 30, I started to notice people, always well-meaning, would have pitying reactions to finding out I was single. Not a reaction to me commenting on my feelings of being single; just the stripped-down, plain fact that I was without a partner. “Have you tried apps?” “Don’t worry, you just haven’t met the right person yet; it will happen.” “How are you single? You’re great!” and my personal favorite, “But don’t you want children?”
It’s like telling people you have brown hair and having people think it’s insane and tragic that you aren’t dying (pun intended) to be blonde. Like it never occurred to you that you could just pick up a box and some bleach. Maybe we like our brunette locks, even if we sometimes wonder how much fun blondes really do have.
Even the therapist I had at 30 was obsessed (it was weird, y’all) with my finding a husband, even though I never once complained about being single. Everything else I was doing and accomplishing in life didn’t seem to matter because I didn’t have a dick by my side. It was frustrating as hell, and I did start to feel like I was failing on some level. Or there was something wrong with me because I wasn’t out there swiping right.
Enter Tracee Ellis Ross. Tracee. Motherfucking. Ellis. Ross. She gave this incredible speech for Glamour magazine about being 45, never married, and without kids. (Watch it here: Tracee Ellis Ross is Living for Herself)
I have thought about this speech at least once a month since I first saw it nine years ago.
For starters, she made me feel less alone and less flawed. She also gave me the tools to explain to my therapist that I wasn’t broken in this department. I love love; I am not, nor have I ever been, against a life partnership. I am actively open, just not actively seeking. And that’s how I’ve always been wired. It’s simply not a priority for me in the same way it is for other people (and neither way is better or worse). But when someone comes along who really lights me up, you bet I’m all in.
And my life, my beautiful life, was so full. Full of love, passion, curiosity, adventure. Frankly, I was fucking crushing it in my late 20s/early 30s. And I was no longer standing for all of it being diminished by my therapist (a paid professional) because the marriage and carriage part hadn’t come into play yet.
Not only did I state all of this to my therapist; I fired her. And have never once regretted it.
Thank you, Tracee.
My stance on love and partnership has not changed. It’s not a top priority, but I look forward to falling in love again. And it wouldn’t surprise me if I end up with a partner for life.
That part is easy to talk about.
Then there’s the kid thing.
Not so easy.
While my stance on dating has never once changed, my feelings about being a parent did a sudden and severe 180 at some point in the back half of my 30s. I hate talking about it because I have never found a way to verbalize that I’m content with it. The reactions I get from people, again, always well-meaning, sting. I have plenty of friends who have never wanted children, and I have friends who have gone through the trials and sometimes heartbreak of IVF or adoption. But I don’t personally know anyone (unless we’ve just never happened to learn this about each other) who went from so fully wanting to be a parent to not wanting it at all.
If nothing else, I always thought me becoming a mom was a given. And not because I was someone with a functional womb; therefore, it’s my societal duty to make use of it. It wasn’t subliminal pressure. It just always made complete sense that I would have a child. A calling, if you will. When I pictured my future, I always pictured that part more clearly than having a significant other. If I ultimately needed to find a way to do it on my own, I would.
There’s this episode of Friends where Chandler delivers a monologue (a stunning moment for Matthew Perry, IMHO) in which he describes Monica as being a mother without a baby. The older I got, the more that scene resonated with me. Not in a way that I was sad; I was still young enough not to hear the ticking clock, but I got it. I was given the role of mom; the role of baby just hadn’t been cast yet. And one day it would be. All would make sense.
Just before I turned 30 (as referenced here: Thank You, Jonathan Groff), I experienced an act of violence that pulled the rug out from under me. 15 seconds, and bang! (crash! A lightning flash!), everything changed. Went dark. My brain short-circuited, and my spirit shattered. And as I’ve discussed on this blog, your scrappy pal over here spent the bulk of that decade clawing out of that hole. And I made it! I’m doing so very well. But somewhere along the way, in the time I spent getting back to myself, I completely lost the desire to have children.
At first, it was because I hated myself. That sounds harsh, But, that tends to be the way of things when in the depths of something like PTSD. And because I hated myself, I no longer believed I was capable of being a good mom. Something I have only ever admitted out loud twice (once to my current therapist, and once to a friend during an interview).
Once we got over that devastating and depressing hurdle, the desire to have a little one just never came back. This shocked me.
But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I gave up so much time and energy for the better part of a decade to get to a place where I was happy, healthy, and fulfilled again. And now that I’m there – I want to selfishly enjoy it. I’m just getting my own identity back, without the chains of trauma, and I want to run with it. And if I fall madly in love tomorrow, I want to simply enjoy a stable and healthy partnership (sexy, I know), without bringing a third party into the mix (as adorable as they may be), because I deserve to finally have one.
I rarely talk about the kid thing outside of saying I don’t want children, because the few times I have, the well-meaning angels in my life revert to sentiments similar to the ones I receive about being single: “Have you considered freezing your eggs?” “You could always adopt.” “You are still young enough; you have time.” “Have you considered getting back on the apps?”
I did consider freezing my eggs, but it just never felt right – I knew in my gut they would just sit in a freezer for eternity. Even knowing that, I also knew if I went through everything you have to in order to freeze your eggs, if I had a bad retrieval, it would wreck me. Also. It’s fucking expensive. I considered adoption as an option to keep on the horizon, but that felt forced too. And also, it’s fucking expensive. There is no simple, risk-free, inexpensive way to bring a child into your life. Just because a lot of people do it doesn’t mean it’s easy.
I have made peace with this shift. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a level of grief that comes along with it. That’s the part that’s hard to express. Because the elements of who I am fundamentally haven’t changed. That woman, who is like Monica Geller, still exists in there. The parts of me that are maternal, and patient, and (some may say overly) invested in taking care of and supporting those around me haven’t left the building. I have a big, sloppy, beating heart that has endless love to give. It is one of my biggest strengths in life; I’m just learning how to channel it in new ways instead of saving parts of it for my future child.
Grieving the path not taken is a weird one to navigate. A lot of this doesn’t feel like an actual choice. I didn’t wake up one morning and think, “You know what, I’ve decided procreating isn’t for me.” To a certain degree, my life changed against my will. And while I have and will continue making the best of it, that doesn’t negate that I had choice and time taken from me, as do many people when they experience a traumatic event like an accident, crime, abuse, or long-term illness; and it’s important to honor the grief that comes with it.
I am not sure how to end this post. It’s been a tough one to write, and I am struggling to come up with a proper conclusion. All that’s coming to mind is “may I please remind you, it does NOT say R.S.V.P. on the Statue of Liberty,” but this isn’t really a Cher Horowitz moment, is it?
So I will say this: I don’t know if I will end up with a life partner or not but I’m open; there could be a chance I join a cult, do a 180 on all of this, and become a trad wife (stranger things have happened); I will always have moments where I think prioritizing having a significant other wouldn’t be the worst thing, or wonder what life would have looked like with a child…I am only human, after all. But I can promise you I am secure, happy, and fulfilled in my choices; I trust the people around me to make the best choices for themselves; and I will never get a cat.
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