Childless Uncle
I recently found out I'm going to be an uncle, quite an exciting event! Calling up the relatives, getting their reactions to everything, etc. A huge thing, and I'm not really done processing it yet, so this note isn't entirely about that (although I don't know if I'll write one - it's pretty personal).
What I thought I'd muse about a little bit is the interesting response I've gotten from two or three people - asking when Kate and I are planning to have our own kids. At that point I usually smile and say something noncommittal, because I wouldn't want my honest response to be taken the wrong way, especially in context. I think it's great that I'm going to be an uncle, but Kate and I aren't planning to have kids anytime soon. No, I'm not being the typical male, I've actually talked about it with Kate and gotten her input, and it's a mutual decision - though I'm probably a little more on that side of the scale than she is. Why?
Well, first off, we're just not that good with little children. Neither one of us has that little maternal/paternal "squish" that shows up with people our age and babies/toddlers. I don't think I'd have the boundless patience required not to lose it the eighteenth morning in a row, when I have to get up two hours before my alarm goes off to change and mollify the kid, when I went to bed four hours later than usual because the baby wouldn't go to sleep. The way we both cringe and grate our teeth when we see some howling kid in the store makes me think I just wouldn't do well there. Peoples' usual response to this is that "it's different when they're yours", but...I just don't completely trust that kind of logic. It sounds like a gambler when they say they're due for the big jackpot - if the odds haven't favored it so far, you really shouldn't gamble big that it'll be different this time.
Second, we just don't feel like we're in a place right now where we could support a child. I have some large student loans, I don't have a big well-paying counseling job, we don't have the kind of time parents should be able to set aside for their kid - especially during those crucial first five years of life. If we had the kind of money to cover the expenses we KNOW are attached to childbirth and early childhood, and one of us was making enough that the other could spend most of their time home with a kid, it might be different. The usual response to this is that "you're never really going to feel READY to have a kid, you just have to jump in and force yourself to make it work." This has a certain emotional attraction to it, but...seriously? That is some TERRIBLE logic right there. What if it were applied to anything other than a child? "I never feel like I'll have the money for a high-end luxury convertible, and I sure don't have the time for its proper care, so I'd better just go buy one and make sure I do." These are the kind of people you want put into experimental brain-enhancement programs for their own good, isn't it? And that's just a CAR - how much more unfathomable is it to think that about a living, breathing, feeling, growing CHILD?
Finally, and on more of a societal/sociological note, there's just too many kids out there. In 1999, there were just over 127,000 kids waiting for adoption in the United States. A HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SEVEN THOUSAND. Kids that are just as good as anyone that you'd birth from your own loins, just as deserving of love and affection, just as intelligent and full of potential, just as...everything. But instead of understanding their origin and using our surplus to care for one of them, parents planning ahead decide to have one of their own. I'd never make a choice for someone else in this department, but for me personally, that seems like it would be a selfish choice for me to make. Kate and I are often checking back on this decision of ours, because it's not something we've set in stone, but for the last seven years the answer's remained the same - if eventually we do feel like we're in a place where we could offer enough of ourselves to sustain another essentially helpless life, we'll adopt a three-to-six-year-old. That's old enough that it's out of the range that it's "popular" to adopt a kid - and out of the Terrible Twos - but young enough that we won't be contending with a childhood already full of struggles in the foster system. I don't know if I'd ever have the strength for that particular struggle.
So there it is, nice and public - we're childless by choice, though we'd never try to mandate that choice to other people. I realize there's an increasingly-popular movement attached to this idea, but I know essentially nothing about it. As people have been asking more, though, I find the urge to read more about this and what other childless-by-choice people believe. By writing this, I guess I've created a little memory-milestone that I can look back on as I read more about it, and know where I started and how I've changed, if any.
What I thought I'd muse about a little bit is the interesting response I've gotten from two or three people - asking when Kate and I are planning to have our own kids. At that point I usually smile and say something noncommittal, because I wouldn't want my honest response to be taken the wrong way, especially in context. I think it's great that I'm going to be an uncle, but Kate and I aren't planning to have kids anytime soon. No, I'm not being the typical male, I've actually talked about it with Kate and gotten her input, and it's a mutual decision - though I'm probably a little more on that side of the scale than she is. Why?
Well, first off, we're just not that good with little children. Neither one of us has that little maternal/paternal "squish" that shows up with people our age and babies/toddlers. I don't think I'd have the boundless patience required not to lose it the eighteenth morning in a row, when I have to get up two hours before my alarm goes off to change and mollify the kid, when I went to bed four hours later than usual because the baby wouldn't go to sleep. The way we both cringe and grate our teeth when we see some howling kid in the store makes me think I just wouldn't do well there. Peoples' usual response to this is that "it's different when they're yours", but...I just don't completely trust that kind of logic. It sounds like a gambler when they say they're due for the big jackpot - if the odds haven't favored it so far, you really shouldn't gamble big that it'll be different this time.
Second, we just don't feel like we're in a place right now where we could support a child. I have some large student loans, I don't have a big well-paying counseling job, we don't have the kind of time parents should be able to set aside for their kid - especially during those crucial first five years of life. If we had the kind of money to cover the expenses we KNOW are attached to childbirth and early childhood, and one of us was making enough that the other could spend most of their time home with a kid, it might be different. The usual response to this is that "you're never really going to feel READY to have a kid, you just have to jump in and force yourself to make it work." This has a certain emotional attraction to it, but...seriously? That is some TERRIBLE logic right there. What if it were applied to anything other than a child? "I never feel like I'll have the money for a high-end luxury convertible, and I sure don't have the time for its proper care, so I'd better just go buy one and make sure I do." These are the kind of people you want put into experimental brain-enhancement programs for their own good, isn't it? And that's just a CAR - how much more unfathomable is it to think that about a living, breathing, feeling, growing CHILD?
Finally, and on more of a societal/sociological note, there's just too many kids out there. In 1999, there were just over 127,000 kids waiting for adoption in the United States. A HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SEVEN THOUSAND. Kids that are just as good as anyone that you'd birth from your own loins, just as deserving of love and affection, just as intelligent and full of potential, just as...everything. But instead of understanding their origin and using our surplus to care for one of them, parents planning ahead decide to have one of their own. I'd never make a choice for someone else in this department, but for me personally, that seems like it would be a selfish choice for me to make. Kate and I are often checking back on this decision of ours, because it's not something we've set in stone, but for the last seven years the answer's remained the same - if eventually we do feel like we're in a place where we could offer enough of ourselves to sustain another essentially helpless life, we'll adopt a three-to-six-year-old. That's old enough that it's out of the range that it's "popular" to adopt a kid - and out of the Terrible Twos - but young enough that we won't be contending with a childhood already full of struggles in the foster system. I don't know if I'd ever have the strength for that particular struggle.
So there it is, nice and public - we're childless by choice, though we'd never try to mandate that choice to other people. I realize there's an increasingly-popular movement attached to this idea, but I know essentially nothing about it. As people have been asking more, though, I find the urge to read more about this and what other childless-by-choice people believe. By writing this, I guess I've created a little memory-milestone that I can look back on as I read more about it, and know where I started and how I've changed, if any.