The Onion once ran an article whose headline read, “Like Having Big Boxes Of Shit In Your House? Get A Cat!”
I think about motherhood similarly. Want to be plagued by feelings of inadequacy and incessantly reminded of your own mortality? Tired of having your own needs met? Be a mom!
While I’m certain motherhood has its rewards, I’m also certain that so to do lobotomies, high colonics, and root canals.
When I think of motherhood, I think oppression. But this is coming from someone who finds her cat a little too demanding; in my estimation goldfish are too needy; I get bored quickly; the novelty wears off fast; I don’t want anything that can’t be returned; In relationships, “liking me too much” is a deal breaker; I don’t want a perpetual condition; I hate the question, Do you want to hold the baby? -- because it’s not really a question; I hate the sight of toys strewn about a room; the first time I babysat my niece, while changing her diaper I got shit on my hand and reacted as though I’d been shot.
I am simply not cut from maternal cloth.
Truth be told, even as a kid, I wasn’t so fond of kids. I remember one morning in 1984 when my mother, pregnant with my sister, tried to break the news of the impending sibling by asking me, “What if God wanted me to have another baby?”
I think she expected that by virtue of my being a girl, and by presenting the pregnancy as a mandate from God, I would have no choice but to be agreeable.
Nevertheless, all of eight years old, I looked her square in the face and said, “You tell him ‘no.’”
And so my sister became my very first lesson in “that which is out of your control.”
Truth be told, even as a kid, I wasn’t so fond of kids. I remember one morning in 1984 when my mother, pregnant with my sister, tried to break the news of the impending sibling by asking me, “What if God wanted me to have another baby?”
I think she expected that by virtue of my being a girl, and by presenting the pregnancy as a mandate from God, I would have no choice but to be agreeable.
Nevertheless, all of eight years old, I looked her square in the face and said, “You tell him ‘no.’”
And so my sister became my very first lesson in “that which is out of your control.”
Recently, I had dinner with a friend who is trying to have a baby with her partner. Gone are the turkey-baster methods I heard about as a young lesbian. Now everything is high-tech, highly involved, expensive, scientific.
Between beers, my friend segued into a conversation about having to monitor her partner’s ovulation cycles and apologized, “I know you don’t want to talk about this,” she said. “I know you’re thinking, ‘fuck babies.’”
Yes. That’s me. Fuck babies. Fuck babies and fuck puppies and kittens and flowers and sunny days. The only logical explanation for my not wanting children must be that I am the Anti-Christ.
Here’s the thing: I don’t want a dolphin or a mountain gorilla either, but I’m not opposed to their very existence. On the contrary, I’m glad all women don’t feel the way I do because for whatever perverse reason, I do want the human race to survive. At least, on most days.
My sister in law and I were in the kitchen when Alice entered carrying a small pink purse. She was two-years-and-two-months old. She stood between her mother and me, looked up, wanted something. Children always want something.
“What do you want?” I asked. “You want a big cup of coffee?”
She smiled. “No.”
When I asked what was in her purse she eagerly opened it revealing a baby doll, a toothbrush, a block and a bunch of cat food. I pretended to be inordinately horrified at the sight of the cat food and she laughed at my reaction.
“Are you going to eat all of that?” I asked her.
Alice shook her head emphatically. “Auntie Allison eat it.”
Auntie Allison will play dollies in the dollhouse. Auntie Allison will play “get you” until she is out of breath. Auntie Allison will sit through endless episodes of “Yo Gabba Gabba” and “Dora” and will eat the mashed blueberries offered her by small, sweaty, blueberry stained hands. Auntie Allison will “pretend fall down” and will pretend the teddy bear has bitten her, but Auntie Allison will not eat cat food.
When I said, “Disgusting!” Alice laughed hard and for the rest of the afternoon, just to hear me say “disgusting,” Alice brought me pieces of cat food and suggested I eat them.
If she were my kid, this game would not go on.
But my sister-in-law picks her battles carefully, and the child in my life is not my child, so unless she’s about to stick her finger in an electrical outlet, eat a marble, or run into traffic, I am in the lucky position of not being in the position to discipline.
For Alice, I do not signify security or food or shelter. I am but an autonomous conduit for entertainment. And this is a perfect relationship.
While I never wanted children, I always hoped my siblings would be fruitful and multiply. I wanted to be an aunt. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of summers spent with my mother’s sister before she and her husband adopted three children of their own.
During the day, my aunt and I would pick raspberries from her garden and make orange juice popsicles; at night she initially read to me from books she liked but I could scarcely make sense of - Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice - and ultimately read to me from books I understood and adored - Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables.
But it didn’t really matter what she was reading those evenings as I lied in her lap smelling the musty book, the dirt from her garden work, her jasmine perfume - though she was different from my mother, she was just as familiar.
And anyway, seldom do aunts get blamed for hang-ups. Seldom does one need years of therapy to work out their “Aunt issues.” Seldom does one fear becoming her aunt. When was the last time you heard a friend say, “Oh my god. My aunt is driving me fucking crazy?”
I was delighted when Alice was born, and my own mother confused my adoration of Alice with a desire to have a child of my own. “You could adopt,” she suggested.
And for the millionth time, I reminded her, “I don’t want children.”
“I know,” she said. “But you could adopt.”
I could also hijack a plane or start shooting up, but I don’t want to.
It’s a bit like the old, Yeah, Grandma, I really like that bedazzled cat sweatshirt you gave me. I just haven’t had an occasion to wear it. You don’t really mean it. You just don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Don’t want to upset grandma’s understanding of you and fashion and the world. And what you really want to say is Dude? Seriously? No.
But it seems we live in a society that really does expect women to wear the bedazzled cat sweatshirt of motherhood -- and we’ve been fed the lie that it looks good on everyone.
My mother has had a more difficult time accepting my unwillingness to have children than she had accepting the fact that I was gay -- and this is saying a lot considering my mother tolerates homosexuality the way she might, if forced, tolerate having a tarantula set upon her face.
That I do not want children -- adopted or otherwise -- is inconceivable to my mother, but in this she is not alone.
Recently, and primarily among my adult students, I have been getting the question:Do you have children?
More often than not I find myself employing the inflection I reserve for the good student who misses class and asks if she can re-take the missed quiz in spite of my strict policy forbidding make up quizzes.
“No . . . “ I say, in that “gee-whiz-by-golly-I-sure-am-
But do I really regret that I have a policy prohibiting make-up quizzes? Hell no.
And am I sorry that I don’t have children? Fuck no.
The week my grandmother died, I cancelled my Monday evening class so I could be with her. When I returned to class the following Monday, the day before her wake, my students -- all adults in this class -- asked where I had been.
When I told them, they went quiet -- as people often do when confronted with death.
Yes, all went quiet but Maria.
Maria was in her fifties and on more than one occasion insinuated that she and I were “about the same age.” The first time she suggested the latter, I studied my face a little harder in the mirror -- concluding that her inference only served to prove my theory that students always think their teachers much older than they actually are.
Alice shook her head emphatically. “Auntie Allison eat it.”
Auntie Allison will play dollies in the dollhouse. Auntie Allison will play “get you” until she is out of breath. Auntie Allison will sit through endless episodes of “Yo Gabba Gabba” and “Dora” and will eat the mashed blueberries offered her by small, sweaty, blueberry stained hands. Auntie Allison will “pretend fall down” and will pretend the teddy bear has bitten her, but Auntie Allison will not eat cat food.
When I said, “Disgusting!” Alice laughed hard and for the rest of the afternoon, just to hear me say “disgusting,” Alice brought me pieces of cat food and suggested I eat them.
If she were my kid, this game would not go on.
But my sister-in-law picks her battles carefully, and the child in my life is not my child, so unless she’s about to stick her finger in an electrical outlet, eat a marble, or run into traffic, I am in the lucky position of not being in the position to discipline.
For Alice, I do not signify security or food or shelter. I am but an autonomous conduit for entertainment. And this is a perfect relationship.
While I never wanted children, I always hoped my siblings would be fruitful and multiply. I wanted to be an aunt. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of summers spent with my mother’s sister before she and her husband adopted three children of their own.
During the day, my aunt and I would pick raspberries from her garden and make orange juice popsicles; at night she initially read to me from books she liked but I could scarcely make sense of - Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice - and ultimately read to me from books I understood and adored - Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables.
But it didn’t really matter what she was reading those evenings as I lied in her lap smelling the musty book, the dirt from her garden work, her jasmine perfume - though she was different from my mother, she was just as familiar.
And anyway, seldom do aunts get blamed for hang-ups. Seldom does one need years of therapy to work out their “Aunt issues.” Seldom does one fear becoming her aunt. When was the last time you heard a friend say, “Oh my god. My aunt is driving me fucking crazy?”
I was delighted when Alice was born, and my own mother confused my adoration of Alice with a desire to have a child of my own. “You could adopt,” she suggested.
And for the millionth time, I reminded her, “I don’t want children.”
“I know,” she said. “But you could adopt.”
I could also hijack a plane or start shooting up, but I don’t want to.
It’s a bit like the old, Yeah, Grandma, I really like that bedazzled cat sweatshirt you gave me. I just haven’t had an occasion to wear it. You don’t really mean it. You just don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Don’t want to upset grandma’s understanding of you and fashion and the world. And what you really want to say is Dude? Seriously? No.
But it seems we live in a society that really does expect women to wear the bedazzled cat sweatshirt of motherhood -- and we’ve been fed the lie that it looks good on everyone.
My mother has had a more difficult time accepting my unwillingness to have children than she had accepting the fact that I was gay -- and this is saying a lot considering my mother tolerates homosexuality the way she might, if forced, tolerate having a tarantula set upon her face.
That I do not want children -- adopted or otherwise -- is inconceivable to my mother, but in this she is not alone.
Recently, and primarily among my adult students, I have been getting the question:Do you have children?
More often than not I find myself employing the inflection I reserve for the good student who misses class and asks if she can re-take the missed quiz in spite of my strict policy forbidding make up quizzes.
“No . . . “ I say, in that “gee-whiz-by-golly-I-sure-am-
But do I really regret that I have a policy prohibiting make-up quizzes? Hell no.
And am I sorry that I don’t have children? Fuck no.
The week my grandmother died, I cancelled my Monday evening class so I could be with her. When I returned to class the following Monday, the day before her wake, my students -- all adults in this class -- asked where I had been.
When I told them, they went quiet -- as people often do when confronted with death.
Yes, all went quiet but Maria.
Maria was in her fifties and on more than one occasion insinuated that she and I were “about the same age.” The first time she suggested the latter, I studied my face a little harder in the mirror -- concluding that her inference only served to prove my theory that students always think their teachers much older than they actually are.
“What happened to your grandmother?” Maria asked.
Though Maria often inferred that I was her middle-aged contemporary, I am thirty-three. And regardless, what could possibly have happened to the grandmother of a woman either age? Heroin overdose? Hit a tree while skiing? Bear attack?
“She was old,” I told Maria. “She had Alzheimer’s.” And then, because the loss was still fresh, I went on. “My mother and aunt were with her, and so she wasn’t alone -- and I guess that’s all we can hope for in the end, that we are not alone.”
Maria nodded deeply, somberly, asked if I had children of my own and when I told her I didn’t, she asked if I wanted some.
Without a trace of apology, I replied, “Definitely not.”
At that, Maria’s eyes widened. She frowned, looked at her hands then up at me and very matter-of-factly said, “Then you will die alone.”
My beloved grandmother had just died. I was teaching a comp one class at an unaccredited college. That morning, my cat had puked in the kitchen. That afternoon, the State Street Preacher had made an example of me as I walked past with a cigarette. I went cold.
“Maria,” I said. “You might be wise to reserve your prophesies until after grades are submitted.”
She laughed nervously, but I didn’t, adding, “If it’s a choice between having children and dying alone, then dying alone it shall be.”
She stopped laughing, and I began class.
My friend Anna calls from Washington on Sunday night. I am in the midst of correcting a student’s epic run-on sentence, which is but one miniscule section of an entire stack of papers that await me. At first, I consider not taking the call, but then decide I should welcome the opportunity to procrastinate.
When I answer there is no “hello,” no “what are you up to?” no “how are you” -- Anna leaps right into the conversation she wants to have, asks, “Are you bleeding yet?”
When I tell her, “no,” she sighs, exasperated.
“That figures,” she says. “You’re probably the pregnant one.”
My cat watches disdainfully as I get ready to smoke, runs away when the smoke spirals from the cigarette. I tell Anna to stop being ridiculous, remind her she knows as well as I do that if I was pregnant it would be an absolute miracle, “The baby Jesus himself,” I say. “And at the rate I’ve been going, the poor baby Jesus is going to have fetal alcohol syndrome.”
I wait for her to respond, and when she doesn’t, I tell Anna she can have Christ when he is born, because I certainly don’t want him.
Bitterly, Anna replies, “You can keep Fetal Alcohol Jesus.”
She’s been trying to get pregnant all year. One complication after the next. Now she’s seeing a specialist and although I’ve never asked, she spares me no details about the various procedures she has undergone to make things “work.” I know far more about Anna’s uterus than I know about my own.
As usual, this Sunday, Anna goes on and on about the latest thing her gynecologist tried, her fertility specialist’s latest discovery. When she begins to discuss the general condition of her cervix, I tell her to stop. “I can’t handle anymore.”
She sighs loudly, calls me a prude. “I should have never listened to my mother,” she says. “I should have gotten knocked up at sixteen when I had a fighting chance.”
On her end of the phone, I hear a muffled, tinny voice, its words unintelligible. “Where are you?” I ask.
“The grocery store,” she tells me.
“Have you been at the grocery store for the duration of this conversation?”
“Yes,” she says. “I’m in the cereal aisle now.”
I laugh in disbelief.
“Don’t be such a prude,” she says again. “I’m barren. I can say whatever I want whenever I want.”
Maybe I’m barren too.
When I was working on this piece, I found it difficult because I was afraid of sounding mean. I felt like I needed to apologize for my sentiments about the institution of motherhood. But let’s just say I’m barren, and I can say whatever I want.
Of motherhood, Anna once said to me, “That’s what women are meant to do.”
And I responded with, “Maybe that’s what you are meant to do.”
I, on the other hand, am meant to do whatever I want to do with the life I’ve been given.
I cherish my autonomy. I don’t want Juicy Juice in my refrigerator. I don’t want to feel obligated to travel from play-dates to dance recitals to little league games. I don’t want to change diapers on any sort of a regular basis or bandage scraped knees. I don’t want to get up at odd hours of the morning, unless I’m catching a flight. I have plenty to do. I don’t want to quit smoking. I don’t want to be quiet, selfless. I don’t want to be defined by my role as caretaker. I don’t want my life to be an Ovaltine commercial. I don’t want to attend parent-teacher conferences. I don’t want someone to know me as “Mommy,” and I don’t want to get up for fevers unless they’re my own.
My biological clock is irrevocably busted.
My sister-in-law and brother are at a wedding. I am babysitting, rocking Alice to sleep, singing an old Jacques Brel song, “And though pink elephants I’ll see/though I’ll be drunk as I can be . . .”
When I think she is asleep, I stop singing and sleepily Alice reaches up to touch my face, says, “Again.” But I don’t remember how the rest of the song goes, and so I sing some Paul Simon instead, “Slip sliding away/slip sliding away . . . “
There’s a lyric in that song that goes, “My love for you is so overpowering I’m afraid that I will disappear” -- and maybe, at the end of the day, that’s just it. Our notion of the “good mother” is the mother who disappears into the lives of her children -- and I don’t want to disappear.
Frankly, I’d sooner choose to be remembered as “Allison Gruber: axe murderer” than I would “Allison Gruber: mother.”
And forgive me if that seems out of line, but I may or may not be barren.
Allison- you are awesome!
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