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I don't regret not having children
Jul. 25th, 2023 03:46 pmThere was a period of about 1-1.5 years in my early 40s where I felt an emptiness toward not having children. Out of 50 years of life, that is not bad. It's not the big - you'll regret it when you're older- that keeps getting hurled at women who express ambivalence about parenthood or an explicit desire not to have children.
When I think back to what caused this feeling, it was not something like a lifelong desire to have children or to experience pregnancy and labor and to seek fulfilment through parenthood that seems to motivate a lot of people. I have never had any of those feelings. It was instead deep loneliness inside me stemming from a deep disconnect in my marriage while living in a country where I had no friends and was being overworked. Having children would not have fixed those problems and would have only added more stress and worry to the mix.
That time is far behind me now. I know it happened, but I cannot even really remember those feelings. What I remember are more recent feelings of gratitude that I did not have children.I was thankful during the peak pandemic period when local schools were closed and parents were having to work from home while also supervising their children's learning. This was a double-shift that fell heavily on professional women and ended up driving many from the workforce. It could have had that same effect on me and my career.
Actually, if I had had children, my life would have been entirely different during this part of the pandemic - depending on when I had had those children. If I had had children while still living in Texas, we might have never left Texas and I might have given up working for a few years since we would have been unable to afford living expenses, childcare and student loans on two assistant professor salaries. I would have left the tenure track and probably academic altogether. If we had had children in Sweden, we might still have been there because moving from a system with such rich social assistance to the US with next to nothing would have also meant me giving up my career. And with only one full time income, how could we have afforded to save for university tuition? But if we were still in Sweden, I do not think I would still be married and I do not know what kind of acrimonious struggle that would have led to as my husband really could not continue to live in Sweden.
No matter how I look at it, all I can see from parenthood is more and more sacrifice from me so that the person I am today with my interesting job, opportunities for international travel for work and fun would not exist. I cannot imagine I would have had the time or energy to take up long distance running or to have taken part in #setlock 10 years ago. I would not be working on a book and applying for full professor.
I don't regret not having children at all.
When I think back to what caused this feeling, it was not something like a lifelong desire to have children or to experience pregnancy and labor and to seek fulfilment through parenthood that seems to motivate a lot of people. I have never had any of those feelings. It was instead deep loneliness inside me stemming from a deep disconnect in my marriage while living in a country where I had no friends and was being overworked. Having children would not have fixed those problems and would have only added more stress and worry to the mix.
That time is far behind me now. I know it happened, but I cannot even really remember those feelings. What I remember are more recent feelings of gratitude that I did not have children.I was thankful during the peak pandemic period when local schools were closed and parents were having to work from home while also supervising their children's learning. This was a double-shift that fell heavily on professional women and ended up driving many from the workforce. It could have had that same effect on me and my career.
Actually, if I had had children, my life would have been entirely different during this part of the pandemic - depending on when I had had those children. If I had had children while still living in Texas, we might have never left Texas and I might have given up working for a few years since we would have been unable to afford living expenses, childcare and student loans on two assistant professor salaries. I would have left the tenure track and probably academic altogether. If we had had children in Sweden, we might still have been there because moving from a system with such rich social assistance to the US with next to nothing would have also meant me giving up my career. And with only one full time income, how could we have afforded to save for university tuition? But if we were still in Sweden, I do not think I would still be married and I do not know what kind of acrimonious struggle that would have led to as my husband really could not continue to live in Sweden.
No matter how I look at it, all I can see from parenthood is more and more sacrifice from me so that the person I am today with my interesting job, opportunities for international travel for work and fun would not exist. I cannot imagine I would have had the time or energy to take up long distance running or to have taken part in #setlock 10 years ago. I would not be working on a book and applying for full professor.
I don't regret not having children at all.
