"Motherhood Means Mental Freeze"

Kim Deal's lyrics have come to mind a lot lately as more and more friends and acquaintances have children. Let's face it—I'm not particularly interested in having children right now and don't know whether I'll ever be. I have thought about it more often lately, but only as a reaction—"Shit! All my friends are having kids! What am I going to do?"—and not as, "Boy, I'd sure like to hear the pitter patter of little feet around!" I just don't want my life, my ambitions to be a writer, to be put on hold for the next eighteen years as I uncereminiously transform from "Jen" to "Mom." It also wouldn't be fair to actively pursue a writing career with a child, for I wouldn't want them to feel cheated while mommy pursued her life's calling. Not that I'd be some star jet-setting around the world, never there for them, but I get oh-so-cranky when I don't have time to write.

This is also the fear that what I would write about would change—the only experiences I would suddenly have to draw from would be of being a mother, having a child. Not that everything I write comes from my life, but I've witnessed moms whose entire focus becomes their children, and every third word out of their mouth has to do with their child. What's to say every third word I wrote wouldn't suffer the same fate?

At the same time, I try to imagine successful women writers who did not have children. Virginia Woolf comes to mind, but she also killed herself. Carson McCullers? Dorothy Parker? Ah, Joyce Carol Oates. Not crazy. Not yet.

Anyway, remaining childless is not as unusual as one thinks. On the other hand, some women writers feel that having children is not the death of one's career. Am I selfish for not wanting a child, especially when, in a sea of bad parents and unwanted children, I'd probably make a positive contribution? Does this lack of maternal stirring mean that I don't have to grow up? I can't force the maternal stirrings on myself—I'm not going to have a child just because I think I should have one, kind of the way I schedule dental checkups. I just wonder if I'll ever wake up one day craving a baby like I crave chocolate.

However, there are other fears that drive my obsession with my shriveled ovaries. I've actually had a ton of dreams that address my fear of being "left behind" as my friends move deeper into the milestones of the average couple's life. Will we be the only couple at the holiday party without wee ones? Will I continue to have to suffer hearing about labor pains and first steps and first words at every dinner, party, and book club for the rest of my life? Of course, there are always ear plugs, a nod, and a smile.