Unwashed Confessions

I never wanted to be a mother.

True - it was a job I viewed as one with very little appeal. There was no status, only a dim possibility of an eventual payoff in the form of a devoted child to care for me in my dotage, and far too many bodily fluids involved. My admittedly crass thought was always, "What's in it for me?". Motherhood could not come up with a compelling enough answer.

My Tediously Repressive Religious Upbringing(tm) had a great deal to do with forming my opinion; in a society where the words "independent woman" were whispered in the same tragedic undertone as the word cancer, the role a woman should play was always and only one: Mother.

No slouch I, you can bet I didn't swan around and announce loudly and publicly that I had zip zero zilch interest in playing that particular role. Instead, I fervently planned my eventual escape while paying the barest lip service to the prevailing viewpoint. (I did this for years, people, without cracking; I'd love to say I did it for you so you don't have to but sadly, in these frightening times one has to do it again and again.)

As a teenager I did a huge amount of babysitting - and I completely fell into that simply because it was easy work to find, not because I daydreamed about having any of my own. Truthfully, I was awfully mediocre. I never overtly neglected my charges, but I always made the kids go to bed really early so I could have more time to scour the house for porn and raid the refrigerator. But really, didn't everyone do that?

Even the adult me found it difficult to admit out loud that I didn't want children. Instead, I meekly suggested to any interested parties that I may not be able to have any. I had some severe lower back problems in my twenties, and one doctor I saw thought it might prove a problem in the future. It was a convenient fiction I could hang my hat on as long as I needed. At that particular time my most prevalent female role models were also ones who did not subscribe to the notion of biological destiny, and I gained a peculiar and welcome strength from them.

Then along came Mr. Fresh Hell. Not to make this incredibly shmoopy, but I truly believed I had finally met someone with whom raising a family might not be as awful as I expected. Yet even after trying for quite a long time and undergoing several distinctly unpleasant gynecological rituals I wouldn't wish on an enemy, my fate, with a pleasing irony, gave birth to my wish.

After receiving the verdict of infertility, and with both of us so very squeamish about continuing on in more invasive ways, we agreed we would remain childfree. I refuse to use the term childless, as that presupposes that there is something we're lacking.

As my reproductive viability dwindles with every passing hour, every now and then I get a twinge, not of regret so much as that of a distinctly melancholic musing over what might have happened along a path I chose not to take.

I wasn't a mother but then again, I also wasn't Miss Universe or Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, two viable career options I once entertained.