A Writer Without Children

Recipe for a happy life.

This is me, in Barcelona!

I don’t have kids. I never wanted kids. I knew from around the time I was 12, maybe even 10, that I didn’t want them. I think I was born this way. It was never a live question for me.

Until it was—because my husband decided I had to change my mind if we were to stay married.

Thus began a long decade of despair in my life, of trying to become someone I am not, that I never wanted to be, and that ultimately I would not be able to force myself to become. It was also a decade when all kinds of people tried to convince me I should go ahead and have kids anyway—to save my marriage, because that’s what women do, because once I had a child I’d see it was the best thing that could ever happen to me, and because if I didn’t change my mind eventually I would regret this forever. I was judged harshly. I was called selfish and self-centered. I was told I would grow old, alone, and miserable. I was criticized for loving my work more than the possibility of a future child.

My husband made this declaration about us needing kids (despite promising me he fully understood I would never have a child before we married), right around the time that I was becoming a writer. It was as though, the more writing became a part of me and the more books I published, the more he needed me to stop everything and have a baby. But the more I wrote the happier I was and the more certain I was that my childhood self had known from the beginning that having a baby was not going to ever be for me.

I didn’t have a baby obviously, and my marriage ended.

I waited for the regret to come. I did. The people who tried to make me afraid of such a life did succeed in scaring me. But I’ve stopped waiting for it. It isn’t coming.

I am so happy.

***

I do love my work, I always have. I loved getting a Ph.D. and becoming an academic. I loved becoming a writer after that.

Writing, especially, fulfills me. Writing is a big part of why I am so happy.  

I love everything about it, I love writing stories and I love writing memoir. I love having the time and space for it in my life. I have an unusual amount of time and space for it because I don’t have children. I’m not saying that a life without is a better situation for being a writer. I’m simply saying I’m aware that—because I don’t have children—I’m in a position to dedicate a lot of extra time to writing.

I’m also not saying that the fulfillment I feel as a writer is somehow the same as the fulfillment a woman feels by having a baby and raising a child.

But I am claiming that I’m fulfilled enough by writing to not need a child in addition to be happy. I am sure some people reading this will think that my sense of fulfillment—and happiness for that matter—is impoverished; that I can say I am fulfilled enough by writing only because I’ve never known what it’s like to have a child.

People can think whatever they want, but that doesn’t change how happy and fulfilled I am.

I don’t feel impoverished. I feel expansive. I feel roomy and open and creative. I feel like I have the whole future ahead of me and I’m excited about that future.

There are so many ways to live a happy life. One of those ways is to have children. Another of those ways is to live without children. And one of those ways is to live without children as a writer.

***

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately for many reasons. One being J.D. Vance, of course, and his stupid old, dug-up comments about “childless cat ladies.” Which made me laugh.

But also because there’s been a resurgence of book clubs around the world who’ve chosen to read my novel, THE NINE LIVES OF ROSE NAPOLITANO—which centers around a woman who doesn’t want children—asking if I’d zoom in to their discussions.

It’s made me curious: why now?

Even though ROSE only came out a few years ago, I’ve often thought it was published before people were truly ready to confront the idea of a woman who chooses a life without children. It was only after ROSE published, that I found out about online communities like We Are Childfree that exist, so women like me don’t feel so alone. That’s also how I first met Emma Gannon, whose novel OLIVE is also about a woman who doesn’t want children, and we bonded over this aspect of who we are—as women, and as fellow writers. It felt so astounding to me to finally meet other women like myself.

But in the last few years—in part because of climate change and younger generations being more open—it’s become more and more okay for women to choose a life without children and to speak openly about this. And maybe that’s why I’m getting so many requests to talk about ROSE.

Whatever the reason, I am happy about this turn.

But I am also happy that I am a happy woman without children. A happy woman writer without children. That after all that agony, and the warnings I received, I feel no regret. Not even a drop.

What I feel like, is myself.