Childless by Choice, Proud Aunt by Design
Dammit! I knew we forgot something!
At my husband’s office Christmas party, the boss’s wife talked with us. She asked if we had kids; we said no. She said, sounding relieved, “Oh, wait as long as you can before you have one!” My husband and I shared a quick side-eye. In the car, we improvised a skit, saying, “Dammit! We forgot to have kids! I knew we forgot something!”
My parents told me about a meeting they had with their lawyer to discuss their will. The lawyer was a high school friend of mine. When they told him I didn’t have kids, he said, “She always said she didn’t want them.”
People make a lot of assumptions about those of us who don’t want to have kids. They assume we hate kids. Not true, but it is a great excuse not to be asked to babysit. They assume that we’ll regret it. Absolutely not. And assume we are selfish. Okay, this one is pretty spot-on.
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I am selfish, I admit it. While other people my age are off watching soccer practice and planning sleepovers, I want to sleep in until 2 pm, watch television, play a video game, and then go to a hockey game, grabbing Taco Bell on the way home, because tacos. I want to stay up until the sun rises just because I feel like it. And, damnit, I want to eat ice cream for dinner.
The only time I have ever second-guessed myself was in planning for the future. I won’t have anyone who feels a need to take care of me. I didn’t really want a child; I wanted somebody to check out retirement homes for me, manage my hospital bills, fill my fridge when I can’t leave the house, and change my diaper — or at least hire somebody to do it.
I have never wanted to be a mom, but I have always wanted to be an aunt. I want to be the person who takes the kid out to a movie, letting them get whatever they want to snack on, and handing them back to the parents before the sugar crash. To be looked up to and loved because I earned it through bribery, not because they have to love me.
When I was a kid, my great aunt asked me, “What would you like to do that your parents don’t let you do?” We were in Duluth, northern Minnesota, on the shore of Lake Superior. We went to a cafe by the water, where my request for my first coffee was granted. She got me a cappuccino. I don’t remember whether I liked it, but I think of her every time I have a fancy coffee.
Two decades later, I heard what I assume my great aunt heard when my mom found out about the cappuccino. My mother yelled at me, “Kristen! She’s twelve!” I had just shown her the pair of small (but real) diamond earrings I got for my niece when she got her ears pierced.
That was the exact reaction I was going for.
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