My Papers Always Came First: Why I Never Had Kids, and What That Means Now

 

I always wanted grandchildren but skipped a crucial step: having children.  Clearly, the math doesn’t math.  Let me explain.

I got married when I was 29, and probably, like most married couples, the expectation was that we would have children.  As I approached 30, my doctor not so gently started sounding alarms about pregnancy – if I wanted children, I pretty much had until I was 30, and then it would be too late.  This was in the 90s, when childbearing was considered too risky after 30.  My now ex-husband and I never really talked about having kids.  I think we just assumed that we would have them, but we didn’t make any plans for when. I knew in my head that I was dragging my feet about childbearing, and for good reason. I had concerns about whether my husband would be a willing partner in parenting. Financially, our paths diverged early on—while I took on the responsibilities of a breadwinner, bill-payer, and the one making sure we had more than cereal for dinner, his approach to work and household life was very different.  Would I also be a “single mom”?  And I think we had fundamentally different views about parenthood.  I thought he would be too much of a disciplinarian and too conservative in his views about how children should be.  To be sure, I remember when we saw a teenage boy with purple hair and nose piercings.  He said, “If my kid ever looked like that, I would disown them”.  He thought I would not discipline our children and would be too liberal in my views about how children should be.  He was not wrong.  When I saw the purple-haired teenager, I thought, “I hope my kids feel free to express their identity with purple hair and nose rings.”

As a couple, we never explicitly decided not to have kids, but we never chose to try either. The truth? I was terrified of resenting my own kids. Not because I lack love to give—ask my students, my dogs, or the faculty in my department who get handwritten thank-you cards from me every semester—but because I’ve always been fiercely protective of “my papers.” My mother tells the story of me when I was 2 or 3 years old, and I had a burlap potato bag with “my papers.”  They were just scraps of paper that probably held the nuclear codes or maybe just my mother’s grocery list.  Regardless, they were vital, and apparently, I would create quite a ruckus if anyone took my papers.  As a child and even into adulthood, “my papers” continued to carry significance, reflected in my serious commitment to school and later, to work. You see, I am obsessed with my work.  Just ask my dogs  - “I have five more projects to grade. Do you really have to go out NOW?”. There is no way I could have children. It wasn’t fair to them to have a parent who resented them. Could I have balanced parenting with my obsessions? Maybe. But watching my ex react to a purple-haired teen with “I’d disown them!” while I thought, “Rock on, kid,” clarified: we’d have been co-parenting in hell. It would be traumatic for them to have a parent who really didn’t want them. I know, because I had that parent.

Not having children is one of the biggest decisions I never did make.  I just waited until I timed out; until it was too late. It’s not that I didn’t have pressure to become a parent. It is normative for women to want to be mothers, and the pressure of nonconformity is intense. As if that weren’t enough, getting excluded from conversations about one’s children was ever-present. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy hearing about Katie’s first steps or Kevin’s Dean’s List triumph, but I had little to add to those conversations. I was, after all, childless.  Ugh, I hated that term.  I didn’t feel “less”. I had a life that fulfilled and sustained me and made me feel whole.  I had “my papers,” after all.  So imagine my joy when on my way to work one day when I heard an NPR piece about the cringe-worthy term “childless” and how a more apt term is childfree.  Yes, that is what I was! I was free from all the worries and work of raising a child. I didn’t have a tiny creature who interrupted me to be fed, who I had to rush to pick up from school, or who I had to console when their feelings got hurt. I was free from all of those things, right?

Sometimes I wonder: Did I make a choice, or did I just let time choose for me? Daniel Pink says we tend to regret the things we didn’t do more than those we did...we are more likely to regret what we didn’t do (inaction) than what we did (action). Apparently, inaction leaves us haunted by what could have been.  Do I regret not having had children?  The answer is complicated.  You see, I always wanted to be a grandparent.  I recognize there are ways of being a grandparent without being a parent, but none of those scenarios were ever presented to me.  For me, being a grandparent meant mostly experiencing all the joy of parenting without most of the responsibility.  Plus, it comes with the bonus of supporting your children. And just like I was excluded from conversations about kids, I am now excluded from conversations about grandkids.  There is also social media now that didn’t exist during my childbearing years, so I get to see the visits to see the grandkids, the beautiful pictures painted for my grandparent friends, and all the love going back and forth between grandchild and grandparent.

As we reach midlife (ages 40–65), developmental psychologist Erik Erikson identified a critical psychosocial stage called Generativity vs. Stagnation. During this phase, the central challenge involves finding ways to contribute meaningfully to future generations—whether through raising children, mentoring others, or serving our communities. Those who navigate this stage successfully develop a sense of purpose and leave a lasting legacy, while those who don't may feel stagnant or unfulfilled. Do I worry that I have no one to pass on my DNA?  I do. I am very mindful of my lineage at this age, and it doesn’t feel very good to know that it stops with me. Still, on most days, I prefer a more positive approach – instead of a mini-me, I have my “papers” (now peer-reviewed and released from their potato sack). My students carry pieces of my legacy, my niece inherited my sarcasm, and my dogs (Frankie, I am talking about you!) have my stubbornness—that counts, right?

So do I regret it? Sometimes, I feel a twinge when I see grandparents cuddling their grandkids. But then I remember: I’ve never once been puked on at 3 AM. I’ve never argued with a teenager about nose rings. And my will? It will be simple: “To my beloved dogs and my 37 unfinished manuscripts…”

 

 

NOTE: I realize that having a child or a grandchild involves much emotion for many people. There are so many people who want to have children but cannot. There are also people who became parents not by their choice. There are probably so many other iterations I am not even listing. And then there are the parents who lost their children. Please know that the story I am telling here is my story, not meant to disrespect, discount, or minimize your story.