Nullipara:
No live children
The above is a Latin word, a scientific, medical term that means a woman who has not produced any live births.
Welp, that’s me.
Just two dead ones. (At least, that I know of)
Journalist, Ruby Warrington wrote a book on the Childless Women that I’m currently reading. It’s entitled, Women Without Kids: The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood. In it she explores how hopelessly intwined our ideas are, of becoming a mother, with our notions of what it means to be a woman.
I recently read the Girl With a Louding Voice, where a man rapes a child bride and then declares her a ‘complete woman’. Supposedly, since she was “deflowered,” she’s now complete. Following that, the idea that she will soon a bear a child makes her redeemable.
It’s not just Nigerian culture. So many others throughout the globe have historically put great emphasis on the bearing of a male son, to "carry on the family name.” I’ve heard that often, even in my life time.
Though we perhaps are a bit more polite about such matters now, we do still believe that a woman will be lacking, incomplete, or unfulfilled in life if she doesn’t procreate.
I remember even women that I greatly respect saying so.
A graduate school professor once told me, something along the lines that when having her five kids and raising them she was happy in a way that “she didn’t think you could be otherwise.”
I greatly expected this woman, my mentor. I remember that that comment shocked me.
It still does.
In Indonesia, people would frequently inquire why my ex-husband and I did not have children. In Bahasa Indonesia, it is common practice to say “belum” which translates to “not yet,” or “sudah,” if you “already” have children.
Saying no is simply not an option.
I was always curious as to why. But it became quite apparent that it simply is such a deep grained cultural belief that of course you will have children. No doubt. Not up for discussion or debate, or speculation. If you don’t, something is “wrong” with you.
When people—strangers, colleagues, students or even complete strangers—learned that we did not have children, they would look pityingly at us, offer to pray for us, reassure us that it would happen, or even give advice, suggesting that we try a traditional ‘jamu’/medicine drink to be able to get pregnant.
I spent many years when I was growing up wanting kids. I used to say that I wanted four—two boys and two girls. I shake my head in disbelief in that now, as I can barely imagine one.
But I know that the reason why I wanted four was because I always wanted a sister, a sibling of the same gender, and I always wanted my hypothetical children to have that as well. A brother and a sister. (Evidently I also expected to get two boys and two girls.)
My mother always reassured me that the decision to have children had to remain ours and ours alone. She never pressured my brother or I to have children. Though she loved babies, she always used to say to me—“Having children changes everything. It really has to be your decision.”
As much as I wanted to have children, the urging went away, after I married, and was gone as I divorced. It really didn’t reappear again until about 35.
I have struggled with the idea of losing the ability to bear children more than actually not having any of my own. The transition, the aging, the losing the choice. Just in case I want one. But more and more, I realize that I don’t. I think I have held tight to losing this ability because of all the ageism of our society, as well as all the beliefs forced upon women who remain childless.
The world indeed often looks bleak to future generations, and I am glad that I don’t bear responsibility for my children, giving them this world. I am grateful that my descendents will not have to deal with the clusterfuck of the situation that the Earth shitshow is now.
As I finished my Toni Morrison documentary today, she commented on how raising her two sons alone was “terrible.” She remarked on how difficult it was. She didn’t have a husband, but she had siblings and parents. She still struggled. She said you need people.
I was reminded yet again that I don’t have that, those network of support. I believe that we were [always] meant to have them. We were not meant to raise children alone. (And by that, I don’t mean without a man/partner here. I mean without a community of support, be that extended family or otherwise.) The only sidestep to this is if you’re loaded. And even then, you still need people. Money just makes that easier to hire them.
There’s a part of the “Eat, Pray, Love” movie, where Julia Roberts is talking about having a kid with her friend. She said that her “baby box,” a keepsake box of all the baby things she collected before actually having her own, was filled with all the places she wanted to go, countries where she wanted to travel.
I feel the same. A penpal showed me a news story of a woman to traveled to all the countries. I responded that I wanted that to be me, to do that.
I would much rather have a travel box, highlighting my heart’s desire, of my ultimate dream, than a baby box.
And like Viola Davis’ character says, “Having a baby is kind of like having a tattoo on your face. You want to be fully committed.”
I am not.
I prayed, before I got pregnant, and even while carrying them for the short time that I did, that I just didn’t want to hurt a child. I didn’t want their life to be too unbearably hard. [Hard for them, though perhaps, for me as well.] I also remember saying that I didn’t want to hurt them. Unknowingly. Unbeknowst to me. And if that were to have to be the case, then I didn’t want to have them. To bring them into this world.
I sometimes wonder if-though painful- that my prayers were answered.
I have gradually realized that I am a healthier person and have had many experiences that I would not have had, had I had my children, carried them to term.
I think that there needs to be more grace though, for those women, who simply say, that it is not for me.
I wonder about all the many women who did not have that choice, ones that really ought not to have been mothers. I think about the Cristina Yang and Ellis Grey, from Grey’s Anatomy.
And I think about my grandmothers:
I had one biological grandmother who was the iconic grandmother, who was loyal and devoted to her family, made amazing pie, and loved her grandchildren deeply. She always kept snacks around for us and would haul us over the county if we wanted to go somewhere.
This grandmother tried for nearly 16 years to give birth to her own child and could not, for many, many years.
Then, I had another biological grandmother. This grandmother who abandoned her four young children, when they were all under the age of thirteen.
My mother told of a pretty harrowing tale of having her grandfather round up her and her younger siblings. He took them and dropped them off where my grandma was shacking up with her love interest. My grandmother told my great-grandfather, “Take them away,” I don’t want them.
I cringe when I think about how painful that must have been for my mother to hear. To know.
But also, I wonder about my grandmother. I think—why the hell did you have so many kids then? But I also know…it was the 1950’s…if not having kids doesn’t feel/seem like an option now, I can only imagine how obvious it was that you would have them at that point in time.
I think this grandmother though ought to probably have been one of the ones who ought not to have had them. She was not a warm, fuzzy, maternal sort.
Maybe if we had had more birth control and the warm and welcome embrace title of the childless “selfish cunts,” as Warrington calls them, who wasn’t shunned, the world would be a better place. Maybe we would have had a bit less traumatizing, scarring, abandoned, hurt children. Maybe we would have raised fewer emotionally immature folks, out in the world today. Maybe if there were more of us selfish cunts out there who gladly embraced that title, wore that crown with pride.
I look forward to completing this book, and to learn about this sisterhood of us.
I leave with this:
“…Every woman who challenges the conventions of motherhood is a force for change, both individual and collective. Not because of the things she does, but because of who she is. I want us to acknowledge that it is time for a reckoning with outmoded ideals about what it means to be a mother: to be a woman, period. Rather than a dystopian denial of life itself, I want to present a radical reframing of what it really means not to be a mom-and for us to see ourselves as the torchbearers of an alternative vision for a fully self-actualized womankind.
…Our place in history waiting to be written. A world where no woman is required to birth a child in order for her to validate her existence. I want to remind you that being a mother is neither the be-all-and-end-all not the icing on the cake, and that any and all expression s of a person’s procreative potential are equally, vitally valid. That whatever your reason for being nobody’s mom, or even a selfish cunt, there is nothing wrong with you, and you are not the only one. Above all, I want us to be united, in sisterhood, as woman without kids.”