In my mind,
I have often walked in the moccasins of a tribe I am not part of in this
lifetime: Parents. This time around, having children was not
part of “the plan.” Why? Well, that’s a discussion for another blog
post.
When I was
in my 20s, a very wise man, who at the time had a very sick young daughter,
said to me, “There is only one thing that divides the people of this
world. And that is the experience, or
not, of being a parent.”
That
statement alone prepared me well for what I was just beginning to witness at
that time: Friends, family members, and
acquaintances becoming first-time parents and, thus, their lives instantly changing focus
and trajectory. I sensed that these
peers who I had known in one way had passed, and who was reborn in their stead
was never going to be accessible to me quite in the same way again.
Having and
raising children, I have both heard and observed, is both potentially greatly
challenging and deeply rewarding and fulfilling. While
it may be difficult at times raising kids, please consider for a moment the scenario
of not having had them.
Moving
through life in, shall I say, a “child-free” state, one must necessarily acquiesce
to the needs of other people’s parenthood.
Consequently, I’ve become adept at a social life alone or with friends
who also happen to not have children and whose schedule better allows for
availability and social access. Now,
don’t get me wrong: Plenty of my friends
are parents. But gathering socially is a
much different experience when kids factor into the equation. By necessity, the topic of kids in
conversation and thought becomes an understandably dominant theme among
parents, one I can only connect and engage with to a limited extent. So, as a child-free adult, I have learned to
accommodate and accept the social tweakings that accompany discernment of
parents and non-parents along my path and in my circle. It’s all part of the village.
Admittedly,
as a Western woman, while it is much easier these days to live a child-free
life (as it is now essentially regarded as a lifestyle choice rather than as a
default status stigmatized by lack and/or judgment), moving through life
reinforces the separation of experience between parents and non-parents. Because once you are a parent, you are a
parent for life. That fate is
sealed. There is no return policy, there
is no “going back.” No matter if a child
is somehow removed from one’s life, one has still parented a child.
A while
back, a friend of mine who is a mother asked me if I regretted not having
kids. The question surprised me a bit
and felt heavy with assumption.
“The absence
of one thing is the presence of another,” I replied.
I really
liked my response. Not just because it
sounded good, but because it was true.
