About Rebecca Eckler
Since becoming pregnant with her daughter Rowan, Canadian journalist and author Rebecca Eckler has penned three hilarious books, including the best-selling Knocked Up. Catch Rebecca’s weekly unique perspective on motherhood and single parenthood.
I’m going to say something controversial. But if there’s any place to wonder about it, it’s here, on this website for mothers. Here goes…
I honestly don’t understand women who don’t want children. I’m not saying this as a judgment – hey, if you don’t want kids, don’t have them – I’m saying it because I really don’t understand. Maybe someone can explain?
I’ll admit that most of my friends are mothers, and the ones who aren’t mothers yet, hope to be. I have friends who have jumped through fertility hoops to get their babies.
But I have one friend who doesn’t want children. Neither does her partner, which made them the perfect match for each other. But I still don’t get why. (In fact, truthfully, she’s under forty and I have the feeling the “Maybe we should have a child” talk is going to come up in their future…) They both have solid careers they like (notice I didn’t say “love”) a house, cars and a dog. What’s missing is….yes…a child!
Anyway, I don’t know one non-mother who travels the world, doesn’t work because they don’t need to save for their children’s school, or just does whatever the hell they want, because they don’t have children.
My non-mother friends in Toronto work at nine-to-five jobs, live in low-key neighborhoods, and look forward to watching
The Bachelorette.
So, I ask, if you don’t want children because you think they are going to ruin your travel life, your nightlife, then why aren’t you travelling and partying every night till 6am?
Here is what I do know: I know a handful of older women who don’t have children, some maybe because they didn’t want any, but I think mostly it was timing. They worked so hard on their careers, or didn’t meet the right man, and then before they knew it they were in their mid-forties, and realistically, aside from adoption, they weren’t going to have children in any traditional way.
One woman I know always desperately says she wanted to be a mother. Now, almost fifty, it is a life-long regret. This is why I believe that if you truly, truly want a child then you should save your money and visit the sperm bank, or start the single mother adoption process. Screw the traditional route if there’s no man.
That’s the thing about having children. I will never regret having Rowan. I have never regretted it. It changes your life, oh-my-god-does-it-ever, but not to the point that you’ll ever regret your child.
So I feel sad for women who say they don’t want children. Because I really don’t think they mean it. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe, somewhere out there in Maui, there’s a 55-year-old woman having the time of her life, with no regrets at all.
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