A few years back, a man I passed on the street wished me a happy Mother\u2019s Day. I thanked him. He was a man in his 40s, trying to be friendly to an older woman. He meant well.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m not a mother and I will never be one. At this point in my life, I\u2019m not only far past the point where I could get pregnant in the ordinary manner, but also too old to be considered as an adoptive parent.<\/p>\n
I still have my uterus, so I suppose I could be implanted with a fertilized ovum and carry it to term. You hear of people past menopause doing that these days, usually to help a relative. While it\u2019s fascinating that such technology exists, I\u2019m not going to do that, either.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have any regrets about not having children. It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t like young people. Many of them are delightful and I have a lot of friends who fall into the age range where they could be my kids \u2013 some even my grandkids.<\/p>\n
But I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m missing anything by not having kids of my own. <\/p>\n
Some people tell me that having kids means that there will be someone to take care of you when you get old, but I\u2019ve noticed that doesn\u2019t always happen. I also know of too many people whose children needed nursing through a final illness, something that I suspect is much more painful than the reverse.<\/p>\n
And having done the reverse \u2013 having done some of the care for my father during his final years \u2013 I know how hard that is. I want to do some planning in case I need serious care in my last years so that it isn\u2019t a burden on anyone. If I had kids, I\u2019d still want to do that.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard and painful work, caring for the dying, and even worse when you have to guess what they might have wanted. I don\u2019t wish that on anyone.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m writing about having no regrets because I know younger people who don\u2019t want kids often run into people who tell them they\u2019ll regret it. Young women even find it hard to get necessary medical treatments such as medically indicated hysterectomies, because the myth that you\u2019ll regret not having kids is so powerful.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t sure myself, back when I was young. In my 20s, I didn\u2019t think about it much because I didn\u2019t feel ready, but in my late 30s and early 40s, I thought about it from time to time.<\/p>\n
However, I wasn\u2019t in a successful relationship at that time and I was pretty sure I didn\u2019t want to be a single parent. So I kept letting it slide, though I occasionally checked out adoption programs.<\/p>\n
Then, just before I turned 50, a single friend of mine adopted a daughter.<\/p>\n
I kept thinking, \u201cI\u2019m going to see that baby and decide I want one.\u201d The logistics were daunting, given my age and circumstances, but I knew that if I hit that point, I\u2019d have to do it.<\/p>\n
But I spent a little time with them soon after the adoption and all I could think of on my way home was, \u201cOh, thank God I didn\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mind you, there was nothing wrong with the baby, who has grown up to be a very accomplished young woman.<\/p>\n
I just realized that this was the start of a lot of years of responsibility for another person, a level of responsibility I didn\u2019t want. My friend did want that and it turned out well for both her and her child.<\/p>\n
From that point on, I knew I had no regrets.<\/p>\n
Of course, that means I won\u2019t ever be a grandmother, either. I have even fewer regrets about that. At least if I ever end up defending myself on the street, the news report won\u2019t say \u201cGrandmother kicks suspect\u2019s butt.\u201d<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll have to just call me an old woman. I\u2019ve got no problem with that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few years back, a man I passed on the street wished me a happy Mother\u2019s Day. I thanked him. He was a man in his 40s, trying to be friendly to an older woman. He meant well. But I\u2019m not a mother and I will never be one. At this point in my life, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,17],"tags":[271],"class_list":["post-1229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-experiences","category-rants","tag-mothers-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1229"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1231,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions\/1231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}