I spent New Year's Eve in our Subaru, driving north from Logan Airport. We landed at quarter past 11, so actually I think the new year arrived somewhere in that vacant and anonymous waiting period at baggage claim, or maybe in the bitter cold peering at the numbers on shuttle buses, waiting to get a ride to economy parking. But I spent the first two hours of 2009 driving nervously, through high winds and blowing snow, alert for wild drunken drivers. There were one or two suspicious cars, but the winds were such that I was swerving occasionally, too. Mostly the highways were empty, and we were exhausted.
We went to Montana for five or six days. Boy is it beautiful, there. I suppose that could be our compromise -- you won't come to Maine, and I won't move to Sacramento, so we'll meet up in Montana? Except for the part about it not having an ocean, I think Montana is pretty great.
We were staying with two dear friends of mine, and their two dogs and young daughters (20 months and 3 years). It was vivid and funny and full but perhaps not relaxing. Being with the girls didn't soothe my intensive fretting about whether I want kids. A kid, that is -- I'm certain I don't want more than one. The question is whether one would be nice, or not really our thing. I have a lot of angst about this, and I'm afraid that I feel like talking about it right now.
My theory is that people who have kids view people who don't have kids as though we are spending our lives hanging out in the skate park, practicing tricks. They don't necessarily think we are bad people, but they think what we do and care about is trivial and a little bit selfish and silly. Perhaps that's true. When I articulate some of the things that put me off about having a child, I sound rigid and fussy: I don't want a house stuffed with bright plastic objects; I don't want to carry six bags around with me when I move from place to place; I don't want to fixate on someone else's excretory schedule for the next four years; I want to be able to choose where and when I direct my attention; I want to be able to listen to my friends without distraction; I want to be able to live spontaneously. I know that I am smarter and happier and healthier when I get enough sleep, and I don't want to be chronically crabby and dull and draggy. These are primarily selfish reasons. While I'm at it, I'll say that there are deeper things, still selfish. Brain chemistry changes with pregnancy, and with it, personality and interests and aptitudes. I like my vocabulary, my mind, the sense of myself as sharp and engaged with the world. My mommy friends, sharp as they are, complain that they have lost hold of vocabulary, that they're fuzzier now, that they can't focus so much on things they used to care about, and this is consistent with what I've read about the hormonal changes that accompany parenthood. In this way, mothers literally do lose themselves, at least for five years or so. And there's a lot I still want to do professionally and personally -- as me, not as a person with distinctly different interests and brain chemistry.
All this is outweighed or replaced, of course, by the overwhelming love and certainty and clarity of purpose that parents have. Hormones give you that. All parents I know say it's great, the best thing ever, and that my fixations on petty things don't matter in the face of the Greatest Love of All. I can see that there are parts that look pretty fun. But worth leaving the skate park for, abandoning any potential to master the tre flip? Not sure yet.
The psychology studies I've read are all over the map on this, although it looks to me like there's no evidence that people with kids are happier than people without, and there might be evidence that it goes the other way. Marriage satisfaction appears to dips while children are around, and doesn't recover its pre-children level of contentment until all children leave the house. Another studysays parents have a higher rate of depression and related negative emotions -- loneliness, isolation, fear. (But see this critical article from Brigham Young University, finding fault with the methodology of such studies, and urging folks to go ahead and have kids, and this onecountering a widely cited studythat people enjoy childcare less than most other daily activities.) I've looked at a bunch of studies about mood and contentment, and until I get smarter and more sophisticated at my ability to interpret these, I'm not sure there's reliable data one way or the other -- although I think it's reasonably clear that those of us still hanging out in the skate park are not choosing a path that will make us less happy. Marriage makes people healthier and happier, but kids, probably not.
I'm waiting for a longing for a baby to strike me. That's what would tip the scales for me. So far, no longings, even when I smell the powdery heads of the babies I know, even when someone young and snuggly leans into me when I read a story. I feel deviant and anti-social and vaguely ashamed by this -- even though the skate park feels pretty cool to me, and just as worthy of attention as Tommy the Train and car seats. Absent that visceral desire, its as though a dealer slouched over to the skate park and offered me a pill: take this, you'll love it, you'll be so glad you did. What will it cost me? Hundreds of thousands of dollars, years of your time and mental attention. It will erode your marital satisfaction and change your personality in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. There are immediate health risks and discomfort that will range from dramatic pain to chronic sleep deprivation. You will become distracted and foggy-headed. There's no evidence you'll be happier. But you'll realize that everything you've done so far in this skate park has been just a precursor to your true purpose, and you'll tell everyone that it's the best decision you ever made. He's standing there proffering this pill, and I don't know what to say.