To have or not to have Children

Days before I go on a long-haul trip, I usually buy a few magazines to read on the plane. I always get entertainment or human interest magazines because I want to relax while flying. The truth is, who doesn’t like reading about movie stars or other famous people? One of the magazines I picked up was the April 29 issue of People, the cover story of which read, "Having a Baby After Forty." The cover page also read, "Amid sobering new statistics, celebs and everyday moms talk about the risks, realities and rewards." The article stemmed from the book Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children by Sylvia Hewlett, an economist who chose to have a baby herself when she was…51.

I enjoy the light reading I always get from People, but this cover story particularly interested me. Simply because I was just thinking of the same thing – how about a baby after 40? I also thought that this would be the last article on having babies I would be seeing for a long time. But when I landed in Chicago, there it was in the May 5 issue of the Chicago Tribune – an interview with Madelyn Cain, author of The Childless Revolution: What It Means to be Childless Today. The interview was entitled, "‘Childless’ Can Mean Fulfilled. It’s a growing choice for American Women." Having kids after 40 and now childlessness. How did they suddenly become topics of interest?

Here are excerpts from the interview:

Q: You’ve seen this issue from both sides, having been childless until you were nearly 40. Did you feel your societal approval rating go up when you became a mother?

A: Yes, and I didn’t like it. Once I had a baby, suddenly I had this imprimatur on me that I found offensive, because when I looked at my childless friends, some were there by choice but some weren’t, and why was I suddenly approved of and they weren’t?...In recent years I have gotten even more offended by society’s refusal to acknowledge childlessness.

Q: What about the misconception that childlessness is always a choice? Sometimes it is, but sometimes it just happens.

A: The vast majority of women I interviewed were childless by happenstance.. Life didn’t pan out the way they thought it was going to. I think we have to start looking at women as individuals. We seem to have a lot of trouble with that. Femininity and fertility are so closely linked that a woman who doesn’t give birth is seen as less of a woman.

Moving on to San Francisco, I picked up the May 12 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle and once again, there was another story about Sylvia Hewlett’s book. It was entitled The Mother Load. The sub-text reads, "Some who delay having kids end up waiting forever. The more successful a woman becomes, the less likely she will have a partner or a baby."

Hewlett writes from an American setting. She says, "Thirty-three percent of high-achieving women and 42 percent of women in corporate America are childless at age 40, and only a small percentage chose it that way. For the 14 percent of women who choose a life without children, that’s fantastic. But what I’m worried about is the 86 percent who are struggling with the challenges of putting both things together in their lives."

There are two things here. One is about women choosing to have children after 40. The second one is about being childless, whether by choice or by chance.

I am not a sociologist, so I don’t know if the same holds true here – that the higher your achievements, the more you won’t find a mate, much less have a baby. But I’m glad that the era of expecting women to marry right away, as in after college, and then later on by 25, is over. When women are not married, people no longer talk about it like it was a disease. Twenty years ago, if you remained unmarried, the guess was maybe you were pangit, masungit or may bad breath. Now, when you are not married, people say, "Good for you! Sakit ulo lang ang mag-asawa!"

Women here have become more career-oriented so they don’t think about getting hitched right away. However, if they choose to delay marriage to a much later date, it may not only be due to the fact they are so devoted to their career. There are many successful women who have the time to date, but unfortunately, all the dates they had were the ones they wish they never met. For those who find a permanent date and still choose not to marry, they cannot imagine losing their freedom and worse, getting stuck with someone who won’t help clean the house. Pinoy men are not like their Western counterparts – they think that cleaning the house is too "un-macho." Blame it on their moms.

Some women who decide to tie the knot choose not to have kids right away. This is also more acceptable now, with the most common reason being, "We want to enjoy each other’s company first because when the kid comes, we may not enjoy each other as much anymore." Naks! But when you finally decide to have kids and cannot, the oldies will scare you and say, "Lagot, nagalit na kasi, kaya ayaw mabuo." I cannot imagine for the life of me a non-existing being getting mad.

Back then, when you’d get pregnant after 40 you’d be so embarrassed to admit it because people would tease you about how you got pregnant at such an old age. Forty these days doesn’t sound as old as during our parents’ days, but 40 is no longer young when you want to have a kid. A friend says that it’s not only your biological clock: trying to be like 20 in bed when you’re 40 can take quite an effort.

People here like to say that those who want to have children don’t have children and those who don’t want any more children keep having children. I guess things don’t work out exactly the way you want it, whether it’s about children, career or relationships. Believe me, you never marry the person of your fantasies, but no one does. I suppose my husband can say the same thing about me.

Many couples who live in developed countries choose to be childless, including Pinoys. Over there, you won’t be able to get yayas or drivers unless you are filthy rich, and do not expect your mother-in-law to help you take care of the baby when, at the age of 18, you are already booted out of the house and expected to live independently.

I personally do not condemn couples who choose not to have kids. On the contrary, what I cannot stand are people who keep having kids and yet do not care if they get lost in the streets.

However, I don’t know of anyone here who chooses to be childless. Set aside first the reason that kids are fun. People here want to have kids because this is still a kid-loving society, and it is easier to raise kids in a society that loves kids. This is also still a society that has yayas and mothers-in-law who would be more than willing to take care of their grandchildren. Lastly, this is still a society that will think you are nuts if you choose not to have a child.

There are right reasons for wanting a child, and there are wrong reasons, so say the pregnancy books. I wonder, though, if there are right reasons and wrong reasons for NOT wanting to have a child. If you want an answer that will clear your conscience, you can go to your local parish priest.

Hopefully, you don’t come out of the discussion not wanting to have a child because the priest you just talked to looks like a pedophile.