Not so long ago women without children, like me, were pitied. But now
the world has caught on to the fact that, on the surface at least, we
don't have such a hard life.
Take this week: I spent a few days on a friend's sailing boat in Italy,
sun-bathing, drinking rose, talking, laughing and dancing until dawn.
Back at home after my break, I slept for hours, ate breakfast in bed,
and stayed there reading until well after lunchtime. I couldn't be
bothered to cook, so I went out for a Thai meal, bumped into a friend,
went to the cinema and then out for drinks.
At the weekend, I stayed with friends with children in the countryside
where I found money worries, toddler tantrums, conflicted step-parental
relationships, and an all-consuming fractious energy caused by Mum and
Dad having not slept more than five hours a night for months.
Unlike the child-free trip to Italy, where we drank for pleasure, this time wine was part of the coping process.
The children were lovely and polite - to me. But anyone could see that
underneath the outward manners and helpfulness, Tolstoy's maxim applied:
'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its
own way'.
Earlier this week, a broadsheet newspaper ran a triumphalist piece by a
42-year-old who claimed she was wilfully and joyfully childfree. The
writer was one of a growing number of women, she claimed, who believe
having it all means not having a baby. I call them the Motherhood
Deniers.
To an extent, that writer is right. Unburdened by motherhood and the
personal sacrifice it requires, a woman can dedicate herself to her
career and create a home with all the delicate ornaments, sumptuous
fabrics and hard edges that have no place in a family environment.
Where a decade ago, just one in nine women remained childless at 45 and
were considered rather peculiar at that, now that figure is closer to
one in four. For women with a university education, like me, that figure
rises to 43 per cent - an extraordinary figure which signifies a
seismic social change.
Among my friends, relatively ordinary women as opposed to media types, I
am not alone in being childless. And there are many more examples in
the realms of the super-successful, from Oprah Winfrey and Cameron Diaz
to Helen Mirren and Theresa May.
Of 192 female directors among 1,110 FTSE 100 board members, it is estimated that just under half of them are childless.
I had an intern recently, a 21-year-old Oxford graduate, who told me
confidently she never wanted kids because it would get in the way of her
career. I told her she was mad. While a child-free life looks fun on
Facebook, no number of career highs, nights at the theatre, weekends
away or adult pleasures can disguise the fact that it feels - there is
no other word - empty.
Between today and the end of my life, I hope there are a few more
decades. But, as time goes by, the idea of dying without children feels
unnatural and sad.
Statistics do not reveal whether the 43 per cent of educated women who
are child-free are so by choice or by circumstance, but I believe the
Motherhood Deniers, waving the flag for the childless life, remain in
the minority. Admittedly a far more confident, glamorous, and witty
minority than they once were, but a minority nonetheless.
For the rest of us, childlessness is a source of sadness and regret.
Most of those 43 per cent will have gone through fertility hell, or
never met the right guy, or left it too late, or have any number of
unhappy stories.
Few would say: 'I don't want, and never wanted, children.'
'If I could teach a class to 16-year-olds about the importance of having
a baby while you've still got energy and fresh eggs in your ovaries, I
would'
Both Theresa May and Helen Mirren - frequently held up as role models
for the childless - say they weren't against having them. Mirren has
said: 'I kept thinking it would be, waiting for it to happen, but it
never did.'
May put it thus, 'It just didn't happen... you look at families all the
time and you see there is something there that you don't have.' Which is
pretty much how I feel; sad but philosophical. I was in charge of my
life. I should have put having a child first. As a young girl, having a
family was something I dreamed of and assumed would happen. But then the
education system swallowed me up, and nothing in it tells you that
having a baby any time soon is a good idea.
My parents' divorce put me off too. I had ants in my pants during every
relationship until I finally met someone I could trust at the age of 40.
He wasn't going to start making babies straight away. So I waited. I
was 43.
Kate Spicer recently appeared on This Morning to say she regrets the abortion she had at 18
What then but to rush into the arms of the fertility industry
brandishing my credit card? I did, but it didn't work. Now, at 44,
adoption is always at the back of my mind, but there is some distance to
go before I feel my relationship will be ready to take on that
challenge.
Motherhood Denier, I am not. If I could teach a class to 16-year-olds
about the importance of having a baby while you've still got energy and
fresh eggs in your ovaries, I would.
I might get them to talk to my friend, Penny, 45, who has had to admit
that she has missed the motherhood boat. 'My mother kept saying to me,
'Quick, have a baby'.
'When she died, mixed up with all the other grief was that realisation
that I was the end of the line. Ten years on, I can barely think about
that, it makes me too sad. I spent a lot of money on fertility
treatment, but in the end, I realised I didn't have the energy to be a
mother. My lifestyle is good, it's a sort of compensation.'
As for me, I feel an excruciating awkwardness around new mothers, whose
total intimacy with their child leaves me feeling like an outcast, not
least because it exposes the ties of friendship as thin and practical.
There is, as one specialist said to me last year, a near to zero chance
that I will get pregnant naturally and, he admitted, a fairly slim
chance that IVF would work either, given my fertility history and, yes,
my age.
Meanwhile, have you read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World with its
population graded from the top, Alpha, down to Epsilon? If educated,
successful women like me don't breed, are we gearing up for a generation
of Epsilon-minus semi-morons?
Social mobility is stickier than ever, so let's not leave breeding to the idiots.
'On my mum's desk at her home in Devon are two cards, one from me, one
from my brother, signed with messages of 'all my love'. When Mum and Dad
are gone where will that love go?'
Then again, while women who don't have kids often flag up how wonderful
it is to have so much time on their hands, I can't help noticing it's
women with kids who get the most done.
My sister-in-law has written two books, has three kids, and a much
bigger home than me. JK Rowling was a single parent, and she's done all
right.
I sometimes lie awake full of dread about the time approaching when my
parents are no longer around. To give or to receive unconditional love
is a deeply rare thing.
As a rule, flawed as all parties may be, the parent-child bond is the
commonest and most reliable form of that love. Sitting writing this at
my mother's desk, surrounded by my grandmother and great-grandmother's
things, I feel acute awareness that as my life enters its final half, it
is with a diminishing circle of love.
On my mum's desk at her home in Devon are two cards, one from me, one
from my brother, signed with messages of 'all my love'. When Mum and Dad
are gone where will that love go?
The Motherhood Deniers are terribly excited about their friends. None of
whom will be able to wipe their own bottoms in 40 years time, let alone
those of their chums. And we all know nephews and nieces are not in the
business of dedicating their lives to maiden aunts.
I have never met a woman who regretted having children. She surely
exists, but not in my experience. I have met, however, older people who
lament never having kids, for whatever reason, and I suspect some of the
noisy Motherhood Deniers will eventually join their number.
For them, there are dogs and cats, and when they no longer have strength
to pull the foil off a tin of Caesar, it's pretty likely there'll be
branches of Dignitas in every shopping mall where the old and unloved
can go when there's nothing left to live for.
Source: Daily Mail
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