TODAY’S MUSINGS:

Stephanie & Marc: “Attention everyone; we have an announcement…We’re PREGNANT!!!!”

Me: “What if you regret it later and then it’s too late?”

Everyone in the room: {Crickets}

“What if you regret it later and then it’s too late?”  Why is this question deemed completely acceptable to ask someone who made the decision NOT to have children, but it is considered abhorrent in the scenario above?

This week, I read a post where a woman was sharing her reasons for not having children and someone responded with the question above. I am also child-free by choice and have weathered the same question over years of my life. 

We are all confronted with serious choices throughout our life, among which is the decision to bear children. Pros and cons are weighed; guts are checked; consequences are ruminated upon, before most life-altering decisions are made. For me, the answer was, “no.”  Of course, I wondered if I would regret my decision – just like I pondered if I had made the right choice to buy this house, move to another city, take a job I wasn’t qualified for, or when I broke up with someone I thought I loved. Yet, I don’t think a woman should decide to birth and raise a child out of fear of making the wrong decision.

Throughout my baby-bearing years, I saw the life I wanted and was 99.98% positive that life did not include children. But, I also realized, should that .02% ever grow stronger as I matured, excellent options remained open to me – adoption, fostering, mentoring.  While, conversely, women who give birth and realize they weren’t cut out to be a parent have fewer palatable options – give the child away, abandon the child, become a resentful parent inflicting emotional scars, attempt to grin and bear it.  The person who has a child and regrets it later has a hell of a lot more to lose than someone who doesn’t.

“But, no one REGRETS having a child! Once you give birth, you’ll feel more love than you thought possible.”

I will concede that most women do not regret having a child, but there are plenty who do due to their unpreparedness to be a parent, the state of their marriage, the father’s non-participation (whether physical or financial), or economic hardship.

“But don’t you want someone to be there to take care of you when you’re old or be with you when you’re dying?”

Giving birth to children is NOT an insurance policy made flesh. I can imagine someone, in their late 40’s, inhaling salt water during a scuba-diving mishap, their last thoughts as they sink to the bottom of the ocean being, “Damn, having children didn’t help me in the end, after all.” We don’t know how or when our lives will end.  While it would be NICE to die of old age, surrounded by our loved ones, should we rely on that scenario when family planning?  I’ve experienced my fair share of final moments – some offspring step up to care for an aging parent, some don’t. Some family members hold vigil during the final moments, some don’t.  Some mourn, some don’t. Raising children does not safeguard us from dying alone and destitute.

I am not vilifying women who want children or have children. That is their choice, just like it was my choice to not have kids. By the way, I’m biologically in that “it’s too late” time of my life and I don’t regret my decision; not one bit. 

TODAY’S RECIPE:

Below is the ideal cocktail recipe to celebrate strawberry season – and a woman’s choice. Cheers!

Fresh Strawberry Daiquiris

• Servings: 2 cocktails
• Print

Shaking, instead of the usual blending, ensures the strawberry flavor shine through in these fresh strawberry daiquiris.

Ingredients

• 5-6 very ripe fresh strawberries
• ½ ounce simple syrup
• 2 ounces white rum
• 1 ounce fresh lime juice

Directions

1. Muddle strawberries and simple syrup in a cocktail shaker until well mashed.
2. Add white rum, lime juice, and 6-8 ice cubes. Shake until well chilled.
3. Pour through a sieve (don’t use the shaker strainer*) into chilled martini or coup glass. Garnish with a strawberry.

* We found the shaker strainer clogged too quickly with strawberry pulp. A sieve works better.