On having kids
This will be a very personal entry and a difficult topic.
I'm 34 and I don't have kids. Having children is not something I've ever wanted the most in my life. My life is meaningful and fulfilling without me having my own children. But at times, I thought that I wanted to have children if I was in a safe and stable relationship where both my partner and I would be committed to being parents. I've never met such a person in my life. More recently, i.e., in my 20s and 30s, I've been in two serious relationships. One person didn't want to have children at all. My current partner doesn't want to have children with me, he already has one from his previous relationship.
Recently I had a conversation with my current partner about a small chance of me getting pregnant. What he said sounded as if it would be the worst day in his life. Many thoughts were running through my mind. I felt rejected, unsupported and unsafe. I felt that this person accepts all the joyful parts of our relationship but not the challenging ones. He is happy to be with me on the days when he doesn't have childcare responsibilities, to cook together, walk, write. There is something very uncomfortable about knowing that a man would want to be seen with you, sleep with you, live with you, but would tell you to do an abortion if you became pregnant or would ask you to leave. He would claim to love your body as an object but reject its reproductive functions. Here I must emphasise that I refer to a small chance of becoming pregnant while using contraception.
I felt that the whole responsibility of a situation like this would fall on my shoulders. I felt a deep sense of unfairness. He wants me to accept his child from his previous relationship, celebrate his parenthood, buy a home together with a bedroom for his child, listen about them for hours, play a positive role in their life. But he would not accept my child (that would also be his), would not take responsibility for them.
A conversation similar to the recent one unfolded between me and him some months ago before we officially became a couple. He said that if I became pregnant, he would not be there for that child. That time of my life was one of the most challenging ones, and I never took my time to think about it.
I don't know what prepares humans to deal with such situations in life. At times, I think that I must be able to navigate these situations easily, to arrive at good decisions quickly. But instead, I feel lost. I don't know if I should leave this relationship because I feel rejected, unsupported and unsafe. I want to be with someone who would be happy if I became pregnant, not someone for whom it would be the worst unfolding in the universe, or someone who would ask me to get an abortion.
Recently I began to feel at home here in Denmark and in our current place. It was a beautiful feeling that I hadn't experienced before to the same degree. Hearing my partner's words about a possible pregnancy erased that feeling immediately. I felt reduced to a form of entertainment, a toy, a no strings attached girlfriend, a decoration, good enough for good times but something undesirable if pregnant. I felt a deep need to exit.
Then there is anxiety about bringing children into the world experiencing ecological degradation. Being in the field of sustainability, I am exposed to this kind of knowledge every day. Naturally, I think about it a lot.
There is also anxiety about the state of society, the state of our education system, how success is evaluated. I am in academia and I see how often academia de-educates humans rather than contributes to their growth.
I would be worried about my child if they were, like me, introverted. I personally find this personality trait useful and beautiful, but in my experience social systems don't accommodate introversion as well as they accommodate extroversion. I think a lot about my own childhood experiences and how many needs of mine were not satisfied. To be clear, I grew up in a family that always had a comfortable life. Yet, my needs for solitude, having less, and simplicity were not satisfied at all. Those were the things I could only acquire as I could choose how to live my own life.
There is a deep sense of instability and insecurity. Recently I resigned from my job due to harassment. I did it as an act of activism, of non-compliance with violence in academia. I rely on my savings to live. My residence and work permit in Denmark is temporary. If I had a child, I wonder where I would live, what language I would speak to them. I wonder how I would be able to bring them up in an alternative way, as a free thinker and an ethical human being.
Living in different countries has contributed immensely to my personal growth. But it also came with rootlessness. My mother died in a car crash when I was 17. I have never met my father. I was brought up by my mother and stepdad. My stepdad and grandmother live in a different country. When I talk to my stepdad, I struggle to find the words as I can't speak his language well enough. I haven't used it as my primary language for half of my life. If I had a child, I wouldn't be able to get support from my family. Perhaps the world which I love and feel comfortable in would begin to feel scary and hostile. And losing the sense of comfort and safety in the universe is something I am afraid of.