I’ve been saying I don’t want kids since I was a kid myself. In fact, as I got older, I became convinced I didn’t even like being around them.
It wasn’t something I ever had to think twice about in my 20s, but since entering my 30s, it feels impossible to avoid, especially with taunts of marriage and parenthood through my friends and family.
The biggest window into that life has been my baby brother having babies of his own. Seeing him build the life of his dreams made me question whether I’d be enough as a household of one.
I thought not wanting kids was just a personal preference
I don’t hate kids in the same way I don’t hate dogs, but I’ve never had a desire to clean up after either one.
Sure, you might judge me for comparing raising a kid to caring for a dog, but that’s my point. If I couldn’t commit to the responsibilities of a pet, what kind of father would I be?
And that’s exactly why I’m keeping my genes to myself, so my life remains mine through whatever older people have, unsolicited, assured me are my best years.
Although being a guy has spared me from my friends and family openly treating me like a spinster, I’ve noticed how quickly my self-focused life seems to lose meaning in the eyes of people choosing to dedicate their 30s and 40s to their next of kin.
My brother was expecting twins
Having a lot of siblings with a young mother made me feel confident I had enough people who were bound by blood to me.
But then my brother announced that he and his wife were expecting twins. I was excited for them.
However, I didn’t realize how drained I had become by the expectation that my travel plans should revolve around other people’s happily-ever-afters. Most recently, that meant RSVPing no to a friend’s wedding in Colombia after she expected me to travel without a plus-one. I went to Hawaii on a friendmoon instead.
Now I found myself skipping my little brother’s coed baby shower to attend New York Fashion Week. They had planned it a month before, and I didn’t feel the need to cancel a trip I’d planned six months earlier.
It was just my latest act of rebellion against being absorbed as a minor character inside someone else’s white picket fence.
I first didn’t even want to meet my nephews
I didn’t realize how much deeper my discomfort around children went until I avoided visiting my newborn nephews. Rather than feeling connected to them, I found myself repelled by the idea that our family plans would revolve around the household with children.
It was a selfish thought, I know. But in the past, my little brother had called most of my joys, including fashion, nightlife, and the pursuit of greatness in my career, empty.
He was one of the kindest people I knew, and he wasn’t criticizing my ambitions so much as the superficiality that often accompanied them.
Vanity was, after all, one of my flaws, which is what made children my kryptonite. They represented the next generation, the next in line to find purpose and meaning in this world. Looking at them reminded me that my own turn would be over eventually.
I finally paid my nephews a visit
In a way, watching a child grow up is the most tangible way a person can be faced with their own mortality.
“Everyone around us is a mirror reflecting a piece of ourselves, and it sounds like children mirror your fear of running out of time to do all the things you want to do in life,” my career-driven friend Manika texted me. She understood me deeply because she had recently frozen her eggs.
When I finally allowed myself to meet my nephews, I couldn’t believe how much more whole I felt in their presence. I wasn’t empty before, but I felt fuller.
These babies and their mother were a perfect addition to my family.
If anything, I realized there had never been any pressure to live my life a certain way beyond the expectations I had projected onto it myself.
Life is not necessarily long, but it is wide, and there is room for a lot of wonderful things, even on your own, if you open your heart, confront your insecurities, and embrace every version of happiness without sacrificing your own.
I didn’t need to want kids to make room for them in my life.
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