THE CONVERSATION around babymaking is high stakes. Not the conversation around the act of making babies, but about the ethics. When we move from talking about gettin’ it on to whether it’s actually a good idea to procreate, suddenly the (metaphorical) room gets very quiet.
Two weeks ago, I wrote a cover story about young people who had decided to never have children and were sterilized in their 20s [“We Have Enough Humans, Thanks,” Feature, Nov 10], and it got a bigger response than I thought it would. I know people feel strongly about their own decision to have or not have children, but seeing the wave of feedback about how someone else’s decision to have kids is either right or wrong surprised me.
I feel like I’m in a relatively small group of people in the gray area. I know I don’t want kids within the next 10 years… but never? Yikes. I don’t even have any tattoos or piercings. So getting my tubes tied is a long way off.
Part of what makes my own decision difficult is that mainstream society refuses to discuss the possibility of baby regret. People with kids can complain about losing sleep, losing money, and losing their personal lives, but it’s absolutely taboo to utter regret about having kids. Now that we have the technology and the societal freedoms to allow young people to never pop out a kid, my generation is making that life-altering decision in a conversational void. When we can only talk about the positives of bearing children, no wonder people who opt for a childfree life get flak for being weirdos.
That’s why I was happy to have a friend show me advice columnist Dear Abby’s recent survey of baby regret. According to the venerable, very vanilla advice giver, 22 percent of her readers said they regretted having kids. Though it’s not a remotely scientific survey, it’s worth noting that there are many, many people out there who regret having kids. A scientific study found that 20 percent of women who were 30 or younger when they were sterilized regretted the decision. Both having kids and getting sterilized are major permanent decisions—but ones we’re not allowed to talk about.
I’m not sure how we go about having this conversation, but it would be nice to acknowledge in everyday babymaking discourse that regret goes both ways. It seems that for every woman who regrets getting her tubes tied, there’s likely a woman who regrets having a baby.
Sadly, the decisions around having kids also tie into political and class issues. Permanent birth control in the form of sterilization is expensive: Tubal ligation costs at least $2,500. For women who don’t have insurance, federal Medicaid covers them during their pregnancy. But it runs out six weeks after they give birth. Because there’s a mandated 30-day waiting period before Medicaid patients can get sterilized, Dr. Paula Bednarek, director of the family planning clinic at Oregon Health and Science University, explained to me that many low-income women who want to get their tubes tied after their first pregnancy wind up running out of Medicaid coverage before they can get the surgery.
“It’s a daily occurrence. It’s a huge, huge problem,” says Bednarek. “It’s turned into a major barrier for low-income women.”
Every baby may be a wee little miracle, certainly. But when are we going to be able to acknowledge that many are also forced on parents by politics?
As a new mom in her late 30’s who was mostly ambivalent about having a kid until I held my daughter in her arms, I commend you for writing this and I hope it sparks more conversation on this issue. Before I became a mom, most of my friends didn’t understand why I was so conflicted. They felt the issue was very black and white. Either you do or you don’t. In hindsight I’m really really glad I fought my internal struggle because I think it makes me a better, more prepared, less regretful and resentful parent.
This is a thoughtful column, but I have to take issue with the whole idea of people being “forced” to be parents. No one who has consensual sex is being forced — if you enter into a sexual relationship, you’re telling Mother Nature, if not yourself, you’re open to procreation. As a single parent, I have abstained at times for months, even years, from sex because I felt if my birth control failed I wasn’t ready for another child and I don’t like abortion. I have been as poor as some of the people to whom you refer in this column, but a lot of poor people are as irresponsible as middle class and wealthy people — they don’t use their sexuality responsibly but then want taxpayers to pick up the tab. Here’s a simple mantra to repeat to yourself — You being horny is not my problem. And if you are, and aren’t on the pill or using another form of birth control, condoms don’t cost that much, and if you refuse to make your partner wear one, that onus is on you, not the system or society or whoever. I support everyone’s right to have or not have children, but a lot of people in our society act like entitled, spoiled narcissists when it comes to sex instead of mature adults. Like it or not, either you learn to control your sexual impulses or they will control you, and the rest of us will often be left picking up the tab to pay for your failure to use that big brain of yours to control the ones in your nether regions.