Born in 1970 and happy without kids

LAST week brought yet another report in the UK yelping about women 'waiting too long' to have babies. I enjoyed this one, particularly as it was about graduate women born in 1970, of whom 40 per cent have had children.

By Sarah Churchwell

Published: Fri 11 May 2007, 9:22 AM

Last updated: Sun 5 Apr 2015, 1:25 AM

Allow me to introduce myself. I'm one of the other 60 per cent. The report had a clear message: get impregnated now or you shall rue the day. Oh, please. Can we get a few things straight?

First, in so far as my hazardous decision to wait only entails having avoided babies in any of my previous relationships, I don't rue a damn thing. I can't imagine anything worse than still being tied to those men or those choices, for me or for any child unfortunate enough to have resulted from those doomed affairs. I am a far better, and far happier, person than I was five or 10 years ago; although I may have been more fertile then, I was also more of a fruitcake. My parents had two children in five years and then divorced. They were probably as civilised about it as one could hope for, and happily I am close to both, but even at its kindest divorce is no picnic for the children involved.

Second, wanting children is not a foregone conclusion just because I am a woman. Which reminds me, can someone sit singer Natasha Bedingfield down and explain to her the concept of self-respect? I Wanna Have Your Babies - as anthems go, it's not exactly I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar. I was recently subjected to the video of this empowering tune at the gym, which was even more appalling than the song alone. I had optimistically assumed it was just a brainless excuse for a love song, but in the video she wants to have the baby of every sexy man she meets. Emily Davison died under a horse for this?

Third, not having children is not necessarily a selfish decision. Overpopulation is an enormous problem, not just environmentally but also in terms of the well-being of the population that already exists, many of whom don't seem to be doing too well. Does the world really need more middle-class white babies? Perhaps I ought to help care for the babies who already exist, and give them access to the privileges with which I have been blessed. Angelina Jolie I'm not -- until I have her income I can't afford her menagerie -- but I could certainly do my part.

Fourth, having children is not necessarily a selfless decision. People have children for the most appalling reasons, and subject them to all kinds of consequent abuse. Some people are driven by narcissism, and are in search of a mini-me; others have children because they are incredibly needy, like a pathological version of that nitwit film character Jerry Maguire, who tells his girlfriend that she completes him.

What about the poor child brought into the world to complete her parent, whose life is presumed to be at the service of someone else's needs? Artist Tracy Emin has recently said she fears growing old surrounded by newspaper clippings. But if she had children, who's to say they would surround her while she's growing old? They might pop her in a rest home and drop by every couple of years, when they can find the time. Having children to improve your old age - there's a noble reason to become a parent.

Spare me the cant and coercion, and let people live with the consequences of their own decisions. I may well try to become a mother, maybe even soon; and if I no longer can, assuming I ever could, and regret that, that is my heartbreak. It won't hurt the children I don't have, and may help the children I would almost certainly adopt. It might hurt the putative father, and this would be another question. But I could also be dumped for a more fertile option. I'm not being flippant, I'm being realistic. You pay your money and you take your chances.

I haven't mentioned my career, because this is shorthand for 'selfish bitch' in our society. But until men are warned not to put their careers first, and have to listen to constant dirges about time's winged chariot, I will continue to see this as a sexist discussion. I not only love what I do, I am what I do. The question is how to be yourself and have a child at the same time if you feel defined by something other than 'mother'. The women who do, and can have children, are definitely the lucky ones. The rest of us must struggle more. But society needs to stop telling me to turn myself into a mother just because it can't imagine that I might be anything else.

Sarah Churchwell is senior lecturer in American literature and culture at the University of East Anglia.