Almost every day I’m glad I’ll never be a parent. When I have slow, relaxed weekends like this one, I’m fortunate I can sit in my quiet home, reading or writing or trying something new. And when the week has been hectic and all I have time for is work, making dinner, and sleeping, I’m fortunate I don’t have to manage a kid’s many needs on top of that. Even when I was a kid I never desired children: I’d assumed I’d have them because it’s what you do, until I realized it was a choice. Despite many people telling me I’d regret it, that my biological clock would suddenly start ticking, that I’d make such a great parent (then more commonly once we started dating, that husband would make such a great parent), that we’re the right people who should be having kids, I take a moment near daily to appreciate my choice. I hit two big age milestones since making my decision and that clock is still silent.
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| Chloe liked to be involved in my activities. |
But there’s one statement that nearly every parent I know has made that’s always bothered me: you’ll never know real love until you have a baby.
Intellectually I get it. We’re hard wired to love the screaming, crying, pooping, boring infants we create because otherwise they’d probably be really easy to accidentally forget about. There’s a reason public health billboards caution to not shake your baby, that fire stations are anonymous baby drop-off sites. If there’s anyone who knows how hard babies are, it’s those who made the decision not to have them. We saw how our friends and siblings and coworkers and acquaintances struggled, and continue to struggle, and be surprised at how hard it is, and decided it wasn’t for us. I’d even go as far as to say that most people who actively choose to not have kids believe that all kids deserve parents who want them, and because we don’t actively want them we should not have them.
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| Gandalf the emo bun |
But on the other hand, what is this real love? So many people I know directly and indirectly are in unhappy relationships, many even before they procreated (often because they wanted to procreate). We’re not hardwired to desperately love another adult. Other adults constantly disappoint us, even the ones we do love. They are their own beings with their own experiences and histories and wants and faults. But babies are pure, helpless bundles of our genetics and we simply must love them. We will die for them without a second thought. Many adults who unexpectedly lose a child cause other destruction in their lives (divorce, suicide, addiction) because the pain is too great to bear. Of course we love our infants so desperately we can’t breathe thinking of a life without them. We have to*. We don’t have to love our partners. The only unconditional love most people will experience is the love they have for their offspring and, hopefully, their own parent’s unconditional love. But outside of that, love is conditional.
(*Though there are plenty of examples of the people who simply don’t love their children. Whatever wiring they’re supposed to have is missing. They neglect, abandon, and abuse their children. They resent them for taking something away from their lives before, their partner, maybe, or their dress size, or disposable money, or their time and ability to sleep through the night and laugh without peeing. People do turn their babies into fire stations. Or shake them out of sleep deprivation and a split second of relief. Many are even decent parents while regretting their choice. Few will admit it, but we all know someone who would make a different choice if given a do-over.)
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| Amelia, Ruth, and Maya mostly learned that we were a good, safe place |
I most often hear about this stark difference in love when a parent also has a pet. The amount of times I’ve widened my eyes at someone telling me “I loved my dog more than anything in the world before I had kids, but now if he choked on a bone I’d just be like, ‘you good?’” makes me want to take in their pets. It’d be telling if someone openly admitted to loving their dog more than their kid, but casually posting and talking about how they’d barely cry if their formerly beloved pet died seems a bit too far for this animal lover.
But I’m not a parent and I’ll never really know. Despite my over thinking habits and desire to consider all sides and sometimes inability to make a decision because there are very good points all around, deciding to remain childfree was easy. I’ll never actually know what it’s like to be a parent, but it’s not like I haven’t looked through the window of parenthood. It’s not like my very active imagination hasn’t turned other people’s stories into my own nightmares. It’s not like I haven’t spent a lot of time with kids. I was changing diapers before I was ten years old, home alone and in charge of my younger sisters as early as 8 years old, being paid to babysit kids I wasn’t related to at 12 years old, and am now an active aunt to chosen and biological nieces and nephews. I do know some things. Meanwhile, the amount of people who have told me that either they or their partner first changed a diaper when it was their own kid is more than one. I’m astounded at the gamble.
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| Korra with the perfect ears |
I’ve had more pets than most, though, and I’ve given them anything and everything I could. I’ve been told that my devotion to my pets is unreasonable, that they don’t really care or notice, that I need to focus on other things more. And sure, I do more than probably most. But they were my choice to bring home and I had a responsibility to live up to the promise of giving them a good life. No one needs pets, but a lot of people get them thinking they (or their kids) deserve them and then treat them like an annoying and outdated fad they can’t get rid of (like the dog my dad brought home as a surprise when I was ten because his sister said he “deserved it”). Vet bills are so much more expensive than you expect and happen way more often than you plan for. Medical issues pop up even — especially — in purebred animals. Training young animals is exhausting. Just like kids, people get pets thinking about the Kodak Moments, not about the special needs, accidents, and the mundane expenses and day to day.
The main difference between having a pet and having a kid, other than the perennial joke that you can go to jail for crating your kid, is that you expect to outlive your pets. You never expect to outlive your child. And that is a massive difference but one we don’t think about when bringing home the bundle of joy (be it human or otherwise). I’ve had a lot of pets, which means I’ve outlived a lot of animals I truly loved. As hard as each loss was, it was ultimately expected. I knew that going into it. But no one goes into parenthood thinking that they’ll someday bury their child. I’m not a parent and I’ll never really know, but that is the worst pain a human can feel, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
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| Harriett, Rosa, and Billie were my most baby-like pets |
A few years ago one of husband’s closest friends died suddenly, leaving behind a wife and three young kids. He grew up here, his whole family was here, and they’d just spent Thanksgiving all together. The first time we saw his friend’s mom afterwards she looked at my husband like she was angry. How could my husband, who had no kids, still be here while her son, who had three kids, was not? The unfairness radiated from her. The pain I felt at losing my pets has always ebbed because not-so-deep down I knew it would happen. In fact, I wanted it to happen because I want to live a long life and give a home to many more pets and not leave the ones I have without a care plan. Subconsciously I had been preparing for it, sometimes for many years.
Losing my parents, in a way, made me realize that having pets and being an aunt aren’t the only ways I’ve tried on parenthood. My parents are one of the examples of people who love their children conditionally. My dad admitted to me when I was in my 20s that he never wanted kids. By that point we were all grown and out of the house, and he could appreciate getting the chance to live the live he’d originally wanted to have. When we stopped speaking with him one by one, he seemed to forget we ever existed. My mom will still claim that she loves us all unconditionally and honestly not see how she actively pushes us away, degrades us, and blames us. She has said horrible things to each one of us and we have each decided in turn that it’s not worth keeping her in our lives.
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| Juno is easily the least rabbit rabbit |
The more that I’m involved in my nieces and nephews lives the less I understand my parents’ choices. Again, since I’m not a parent I’ll never know that level of love and devotion, but even at the measly aunt level I genuinely don’t understand how a parent could stand being estranged from their kids. When I mentioned I’m reading the memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died in book club, one of the members was visibly uncomfortable because she couldn’t understand ever being glad. (Side note: she’s the exact type of person who should read the book because these types of parents exist and it can help open your eyes to other parent-child relationships.) But some parents are shitty. I’m really hoping and believing that the parents my age are doing it better. They’re already doing it better in so many ways and these kids are turning out so cool. Imagining that it might end up very different when they’re adults is not where I want my overactive imagination to go. But it could happen, because it does sometimes.
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| Argo loved me except when I made him wear clothes |
It happens a lot more often with pets. Families get too busy. Pets lash out when they’re neglected. Age and illness change the nature of the relationship, maybe even at really inconvenient times. We can’t communicate in the same language and wind up misunderstanding each other. Life circumstances change. I’ve been lucky enough to have adopted pets that other people no longer wanted or could care for. Chloe wouldn’t have lasted much longer with my dad — she’d already been hit by a car once and was in a constant fight with a neighbor cat, but he wouldn’t keep her in. Gandalf was probably an Easter bunny who didn’t live up to the cuddly bunny expectation and was dumped in a park. We adopted three rats in 2020 who very obviously had a rough history (not the first time I’d brought home rats someone else didn’t want). Our boy Juno is the most dog-like rabbit I’ve ever seen, so desperate for attention he’ll follow us around the house, and he was living in a small cage in a garage before husband picked him up. Getting to know these animals, how fun they are, how much love they have, how simple their needs are, and how much joy they bring me, has made me angry at the people who abandoned them and thrilled that it happened so that I could love them. A goal of mine is to someday adopt from the local Frosted Faces senior pet rescue because I know how much it would mean to the animal, I’m experienced in caring for senior and medically needy pets, and I love so easily. It’s heartbreaking to know that these pets are abandoned in their old age, when they most need the love and stability of their families, and, worst of all, that their age and health makes them far less desirable to adoptive pet parents. Will it hurt when I only get a couple of years with them? Hell yes it will. But I still want more rats even though they top out at 3 years because it’s just so worth it.
