No, Baby.
[Note: please allow me to preface my words/point of view by saying that for the most part, our parents tried their best to raise us to the best of their ability. This, I believe, was/is based on the way they were brought up, how society molded them coming up, and whatever the parenting styles were at the time. “Experts”, the free-minded, and opinionated moral folks are timeless figures who always think they know best. I am sure some of our parents and guardians adhered to some of their messages and tried to use the techniques on us.
I’ve said all this to point out that I don’t think I had the perfect upbringing, but rather one based on love and a family trying to cope with the loss of a lot of people during the 80s and 90s in our immediate family. As the only grand-daughter at the time, expectations and protections were high. Folks didn’t want my life ruined by the typical vices and stereotypes that plague women AND Black women. I would never compare and say I had it better or was raised better, to rub in anyone’s face. My folks were wrong about some things and actually ended up lightening up about these things as I became older.
Our parents, in general, try their best to raise us to be decent people. Life happens, and sometimes one must face single parenthood or young parenthood. A lot of us have gone through a lot of things and come out broken or changed because of it. In no way am I looking down on anyone of any circumstance different from my own. Especially considering all the mistakes I made on my own, despite my upbringing. My sad little take on all this baby boom lack talk is more about why I personally have yet to birth babies, but also the culture and the times I grew up in. “Certain things” were drilled into my head to instill shame and unhappiness, but also to avoid certain outcomes. If somebody else did not avoid or could not avoid, it doesn’t make them any less equal or unworthy. All it means is that a different path was chosen. It also doesn’t mean their parents didn’t care about them, didn’t want the best, or raised them incorrectly.
I truly hope that people understand my point of view, and do not take what I have written out of context. My feelings and experiences are but a minuscule and unique look into the world of an elder Millennial, and I hope that somebody, somewhere can find themselves in that space. I am, in fact, quite a mess, and am very blunt about it. I find that this bluntness keeps me somewhat grounded. Again — I am no better than anyone else.
-Veronica]
This is the story of a self-absorbed elder Millennial in her mid-30s who does not have a child, a career, a lot of cash, or too much going for her. She is six credits shy of a BA at UT Martin, scrambles through endless job searches to become somebody’s secretary or COVID-19 Contact Tracer, and has asthma. Her credit score is on FIYAH because she’s paying off medical bills and collegiate debt bit by bit. Ends are met by living with family, doing surveys and other various writing gigs, and minding her business. Her goals: bust collegiate and ER debt, get an apartment, step outside the world of self-publishment, and be the boss authoress she knows she is called to be. If she can lose about 100 pounds as a starter, that would also be swell. Throw in a pack of gum for the road.
What a catch, right?
An old dreamer who sees a whole world in front of her, grabs at it but gets looked over. The queen of “start strong, plateau, then the bottom falls out”. A sensitive woman who has been called “emo” by her Gen-X ex, a “cold-hearted bxtch” by a long-gone Internet paramour, and “crazy”…by…who knows, pick a random person. The kind you’re unsure about taking home to mother, let alone lettin’ the boys meet. Anyway…
First of all, this article. Second of all, this gif:
Third of all, this isn’t the first time at the “Millennials/the youth aren’t having kids” rodeo. My goodness. Shoot me now, shoot me now. UGH.
I’ll spare you stats and facts and opinions by people of all ages. I will try to keep things as simple as possible, focusing on my own experiences. It isn’t big, special, nor complicated — but there are layers. Lots of uncool, got-to-roll-with-it-or-go-nuts layers. There have been nights of hope, days of coping, and afternoons of regret. In the end, I never know where I’m really going with this. It either is going to happen for me or not. I have come to semi-terms that at my age with peri-menopause and what I assume is PCOS knocking my uterus and ovaries out, there will be no kids in my future. Sprinkle COVID, my asthmatic self being indoors to avoid it, and most men seeing me as an afterthought/secret/stepping stone/not-a-wife, what kids?
Here’s Hoping…
“You can always adopt.” — My dad. He and I had been off and on about babies for the longest time. It wasn’t a requirement, it wasn’t a pressured deal, but rather hope. I snapped at him during a car ride in my late 20s about not wanting kids, trying to be tough and nonchalant about my internal battles of knowing my fertility was crap. I was hurting because I felt like nobody wanted me anyway, and had the empty dating card to prove it. I regret snapping, but the argument escalated so fast. He seemed hurt I didn’t want kids, and I was coming to terms — while being on Facebook and being friends with women who were either pregnant or having kids…or getting married — with being single. I hated it, thinking of my single maternal aunts. A lot of them seemed unhappy about it, in weird spaces trying to cope. I never asked if they were unhappy or happy about it. I embraced the eccentricity I picked up from them, but worried about spinsterhood.
Years later, I finally told my dad what was up. I think he felt a little bad about it, but gave me that glimmer of hope. I could adopt indeed. He just wants a chance to love on a grandkid, spoil them, and have pictures. I definitely understand that. So, a part of me does think of a life where I am stable, a writer, and have my adopted child right by my side. I would not mind that at all. I would love to give my father the chance to be a cool pop-pop or something, spending time with kids of mine.
“I never thought I would remarry and have another kid in my mid-thirties, but I ended up doing both.” — My paternal aunt whom I live with. (Side note, her husband is an absolute gem.) Her story is one I “won’t put out in the streets” too much, but is one that started with a bad first marriage, having to restart after the fact, coming up again, and meeting a better man at her local church. They were made for each other, and she claims she never thought she’d marry a pastor, but her life in the church as a youth pretty much set her up for it. She is an amazing person who can be blunt, but also absolutely metaphysical and deep.
I was happy she found somebody in her mid-30s. She had been through so much trying to raise my older cousin, and ended up having another baby with my uncle after her marriage. My younger cousin is a person I consider to be a super old soul who channels Pollock, Basquiat, and goodness knows who else in his artwork. Their family is full of happiness and blending (my uncle has two older kids from previous relationships) and she (my aunt) has grandchildren from those two.
She and I are both from Chicago, so it’s definitely worlds apart to be in this little town in Tennessee. She’s happy here. She and my uncle have been together for almost 30 years. I watch their romance play out day after day, and it hurts a little…but it gives me glimmers of hope. Maybe it all fell apart in my 20s, continues to rot in my 30s, but perhaps the ashes and compost have something underneath. Maybe my story isn’t over. I fight myself on that, stuck between “there is still a reason to hold on”, and “why the hell are you still holding out for nobody? Go write something, dingbat!”
“You never know what may happen, or what you may feel about all of this. Sometimes you can’t wait for a steady time. As long as you aren’t missing meals or mortgage payments, you may be in a place to have kids.” — My other paternal aunt, from Cali.
My paternal aunt in California is this super mellow, very smooth lady who had been with my uncle Clifford (may he rest well) since the late 60s. They met at a community college in Chicago. She endured every up and down with him, and how she describes him pretty much solidifies, for me, that he found his soulmate in her. I like her style. The rebellious pessimist says “yeah right, lady!”. The willing optimist is reminded to keep the faith and stop looking. Maybe it will all come (again) if I stop looking.
In her point of view, there is always a chance. She took that chance by adopting a little girl named Angel years ago. Nobody believed she would be able to handle it. Angel ended up being this amazing person because of the love my aunt and uncle gave her. She was presented with opportunities to become an outstanding person. She is not only an academic powerhouse, but she participates in a variety of interesting hobbies. My aunt’s form of hope is soothing and almost Zen-like. It is, in fact, as peaceful as the Nichiren Buddhism I practice.
I like to keep these things in mind, but also be realstic-ish about where things are going. I want to focus, but time passes as one focuses. What do I give my energy to for the best results? All of these good people are hoping for grandkids from their respective children, but especially me. Dreamy-eyed, smiling, praying. “Just one”, they all say. One what? From where? I have four male cousins who are super virile and healthy. One is in his 40s with a girlfriend, the other is 38-ish and absolutely amazing (amazing music taste and culinary skills), and the other is a whole artist who is 27/28 and JUST STARTING to get on the goodfoot. Please, look to them for the kiddos. They are all employed and are better off than I. I might have the whole maternal thing deeply embedded within my soul, but they have the means.
Cultural Rules
The unspoken things in the Black community (but usually not for long, because it will be discussed over dinner/coffee cake/”just talmbout it on da couch”) are that we need to perpetuate the race, our culture, and pass things on period. Not so much about taking over the world but more about remaining here and not getting completely erased. Yet over and over we are told not to procreate as single parents, out of wedlock, or if we cannot afford to do so. Why? “Because it’s a bad look”, “because that’s how broken homes start”, and whatever else one can think of. Yet a lot of us are still here anyway, despite all of those things. Trust me, the moment I realized that the expectations and judgment from my own people were contradictory, a part of me wanted to just start a parakeet farm somewhere in Wyoming. Let ’em be mad while I bred gorgeous clearwings.
I understood the drive to perpetuate and keep up traditions but felt like less of a woman as I grew up because I was not only undesirable, my body wasn’t “functioning as a woman’s should”. I was hairy all over, had a masculine face, and just couldn’t carry full femme. I wasn’t aware/had not accepted that there was more than one way to be a woman. I wanted to be a mother, but my gender and worth identity crises weren’t really helping with my personal growth. I knew the rules: be a woman, have a job, and have a family. There could not be any shortcuts. If you lacked any of these, who were you? What were you contributing? The spoken and unspoken plagued me. It was weird, because I also entered spaces where none of those things mattered, and just being there and yourself counted more. This is why finding myself between each series of opinions became so important.
I want to say I gave something to the Black collective as a woman. I want to say I mattered in the realm of womanhood. There are so many other ways to do both, but the emphasis on motherhood cannot be ignored. It seems like it’s one of the many pillars of prosperity and worth in this world. There are so many people on both sides who did not have kids, but somehow gave birth to movements and aesthetics, philosophies, and so forth…can’t I just do that?
This is the other thing about all of us Millennials birthin’ babies: how many people in our lives told us “the right way” to have them? How many people gave us moral guidelines and examples? I know I saw and heard my share of PSAs about teen pregnancy, STDs, and the struggle of being a young parent. We won’t even get into the strange tightrope walk of single parenthood. With the way the world is now, lack of finances, a partner, and just some leftover baby whatnots from my days as a babysitter, what right do I have to be a parent?
I never said I didn’t want to be one, but a lot of factors either turn me from it or automatically make me ineligible. It absolutely breaks my heart and makes me envious of friends who have kids and great lives, but I personally think that life is telling me something, and a part of me is tired of fighting it. I need to move on with my life and trying to make room for a nonexistent partner and baby stop me from writing and developing. Carving out pieces of hope that I will/am be fertile and ready, when unfortunately my body has told me “not so much” with the basics is a lead-up to even more sorrow.
I think of my mother and her struggle.
Without going into deep detail, she lost her first child. I came eight years later in 1985, but she lost a lot of blood to bring me here and needed a transfusion. Granted her struggle may not be mine, parts of it already mirror what she went through: finding herself, getting her life together, and having her family. The pieces came together closer to her mid-30s, although she had my dad in her life for most of her 20s. When she finally reached that higher point, an aneurysm took her life. The blood transfusion took her from this world because the blood was not clean. It all seemed so unfair to me, because once she found her calling as a Pre-K teacher, she discovered a wonderful world of reaching youth. They adored her, going so far as to reading poems at her funeral.
The fear has resonated within me for years. The way medical society treats Black women, let alone fat Black women…even if I had the ability and the money to give birth, what if I die? What if I leave behind a whole family and then my poor child struggles with existence, as I have? I never will forget calling and crying to my grandma at age 11 that I felt guilty about mom dying. I sobbed and sobbed about it being my fault. I felt robbed that I didn’t even remember her because she passed away when I was so young. I reconciled with that anguish years ago, but sometimes it creeps up on me. That’s a lot for a person to go through.
I would love to have children. I would love to create a little person and have the madness of my youth return to the world, featuring a chubby little golden baby boy or girl laughing and bringing joy to a home. I had an amazing time babysitting my cousin when she was new to this world, despite the hardships. Obviously, her parents went through way more, but the small glimpses into parenthood felt absolutely natural and nurturing. I would love to put all my creativity and energy into teaching a child how to walk and talk. I’d love to have my own little family with thousands of pictures, nestled up in some kind of happy little Blerd home eating sushi and knocking back hard lemonades while my little one or ones are fast asleep. Spending time doing cute crafts and making timeless inside jokes, making memories for album after album. The life I dream of and the one that’s currently in play make things seem so hard and impossible. It has made me look back on so many coulda/woulda/shouldas knowing full well a child would have been here by now if I had settled.
I chose not to settle, and I guess I paid for it.
I did not settle for men who found me worthless and too much to handle. I did not settle for men with mama issues and women issues because they’ve been so deeply misunderstood or cheated on 900 times. I did not settle for unprotected one-night-stands. I kept pushing for quality, and not the set up to be a single baby mama caught in drama. I am sure a lot of them could clap back and say they didn’t settle for me either. As much as I wanted kids, I wanted them in a stable environment. As stable as possible, anyway. The moral drills and speeches made it seem like some sort of life’s taboo that would ruin me. I witnessed the ups and downs of single parenting through my aunts and own father. So it’s wild that a part of me had problems with it, despite knowing full well that there were so many kinds and situations. Once I got over being so judgmental, I opened my eyes but still knew — I wasn’t going to be a mother. There were far too many “almosts” for my personally uptight self, and even those had me spiraling into shame. It was bad for me, yet millions before me endured once they found themselves in those places. What was so different?
I realized midway into my 20s that perhaps wifehood and motherhood were evading me on purpose. Currently, being dateless and in the midst of a pandemic isn’t exactly helping, but my goodness…my 20s were a mess. I kept telling myself it would get better, it would be different, and putting myself out there would yield some results. I wrote some of the best angsty poetry ever, but there were no men — just options for the hourly rates. I wanted more than some man who felt like mediocre bedroom effort would seem like Christmas to me, because I was big and uncute.
This is the other problem.
Dressed up or down, some men don’t see me as a woman to respect, but rather a secret to admire. I am their last resort, their stepping stone between the real women, and maybe that hookup between stops as they deliver. I have been wading through this crap since 2008, and the radar never fails me. Same with relationships. I know when the bottom is going to fall out, and I feel like a fool for having spent so much time discussing marriage, kids, and what kind of bonny bungalow we want. When I execute standards, I go without. I’m not asking for the richest man, the sexiest one, nor the super popular one. I’m not asking to be spoiled rotten. I’m deep in debt but digging myself out. I am not looking for a man to dig me out of my debt, because I’m determined to write and work a 9 to 5 to get my own self out. I’m automatically a burden for that slow grind and believe me when I say I definitely don’t act like a prize of a woman because of that.
The whole “what do you bring to the table” these days requires more than good cooking, cleaning, and pillow talk. The things I ask for aren’t so low that the bar is on the floor, but I’m not asking for designer things and shiny baubles. I wasn’t raised like that to expect treats “just because”. It’s nice to get things, but what I really want cannot be purchased from Amazon. What I desire cannot be grabbed at Kroger or Wally World. I just want to be respected and seen as an equal, not a birthing vessel or some kind of test of all women to see my worth.
Perhaps that is too much to ask?
Therefore, I am alone. if I am alone, I can't have kids. I want to be a responsible parent, not a dependent one. We were always taught that parents were responsible and capable, no matter what. It is enough to fight for me and feel like an ongoing wreck. When things go right, I hold on to them. A lot HAS and DOES go right in my life, but the two things I want the most…evade. It hurts.
I’m tired, I feel defeated and worn out.
I don’t want to start hissing at love and romance, because I like those things. A good feel-good story lifts me up. Yet wondering when my time is, and how I can explain that I probably can’t have kids hurts and burns deep within. Dating and courting are for cool people with something to offer. I can cook, clean take you back to the 90s, encourage you, and maybe find you some cool deals and gifts. We can binge-watch anime and I promise to wear that thing you like. I can tell you about Chicago and introduce you to my nerdy, ghetto-ish sarcasm…but…that’s it. Who am I to expect more, let alone a partner to have kids with?
It runs deeper than finances. If my dad found out I were with child tomorrow, thousands of dollars would already be ours. The baby would be his, as he’s told me millions of times over. I would be covered, but feeling guilty. Am I asking for too much to have love with this baby-making? We were told over and over to be married and in love, despite it being possible to have babies via donors and after the love is gone. It runs deeper than ability — not all able bodies who can have kids should.
I can’t trip these lines of all I’ve been taught and all I have faced thus far, all bright-eyed and ready to give birth. It shouldn’t matter what strangers think (unless they’re gonna pony up and chip in) but the stigma behind children out of wedlock, the drama and judgment of seeking government help, and well…being a parent and barely getting by (read some comments from anyone who thinks life is streamlined, or that THEY are the ultimate parent who does everything and has always had this/that and is soooo better than everyone…) seems to be a high flaming wall of mental and emotional damnation I would like to avoid. It seems like I’ve been taught to avoid most of it.
I’m not shaming my family for trying to teach me something about life. “I want what’s best for you” rings in my head. It’s just an absolutely odd thing that these same people who said not to do it this way, have ’em that way, or just…be wild in general want me to throw caution to the wind and find somebody to have kids with. If I knew where this person was, Scandalous Sex Suite would be playing on a loop and I would be in black lace trying to make it happen over a surf n turf dinner. The ring would be on my finger, and I would already be Mrs. So-and-So with my modern life in full swing.
The world owes me nothing, and I am not looking for it to hand me anything. As a child, I spent hours plotting my adult life. I knew that I would be a beautiful grown woman like the ladies on tv, made up and skinny and perfect. I knew that some man was going to be crazy about me, no problem. I knew that we would have a home, kids, and be rich. I visualized as much as I prayed for it. As I grew up, things shifted a bit. Perhaps to suit crushes at the time, but they fell in line with reality. I saw the women my mother and paternal aunts were, I witnessed the wonder of matriarchy that was my paternal grandmother, and KNEW I was going to fall in line. My mother’s sisters were all married (save for about 2 or 3), and witnessing their love let me know the kind of woman I should aspire to be. I always assumed that the ugly phase was going to fade out, and the beauty and greatness of who I was would either blossom in high school or college.
Ambitions met reality, fake smiles shielded me from people asking me what happened and why, and writing saved me from dwelling on why relationships failed. I have to face this — I am not having kids because the circumstances do not look good for me. I have to accept that. I would love to hold on to anything that could happen or some surprising turn around, but I live in a small town where a small percentage of the population could be related to me by marriage, and I am a struggling writer with a fat baby face and a body I struggle with.
My best bet is a nice cat or some budgies.
I’ll power through.
My little twisted story isn’t new. It is part of a variety of stories of Millenials young and old, and their reasons for not having kids. Some people genuinely do not want kids, while others can’t. Some people aren’t in a good place and know that having kids will make it worse. Others see the world as it is, and have decided to take a stand and say “no more kids”. It takes a very special person to become a parent, and I know of a lot of special people who are indeed great moms and dads. I love seeing their children grow up through social media stories. I applaud their ability to navigate through life, either having found their calling or still getting there. I admire the beauty and strength of mothers who have shared their journeys inside and out, proudly showing battle scars of birth and creation.
If I am to be in that number, I would be absolutely shocked.
I, personally, would be far less worried about the lack of a baby boom (during covid or otherwise), and focus on the other millions of fires blazing around the world — both known and unknown.
