My (non)Maternal Instinct

I celebrated my twenty-fifth birthday this past February. And, as expected, I received the obligatory happy birthday long distance phone call from my mother. As we casually chatted about the trivial topics of everyday life--the dog's heart condition, my mother's never-ending quest to find the perfect guacamole recipe--and got our family gossip fix, I suddenly detected a slight change in my mother's tone of voice. Something was up. "You know," she said, her usually reassuring voice taking on an almost accusatory undertone, "I was twenty-five when I had you. And doctors say that twenty-five is the perfect age to give birth..." There it was. She had dropped, what I like to call, the b-bomb.

Babies. Now, if there's anything I know absolutely nothing about, it's how to care for an infant. I've never in my life changed a diaper, fed, or burped a baby. Heck, I don't even know how to properly hold one without straining its little neck. It seems, however, that upon turning twenty-five years of age, I am suddenly expected to want a wriggling, smelly, babbling bundle of joy of my own.

It's not that I dislike babies. Sure, they can be sort of cute, I guess, and I do admit that I've even browsed the baby clothes section at Macy's. (I mean, c'mon, who can resist those itsy-bitsy Chuck Taylor high-top sneakers?) It's just that I have never experienced the desire, never felt the maternal instinct, if you will, to create a mini-version of myself. The prospect of having complete responsibility over another human being for eighteen long years absolutely terrifies me. And, I have found that people become genuinely alarmed upon hearing that I am simply not interested in having children. They look at me as if I've suddenly transformed into a heartless baby-eating robot-woman.

My supposed "problem" with babies goes way back. As a child, I refused to play with baby dolls with the other girls at my preschool. As a result, I ended up spending a great deal of time playing "worm-hunter" in the dirt with the little boys. My aunt, concerned that I didn't have any nice little girl friends, took it upon herself to give me a baby doll for Christmas. My five-year-old self looked, with scorn, at that helpless little plastic face gazing up at me, stood up, and announced to my entire extended family congregated around the Christmas tree that such a gift was absolutely unacceptable. And then, fast forward eleven or so years later. My high school boyfriend, apparently possessed by a fit of deranged puppy love, playfully patted my stomach and told me that I'd make a good mommy someday. From that day forward, his best friend started looking irresistibly cute.

Perhaps my own aversion to babies (and toys resembling them) does fall under the slightly scary category. But, as I have found, there are plenty of other women like me, who, at the (arguably) tender age of twenty-five(ish), are simply not ready for such a commitment, and, moreover, do not feel that they have somehow fallen behind in life because they have not yet procreated. After all, we have much more pressing matters to worry about, like paying off student loans, finding a rewarding job, and, my own personal favorite, finding a sugar daddy to solve all of the aforementioned problems.

I'm not saying that motherhood is bad, or should be discouraged in any way. In fact, I've heard that some women actually enjoy spending their days wiping up baby vomit, and lugging around a frumpy diaper bag 24/7. But for those of us who are not yet ready to jump on the baby bandwagon, I humbly ask that you give us until, oh, say, age thirty, before you start inquiring as to why we have not yet put out uteruses to work.

After all, some of us played with worms during out formative years.