At new medical appointments and some other institutional settings, I’m sometimes asked, often with a slight tone of disbelief: “Never married? No kids?” Well, the women I dated (and as many dates as I went on, I always favored monogamous, long-term relationships, the best I knew how) didn’t get knocked up. We used birth control. If worst came to worst, they didn’t stop everything else in their lives and careers, when they’d no plans to have a kid, maybe ever. They got abortions. People look at me sometimes seemingly almost in disbelief that I’ve not somehow, someway just by sheer chance, produced an offspring. I look at all of the people who seem to pop out kid after kid almost as a default, regardless of age or how stable a relationship they’re in, or what kind of job they have, and I marvel at that: how do they so casually, if not recklessly, manage to always be with someone, and, in spite of whatever birth control they may use, so often seem to produce kids, even with the other biological parent barely in the picture.
Not all of our family histories or models or personal proclivities or priorities add the same. I come from generally shy, slightly melancholic, somewhat introverted and intellectual people who seemed, across generations, to have a deep ambivalence about their own existence, let alone authoring the lives of multiple others, let alone as a default. It’s hard to explain to friends who virtually only know other stable, financially comfortable, professional couples with kids, as far as the eye can see, how bafflingly opaque that reality and the path to it are to me. When I think about marriage and parenting, you bet I’m risk averse. My first thought is: do no harm. If you’re not sure about marriage and parenting - aren’t sure whether it’s right for you - and you know you lack both the personal tools and family and community support network to make the best go of it, you don’t effing get married; you don’t effing have kids. First, do no harm. I’m glad to be alive for sure. But it took everything my mom had and she needed help from her own already quite elderly parents to even have a chance. I don’t have any close living relatives. Maybe it’s sad, but unless I’m sure - sure about myself, sure about my partner and our relationship, I’m not exposing a child to chaos and trauma. I’m not placing that burden on society. And I’m not risking derailing a good woman’s own dreams and goals, by pretending to be someone I’ll probably never be. So I volunteer a lot and do a lot of animal rescue and fostering and adoption. My dad instincts come out strongly and effectively that way and I care for many smart and very vulnerable creatures who’d have little or no chance without me. Sure I’d love to have a son or daughter to throw a baseball with or take to the museum, but those are the highlights, the fun times. I don’t know what the demand is for aging, shy and somewhat socially awkward single, never married men with no kids or their own, to mentor or volunteer, but I’m open to doing that, too. I know there is a crying need. And I can remember the often anxious, uncertain boy I was and how I craved having a dad, or an uncle or cousin, or devoted family friend - someone, anyone to help show me the way.
At new medical appointments and some other institutional settings, I’m sometimes asked, often with a slight tone of disbelief: “Never married? No kids?” Well, the women I dated (and as many dates as I went on, I always favored monogamous, long-term relationships, the best I knew how) didn’t get knocked up. We used birth control. If worst came to worst, they didn’t stop everything else in their lives and careers, when they’d no plans to have a kid, maybe ever. They got abortions. People look at me sometimes seemingly almost in disbelief that I’ve not somehow, someway just by sheer chance, produced an offspring. I look at all of the people who seem to pop out kid after kid almost as a default, regardless of age or how stable a relationship they’re in, or what kind of job they have, and I marvel at that: how do they so casually, if not recklessly, manage to always be with someone, and, in spite of whatever birth control they may use, so often seem to produce kids, even with the other biological parent barely in the picture.
Not all of our family histories or models or personal proclivities or priorities add the same. I come from generally shy, slightly melancholic, somewhat introverted and intellectual people who seemed, across generations, to have a deep ambivalence about their own existence, let alone authoring the lives of multiple others, let alone as a default. It’s hard to explain to friends who virtually only know other stable, financially comfortable, professional couples with kids, as far as the eye can see, how bafflingly opaque that reality and the path to it are to me. When I think about marriage and parenting, you bet I’m risk averse. My first thought is: do no harm. If you’re not sure about marriage and parenting - aren’t sure whether it’s right for you - and you know you lack both the personal tools and family and community support network to make the best go of it, you don’t effing get married; you don’t effing have kids. First, do no harm. I’m glad to be alive for sure. But it took everything my mom had and she needed help from her own already quite elderly parents to even have a chance. I don’t have any close living relatives. Maybe it’s sad, but unless I’m sure - sure about myself, sure about my partner and our relationship, I’m not exposing a child to chaos and trauma. I’m not placing that burden on society. And I’m not risking derailing a good woman’s own dreams and goals, by pretending to be someone I’ll probably never be. So I volunteer a lot and do a lot of animal rescue and fostering and adoption. My dad instincts come out strongly and effectively that way and I care for many smart and very vulnerable creatures who’d have little or no chance without me. Sure I’d love to have a son or daughter to throw a baseball with or take to the museum, but those are the highlights, the fun times. I don’t know what the demand is for aging, shy and somewhat socially awkward single, never married men with no kids or their own, to mentor or volunteer, but I’m open to doing that, too. I know there is a crying need. And I can remember the often anxious, uncertain boy I was and how I craved having a dad, or an uncle or cousin, or devoted family friend - someone, anyone to help show me the way.