I'm 52 and I didn't change my mind.
I want to be clear about this because I'm told, very often, by women ten years older than me and sometimes by women I have never met, that I am about to. I'm not. I can say this with confidence at this point because the math has run out. The clock was a lie — that's one of the lies — but it was also a real clock, and the real clock has completed its function. I am not going to wake up at 38 with a sudden biological scream, because 38 was ten years ago.
So. In the spirit of scientific review, here are the lies I was told in my twenties about the decision not to have children.
Lie #1: You will change your mind.
I did not. I was told I would at 28. I didn't. Then at 32. Then at 35. Then at 38. Then at 42 there was a brief pivot — "well, you'll regret it at 45 when your friends' kids are older" — and I didn't regret it at 45. I am not regretting it now, sitting in my quiet house with my four cats and a calendar that is entirely mine for the first time in my adult life.
Lie #2: You'll be lonely.
No. My friends who had kids are, on average, lonelier than I am, because their kids moved to Portland or London or got medicated in ways that made family dinners complicated, and now they are alone in a house that was renovated for a life that no longer lives there. I am alone in a house that was renovated for the life I am currently living. These are different kinds of alone.
Lie #3: Who will take care of you when you're old.
Nobody. That's the answer. Nobody was going to take care of me when I was old anyway, because the women who had children tell me, confidentially and not for attribution, that their children are not taking care of them. Their children are doing something called "setting boundaries." I am going to pay a nice woman to come over three times a week. My friends who had kids are going to pay a nice woman to come over three times a week. My friends who had kids are furthermore going to feel guilty about the nice woman. I am going to enjoy the nice woman.
Lie #4: You don't know what you're missing.
Correct. I also don't know what it's like to have been in a plane crash, and I have elected not to test this by getting into a plane that is on fire. You are allowed to decide, in advance, that a thing is not for you. I did.
Lie #5: You will regret it on your deathbed.
I will regret many things on my deathbed. I will regret staying in the marriage six years too long. I will regret the specific bad dye job of 2007. I will regret not telling a particular friend that I loved her before she moved. I will not regret this. I have been paying attention to what I regret for thirty-five years and it has never once been this.
Here is what I want to say to the 28-year-old woman at the dinner party who is being asked, for the fourth time this month, what her "plan" is. Her plan, if she doesn't want children, is a great plan. Her plan is a plan with less laundry and more books and a calendar she can fill with her own life. Her plan does not require a disclaimer. It does not require her to apologize, or to explain, or to allow a 62-year-old man to tell her that she's "still young, you never know." She knows. She's been knowing since 19. She's not going to change her mind.
If she does change her mind, great. I also reserve the right to become a Christian. We all keep our options open. But she is not going to regret the life she built on purpose. She is going to sit in her hot tub in October and think: oh, there I am.
And the aunts who tell her otherwise are, with love, wrong.