childless in Jakarta

I sort of knew sooner or later I’m going to write about this. I avoided talking about my decision on not having a child because I didn’t want to make a big fuss out of it. And yes, for me it is not that big a deal. It ranks up there with other people’s decisions to choose between buying a house in Bintaro or Cibubur. It’s important, but not controversial.

But apparently in this city, admitting that one chooses to be childless for the rest of one’s life is as controversial as admitting that one is an atheist or gay, neither of which I find to be controversial.

Didn’t come as a surprise. After all, we are a bunch of people who are trained to see things only from one perspective.

Yesterday, a famous financial planner came to our office for a presentation. She was talking about children’s tuition fee and what kind of investment that we should make to have those fees covered.

I casually tweeted: this financial planner reassured my decision on not having children.

It took no less than ten minutes for me to get a lot of replies. And it came as a surprise to me because my twitter account is not public, so those who follow my tweets actually know me personally. And yet, I received a lot of judgmental replies.

Now, which part of “reassured my decision” that these so-called friends fail to understand?

I wasn’t campaigning against having children. I was saying MY decision. As in ME, MYSELF, and I. MY life. Other people can breed like rabbits for all I care. I wasn’t talking about anyone, I was talking about myself so what’s with the attacks? What rights do people have on my life?

I replied none of them because I knew it would lead to a stupid debate. I’m writing this instead, hopefully those who bashed me yesterday read this. Don’t get me wrong: this is not an effort to explain myself. I don’t need to explain myself to anyone. It’s just a positive outlet for my anger. I believe it to be much more constructive than scratching their faces.

I don’t want to have children because:

Unlike other women, I never feel that biological click ticking. I was never drawn towards children and I dislike having to take care of anything. Why? I don’t know. I’m not big on existentialist questions so I just let it be, accept that I am an extremely egoistic person and do the responsible thing: I chose to not produce a child, because I cannot undo it! Why would I want to go through pregnancy and labor and parenting for the rest of my life when I have no desire to do it? I don’t believe that every woman must become a mother. I believe it’s a choice. One becomes a mother because one wants to be a mother, not because other people seem to be doing it.

I don’t believe in gender roles either. It does not apply in our household. My husband and I never care about assigned traditional gender roles. The way we divide our chores is based on preferences rather than gender. He is not a morning person so preparing breakfast is my job because he is barely alive in the morning. I hate grocery shopping while he likes the supermarket, so that is his chore. He cooks more often too because I am practically useless in the kitchen.

Another thing is that I don’t want to be trapped in a typical middle class lifestyle of suburban house, a family car, kids to be dropped off to school, nannies and such. I’m not saying that it’s wrong, it’s just not for me. I want to be able to drop everything I’m doing and sail off somewhere if I fancy it. A kid will be a liability for the kind of life that my husband and I are building. We are traveling partners and we want to go on as many adventures in our lives.

Yes, I am lucky to find someone who shares my idea. That is why I married him in the first place.

Someone told me that he’s going to want to have a child someday and that he’s going to leave me. You know what? Husbands leave for many reasons. If he wants to leave, he will leave. If he wants to stay, he will stay. There is nothing I can do to make him leave or stay. I know that only too well.

Another told me that being childless, no one is going to take care of me when I’m old. I don’t want to judge here, but I think having children for that purpose is kind of selfish. Those children are going to have their own lives too, and looking at how country is shaping up, it looks like they’re going to have it tougher than us.

But then again, if that eases your mind and makes you sleep better at night because you know someone will be there for you to push your wheelchair around, I’m not the one to judge. Do whatever. In my opinion, there are no guarantee that children will stick around taking care of aging parents, just like there are no guarantee a husband will stay forever. I will never put my life in somebody else’s hand. So if I happen to outlive everyone and live alone in my old age, at least I know that it would come to that. I never exercise any fantasy of grandchildren crying on my deathbed.

Another one said that I was insensitive towards those who want to have children but can’t. I fail to see how. Is my saying that I don’t want children decreases their chances on conceiving a child? How?

One of my best friends is trying to have a baby at the moment, been trying for some times, and I support her. I will be ecstatic if she does get pregnant because I know that it would make her very happy. I probably won’t play with the kid so much because I’m not into kids, but I’m all for her having children, as many as she wants.

In retaliation, I'd say those who keeps pestering people to have children are the insensitive ones. How is your constant pestering going to help anybody pregnant? If anything it’s putting more pressure on them so you might be responsible for them not getting pregnant.

In Indonesia it’s very common to have this kind of conversation with someone you barely know:
“Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“How many children?”
“None.”
“Why?”

Now for me, that is insensitive. But it happens all the time.

The funniest conversation I had went like this:

“Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“How many children?”
“None.”
“Why?”
“Don’t want any.”
“Don’t say that! You might not be able to have children forever!”

D’oh. Didn’t I just say I don’t want any? Why would I care about not being able to have children forever? That’s the whole idea, isn’t it?

But I have made my peace a long time ago, I know that in this country it’s more acceptable to have two or three wives rather than not having a child.

So there, I said my piece. I’m expecting a decline in the numbers of followers on my twitter account soon :)