I assumed she meant that she found me maternal. As someone who is childless-by-circumstance, I am hesitant to attach virtue to motherhood; nevertheless, I smiled and said, “Thank you,” in a tone that made the statement sound like a question.

“No, not thank you,” she said, immediately, scolding me. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m telling you to fix it. It’s not normal that you don’t have children.”

My heart sank. I have had countless conversations like this with Keira and her eight-year-old sister, Brynn.

Brynn has whispered to me several times over the years in a hushed, sorrowful tone, that I must be so sad that I don’t have a husband or babies like her mother (my sister) does. “You must be so lonely,” she’s said.

They’ve asked me over and over when I’m finally going to get married or “be like other women and have babies.” And yes, they’ve said before that I need to “fix” myself and my life because the way I live isn’t normal.

I wish I could say this is the only commentary I get on my so-called abnormal lifestyle, but sadly, I’m quite used to it. I’ve been asked by cousins, friends, and even strangers on the internet when I’m going to “get my act together,” “contribute to society,” or “pursue a happier, more selfless life.”

It’s such an odd — and cruel, frankly — phenomenon to find one’s life open to public scrutiny by people who assume they know me well enough to determine that I made all these choices on purpose.

If I had had my way, I would have gotten married and had babies. I hate to say that, because honestly, how unoriginal. But it’s the truth. I would have loved to have had a husband and two or three kids, a dog, and a four-bedroom house in the suburbs. What can I say? I know how to follow orders.

But, despite people insisting that you can have whatever you want if you just put your mind to it, life does not always go the way you planned. I put in a damn good fight, and I did not get my husband or my babies. I made the effort. I put myself out there. I waited patiently for my reluctant partner to get on board.

I thought it would be so simple. After all, I only had two goals in my adult life: to make myself into a perfect wife and mother and to be a great writer. I threw myself into both. And I actually believe I accomplished both — I think I did become someone who would have been an excellent wife and mother. But that doesn’t mean I was given the opportunity to showcase those skills.

You would think, however, by the way people — even my very young nieces — talk to me that I made a deliberate choice not to get married and not to have children. There is no room for my story, for facts, for nuance. I did not achieve these things, and therefore, the only possible truth can be that I failed.

***

My youngest brother Jack is 35. He is not married and has no children, just like me.

Our nieces and nephews worship him. Every single one of them wants to be just like him when they grow up. He’s funny, he’s smart, he’s capable, and he’s fun. They cannot get enough of him.

None of them has ever asked him why he’s not married and doesn’t have children. None of them has ever expressed concern about how lonely his life must be because he isn’t a father or husband. None of them has ever told him he should fix himself because it’s not normal for him to be single and childless at his age.

In fact, only our father has ever asked why Jack hasn’t started a family yet. Not cousins, not friends, and certainly not strangers on the internet. No one seems to care what he does, and no one correlates his value as a person or contribution to society with his romantic or parental status.

Frankly, I’d give anything to experience that. I’d give anything to stop talking about my romantic status or my reproductive plans (or lack thereof) with every Tom, Dick, and Harry who takes notice of my solitary existence.

Especially now, at 46, as I am hitting what I assume is the mid(ish)point of my journey into perimenopause, which is physically and emotionally intense all on its own but also has the added emotional weight of the ebbs and flows of my grief around childlessness, I’d really prefer to focus my energy on dealing with my own stuff. It’s a lot. I really don’t need to be dealing with societal expectations, invasive questions, insults, criticisms, and irrelevant opinions.

I’ve got quite enough on my plate as it is, thank you very much.

***

Until recently, I heavily identified with my role as an aunt. I’ve been an aunt for 16 years now and for most of that time, I was so involved in that role that the kids sometimes called me “Other Mama.” I saw every school play, changed countless diapers, wiped snotty noses, and bandaged scraped knees.

I didn’t get to have my own kids, so I became a mom of sorts to my sister’s kids.

Since they moved away two years ago, leaving me with a gaping hole in my heart and life, I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I overdid it. I gave up so much of myself to children that weren’t even my own. And though I can’t say I genuinely regret that, I do wonder what life would have been like had I not gone so far down that rabbit hole.

Would I have been less willing to wait for my partner to be ready for parenthood? Would I have left him to pursue what I wanted, bypassing that whole messy chapter in my life in which he left me for another woman — a woman who already had a kid and a deep desire for a co-parent, a role that my boyfriend was suddenly so eager to take on? Or would I have accepted my circumstances and filled my life with epic solo adventures?

And would any choice I made have mattered in light of the fact that I didn’t end up with children? Does anything count without attaining the deluxe package (marriage and motherhood)?

And why should I have to ask those questions? Why should my life be limited to this one option, this one path, this one lifestyle? My brother Jack can do whatever he wants without commentary or criticism.

Why the hell shouldn’t I have that same option?

***

I have never been super close with my nieces. It is one of the few circumstances of my experience of aunthood that has caused me grief.

I always assumed that when my sister had a little girl that she would idolize me the same way the nephews idolize my brother Jack. I always fantasized about being Cool Auntie Yael — the self-sufficient female role model who bought her own house and makes her own living doing what she wants to do. I mean, not to toot my own horn, but if I had an aunt like me, I’d be starstruck.

Don’t get me wrong — I know my nieces love me, and god knows, I adore them, even when they’re sassing me about how much I need to fix my sad little life.

But it isn’t anything like what I’d pictured and expected. They don’t look up to me. They don’t think I’m cool. They don’t want to be like me. And they are not shy about expressing this.

I have always tried to be very respectful of their choices and preferences about what they want for their future (to get married to a handsome man and have lots of babies), but to also remind them that there are lots of different options for women. For instance, we can be partnered and not get married. We can adopt children or not have them, at all. We can find fulfillment and joy without a partner.

And I even try to subtly remind them that we can want things to turn out a certain way and find that life has no intention of cooperating with us. God knows, I wish someone had told me that as a child.

Unfortunately, I fear that what I tell them has no value. They are dead set on getting married and having babies. I remind them that that’s fine, those are beautiful choices, too, but that not every woman wants the same thing or will be able to experience those things. Life isn’t that simple.

No, they insist. This is what women do. All women.

Have they watched too many Disney movies, I wonder? Or is it that they don’t respect my thoughts on the matter because I’m not married and don’t have babies? Or a little of both?

I don’t know, but it makes me sad that little girls growing up in 2022 are still so entrenched in these patriarchal notions about what it means to be a “normal woman.”

In all honesty, this conversation is something that is tiring me out as much as my over-identification with aunthood has. I never asked for this — to be the poster child for women’s “alternative lifestyles.” To have to push back against pronatalism and sexism even within my own family. To have to be a spokesperson for the other childless and childfree women in the world.

Again, I have enough problems to deal with.

There is nothing more I long to do than to be a person of influence in the lives of the young people I love — my nieces, in particular. But this is exhausting. It takes a lot out of you to have to constantly justify your life circumstances to others.

Maybe it’s time for me to let this go and let my nieces figure it out on their own. Because god knows, they will understand someday that life is not so simple as a Disney movie and that women don’t exist simply to get married and have babies.

Maybe one day, I will be Cool Auntie Yael — fifteen years from now when they’re wondering whether or not to marry someone they aren’t quite in love with just because they feel like they’re “supposed” to tie the knot before 30. Or perhaps if one of them falls in love with a woman, decides not to pursue adoption or insemination, and needs just one little voice in her corner to confirm that it’s okay not to pursue motherhood.

Maybe then everything will look different to them.

But in the meantime, I’ve got a life to live, even if no one approves of it.

Yael Wolfe

Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash