The Need to Nurture

I had an accusation thrown at me yesterday.  Not for the first time and it certainly won’t be the last.  I have been accused of a secret desire to have children.  One to which I will eventually give in.  The evidence?  I want a puppy!

Trust me when I say that our decision to remain childfree was not made on a whim nor out of an aversion to hard work, bad smells etc.  We have done a great deal of soul searching over the years and are confident that this is the correct decision for us.  I have also been accused of being selfish.  Maybe this is true but I don’t necessarily consider it to be a bad thing.  Much better to be aware of my selfishness now than after the birth of a baby whom I would resent for changing my lifestyle.  Anyway, I do not consider myself to be in any way selfish with my time, money or love for family and friends.  I just enjoy the life I have and wish it to continue without having to sacrifice long term career, travel and lifestyle goals.  Children have just never figured into the equation for me and the more I think about why we should start a family, the more I am struck by paralysing fear and hundreds of reasons why not to do it.  Luckily both our parents have been accepting and understanding of our decision.  I am aware of other women and couples who are not so fortunate in this way.  Friends and siblings however, are harder to win over and can, at times, be downright hurtful in their comments and accusations.  Especially when we mention our plan to get a dog.

Carolyn Ray, in her wonderfully eloquent essay Enlightenment: The Shame of Not Wanting Children describes perfectly the feeling of “might like someday” vs “overwhelming desire”:

“I have considered what it would be like to have a very large house. Sometimes when I have lived in cramped quarters, the idea of 20 rooms with large closets creates a quiet longing in me. But when I think about my preferred lifestyle, my preferred career, etc., it is hard for me to justify having an apartment much bigger than the one I have, let alone own a house.
On the other hand, I want a dog very badly, and the fact that I cannot currently have one is torture for me (my apartment complex doesn't allow them). I think about dogs all the time. I can't wait to have one or two or three as my constant companions. I walk other people's dogs, and have thought about working as a trainer just to be near them.
The basic difference between my feelings about a large house and my feelings about a dog boils down to: "might be nice" versus "when will the misery end?" “

It interests me that dogs too are Ray’s ward of desire and fully understand her feelings.  S and I both had dogs growing up and somehow our current life does not feel complete without a canine companion.  We often go for long walks, in the hills or along the river, and just feel there is something missing.  If someone were to come up to me today and tell me that they have seen my future and I will never have the companionship of a dog, I would fall apart, utterly devastated.  If they were to tell me that there will be no children in my life, my reaction would be at best “meh” or more honestly, a resounding, “thank f**** for that”!  I have often been heard to remark, when confronted with a new puppy, that “this must be how normal women feel about babies”.  I can’t help it, someone passes me on the street with a dog in two and my heart physically aches because I don’t have one, someone gets on the bus with a dog and I must change seats to say hello to the animal.  Replace the dog in both situations with a child, and I will edge away with no desire to make contact.

And yet, I am continually being told that my brain is doing some kind of complex transference of feelings.  That my desire to look after a pet is a reflection of my true maternal instinct.  That I should suppress no longer and join the parenting club.  What worries me is that there may even be some truth in this.

S and I have often remarked that our biggest role models in life are certain friends and family members who are a little bit older and leading the lives we hope we can in 10-20 years.  This is something about which we had discussed without too much thought but when initially having the baby debate, it suddenly occurred to us that all the folk mentioned are childfree by choice.  An aunt and uncle on my side – have a lovely home, a dog and an active social life.  S’s uncle might be single but he has travelled extensively, read copiously, has interesting friends and hobbies and is a truly interesting person – he also has dogs.  My work colleague and her husband, again have travelled a lot and gone onto further study with good careers.   Several members of my book group, whether single or in couples again follow the pattern of travel, reading, studying, culture-loving people who have nice houses, secure incomes and interesting stories to tell.  Most have dogs, some have cats.  The only exception is my work colleague – she and her husband have plants!  They look after these plants to an almost obsessive (at least to my non-green fingered outlook) level and I have seen my colleague weep true tears of despair when a plant dies.  Carolyn Ray obviously feels the same way about our canine chums and I have seen overwhelming numbers of people commenting on other childfree blogs to the same effect, mentioning their love of dogs or other animals in that place in their heart we are expected to keep for human babies. 

The point is that we all seem to need something in our life which we can look after.  Something that depends on us and allows us to satisfy the need to nurture.  Friends will point to tales of adults who travel with a family of teddy bears, or feel the need to dress up their cats, declaring this to be a way of filling an otherwise empty, meaningless and childless life.  I don’t doubt that there are people who desperately wish to conceive a child and have never gotten over the grief of infertility, who turn to pets, plants or toys as a way of filling a very real void in their lives.  I wish I can say that my desire for a puppy is not a way of filling such a void but perhaps it is?  Maybe this is a very basic component of our genetic make-up, what makes us human or what simply makes us alive?  After all, we have all seen wildlife programmes and experiments where childless animals (often chimps) are given a doll or similar which they care for and protect as if it were a baby. 

But then there are those who want both – take my friend T for example; she has two clearly defined holes in her life, one in the shape of a baby, the other is a dog.  My parents must have has similar yearnings otherwise I wouldn’t have grown up with a canine sibling!  Perhaps then the yearnings are different, I am not taking the easy way out after all and I will never know how the child desire feels?   Maybe lots of people have a desire for a family pet but it only those of us without the “family” to go with it who stand out as oddly visible thus provoking a rush of questions and examination of our feelings and motives?

I don’t have any answers to this but am hoping to inspire debate with intelligent comments and insights from both sides of the fence (please, no haters).  There must also be someone out their who does not desire children but also has no plans for pets, cannot keep a houseplant alive and does not own a collection of ragdolls or teddy bears!