Turns Out I Did Want to Have Kids After All

Remember when I wrote “Babies are fine, but whatever”? Joke’s on me.

Here I am, pregnant and cradling my toddler son. JD Vance would be proud, but what would the old me think?

In the late ’90s, when I was working at Jane magazine, I wrote an article with the sole purpose of stating the “radical” view that I didn’t need to have kids. I was recently reminded of this by Esther Haynes, who worked with me at Jane and is now with AJPT, and I laughed and laughed. When my story was published, I even went on morning TV to talk about how I was just fine never becoming a mother. Magazine editors used to do that. They’d write pieces, and then the publicists, who also worked for the magazines, would book them on TV to promote the articles and the magazine. There also used to be these things called newsstands, but we’ll talk about that another time.

I remember what I was wearing for the network TV appearance — a brown sleeveless Nanette Lepore mini dress — but damned if I can tell you what I said other than, “I don’t need to have kids.”  My soon to be mother-in-law was concerned, confiding to my husband: “I hope Christina was not speaking her true feelings.”

Clearly I was not. In the space of a few years, I gave birth twice. So why did I write that article? I imagine it was 25% me trying to get the managing editor off my back to file something before I ditched the office at 5 pm to go to Jivamukti Yoga. And 75% me being annoyed at the expectation that all single career women in their 30s desperately want to get married and have kids.

I was in my mid-30s at the time and enjoying being a childless cat lady. I worked with people I loved, went out with friends, and basically did whatever I wanted. I was happy. But to my Irish Catholic family, who mostly married and had children young, I was a weirdo. Starting when I was maybe 22, my brother, God rest his soul, would tease me by pretending to be my ticking biological clock. Tick tick tick, he would say, waving a finger in front of my face and cackling. It was super-annoying.

Oh, were you hoping for more child-related shots? I still had a life after kids. Paris, by the canal.

This was after an infamous Newsweek article reported on a study claiming that women over 40 had less than a 3 percent chance of getting married. The oft-repeated line: These women were more likely to be killed by a terrorist than find a husband. That turned out to not be true. But the study freaked out a lot of my peers. I dealt with the hysteria by deciding I didn’t care if I married, had babies or what. 

When I married my husband in 1999, I was 37. He wanted kids, and I realized I did, too. I quickly became pregnant. At the baby shower my mom joyfully hosted, an aunt remarked: “Your mother has waited a long time to become a grandmother.” She was what, 61? I snapped back: “I know, I’ve been a failure up until this point.” 

But now I get it. I absolutely want grandchildren ASAP. 

I had a son, and then a daughter. For 5 years in a row, I was either pregnant, breastfeeding, or both, continuing to work full time until ELLEgirl, the last magazine that employed me, folded. After that, I spent many happy years as a stay-at-home mom — something I never expected or wanted for myself, until I did. Our lives were filled with playdates and school drop-offs and swim team and soccer practice and music lessons. Stomach bugs and books and painting seashells on the porch. Frequent re-reading of the book How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk. Reams of forms for schools and activities, endless bloody forms. College visits and applications and heartbreaking drop-offs. I was a Girl Scout leader, a class mom, a Sunday school teacher. There were broken bones, stitches, a third-degree burn. Always something needing my immediate attention. 

My children are both adults. My son, who is 24, lives and works in Palo Alto. My daughter is a 21-year-old college senior. They don’t need as much of my attention, which is as it should be. I wish I saw them more often. I miss them both terribly and am trying to figure out what to do with myself now that they are grown. 

I have a box of Jane magazines in my attic, and I tried to find that original article, but it was so hot, I soon retreated to the air conditioning. Esther found her copy and helpfully texted me a photo. I was so scared to read it. Just the sight of it gave me the heebie-jeebies. Reading my old writing causes severe anxiety with sweating and heart palpitations. I am not kidding. But I powered through. 

It’s four pages, and the first spread is 75% a picture of a baby’s cute face. The headline: “Do You Really Want One?” The lead takes issue with the Ally McBeal dancing baby motif, the irritating concept that high-powered lawyers have babies on the brain. (I have never seen one episode of Ally McBeal.) I then yammer on about my own ambivalence about having children. There is a bit of a false bravado to the voice. A line about me crying every time one of my friends got pregnant, because I was so anti-baby can’t be true. I have no memory of doing that, and I don’t know why it’s in the story. I am just going to go ahead and blame my editors. [I will accept that blame and am putting this annoying interruption in here for old times at Sassy’s sake. I love you, Christina! -Jane] I end the intro with, “I’ll get to it when I get to it.” 

Me being a lady of leisure (for a weekend, anyway), on Jekyll Island, Georgia.

The remainder of the article consists of 7 short “case studies” of women with various attitudes toward motherhood. First names only, and they are all just barely changed. I recognize most of them as my friends and coworkers. What’s interesting and a little sad is that a couple of the women who most definitely wanted to have children didn’t. And vice versa. Life is unpredictable like that.