Do You Have Kids?

Do you have kids, she asked. 

I told her no. Kids are all around me, though I thought. Five nieces and nephews. Friends with kids, cousins with kids. Work with kids. And yet, this isn’t how I saw my life. I never imagined the kids that would be around me. I imagined the children that would be from me, part of me. Mine. 

My whole life, I’ve fantasized about having kids. I swaddled my baby-dolls. I cared for them. Tucked them in, nursed them, dressed them, fed them. I felt like they were real. They were a significant responsibility. And as soon as I was too old to play with dolls, I imagined real motherhood. Then, in my late teens, I craved it. In my early twenties, it was all I wanted. While my brothers and friends were savouring their youth, I wanted to settle down. 

Now, we’ve all more or less have settled down and, while in my siblings’ and many of my friends’ cases that settled down thing includes children, for me it’s meant coming to terms with childfree living. This rearranging of my dreams was not easy; in fact, it was really difficult, but now, truthfully, I can’t imagine it any other way. What I realized this week is that maybe it’s a little like that for them, too.

It’s wonderful and also strange to return to a place that holds so many memories, especially when it’s a place you now feel relatively detached from. Vancouver, as much as I love it, no longer feels like home. And just as my relationship with the city has changed, so too has my relationship with friends and family. 

Somewhere, I can’t remember when, I recall a discussion in which someone was talking about the change that happens when you have a child and how it’s perceived. Crazy that it wasn’t long ago you were getting wasted at the club and now you’re a dad! Perhaps the person being talked about was incensed. Perhaps they were wryly amused. But it’s true, isn’t it. That change is incredible. Crazy even. Parties and dating to diapers and feeding schedules in the span of a few years. 

The other day, my brother sent me a picture of my niece’s hair. It was perfect. Little ponytails cascading off her head, tied up with little colourful hair ties. Adorable. That my brother had done that. Brushed and teased and coaxed those fine toddler strands perfectly into a series of multicolour elastic bands. Which he might have chosen and bought too. My brother. The same person I pummelled when we were kids. The same guy I tease and joke with to this day. That he is a grown-up ponytail-making dad. I mean.

It's the level of seriousness that necessarily comes with parenthood. Suddenly, you’re no longer just you. You’re responsible for a little life. A little life that will become a big life. A whole life. Priorities change in a monumental way and this is what I think about when I see my brothers and my friends with their children. 

As the person without children, I feel perhaps a bit bewildered that life has shifted altogether this much. I can’t add anything to the discussions of daycare and milestones and sleep regression. Maybe I feel excluded and maybe, more than that, it’s that I feel badly. Guilty. Guilty that what is so important to the people I love is so far from my reality. Maybe I feel selfish, too. Because if I’m honest with myself it’s that I feel a degree of longing for the past. For an unencumbered time that seemed so much simpler. And at the same time, I’m so very proud of my brothers and my friends and I’m also so, so grateful for the new little people in my life.

I struggle to reconcile my love of children with my selfish need for alone time. This need seems at odds with the deeply maternal version of me that was former self. How can I feel this way when just five years ago, I wanted nothing more than to have a child of my own? Why is it that I feel ‘tapped out’ when the conversation is about children and all things child-related? After all, my childhood was characterized by an unflinching identity as ‘mother’ to my dolls.

And then I pause. Because I hear myself enthusing about Chilli and Bowen. Sharing pictures of my “boys” enjoying their “holiday” in the doggie ranch. Telling my family members that we have to stop at this store on that street because it has the best dog toys and treats and gear. 

Yes, here I am the proud owner of two gorgeous, smart labs. Things is, like my brothers never thought of themselves as parents, I never considered I might be a dog person. Sure, I liked dogs, but I loathed those people. Dog people. You know, the ones who talk about dogs, and dogs alone. Talk about dogs as if they’re children. The ones whose faces light up when they see other dogs. And the ones who put their dogs above all else. Until I became one of those people. My life revolves around our dogs. They come first. I’m not trying to say that my relationship to my dogs is the same as my siblings’ and my friends’ relationships with their children, but I am trying to say that there are things in our lives that change us profoundly. You can’t really know what it will be like until you’re there and then you can’t imagine it being any other way. 

It’s the longing for a less complicated past part that really sticks with me. It’s real, for sure. But it’s far more complicated than just a longing, isn’t it. My brothers have changed. My friends have changed. And I’ve changed. In the eight years my husband and I have been together, I’ve gone from being a city dwelling, Louis Vuitton handbag toting, dressed to the nines, keeping up with the Joneses kind of gal to a bushwhacking, gardening, dog-owning homebody. I don’t mourn the former version of me, but perhaps, to some of my friends, I’m a little more boring now. But then again, maybe not. The point is, we all change. Our priorities change. Our interests change. Our families change and grow and wouldn’t it be downright boring if this were not the case?

So, when the lady sitting next to me asked me if I had kids, it unearthed feelings. Difficult feelings, conflicting feelings. Maybe all along I’ve been feeling like a bad person. I’ve convinced myself that it’s selfish to welcome a quiet childfree evening with adults while on holidays. And maybe in some ways it is. But I think really, I haven’t allowed myself to recognize that it’s ok for me to appreciate my reality while simultaneously appreciating the reality of the people in my life whom I love deeply who also happen to be parents. 

I love the little ones in my life, and I also love that my husband and I have grown to love a lifestyle that we didn’t anticipate. Thank goodness for that.