Wow. George you are a sage and a kind one at that. While I'm still getting over my religious indoctrination, there is a concept in Jewish literature called mussar, which loosely translated is something like self-improvement or spiritual practice, and this newsletter is a wonderful example of that. (I felt so compelled to write, I haven't finished it yet.)
This is actually super personal for me: A week-and-a-half ago my wife gave birth to our first child, a boy named David Julian--who is probably the youngest member of the Story Club. He's still in the nic-u right now, but I've been thinking about this question a lot. (He's doing great! Thankfully. It was a complicated pregnancy, but he's healthy and just a tad on the small side.) I survived religious life by believing that art could save me; that I was writing something, that writing was the special thing I and only I had. Needless to say, that perspective has eroded as did a lot of my dedication to writing. But I can say that holding my son in the nic-u has given me something in ways that I can't express. Tenderness as George writes, it is as if I've joined the human race. Even though I've been so disillusioned lately with my own writing (for years now), I think inevitably whatever writing I do will suffer a bit, but I think it's a worthwhile exchange for what I hope will be a deeper insight into this strange endeavor of life.
Welcome to the world, David Julian! May you and your loved ones find joy and peace on this crazy spinning orb. My little girl started out life on the tiny side as well, but that just meant she could move faster than the other kids. :)
When I became a father I felt for the first time that it didn't so much matter whether my life attained any objective glory, by which identifiably provably unarguably best-ness; I'd always strived to prove that this book was better, that film more meaningful, that purpose more lofty...
What I came to feel mattered for me was a small, specific subjective item of wonder: in this case love for child and partner. I didn't have to prove (to myself or the world) that it was the best or most profound experience, just had to feel it and recognise that it mattered to me and that was enough.
Perhaps I should have known this anyway. Perhaps it was just me growing up a bit, which I should have achieved long before.
And it brought with it harm... I was blinded by my own subjective specific experience of wonder to the pain and fear felt by my partner.
I hadn't finished growing (and never will, I guess). These events happened, and I am learning from them much slower than I should or could, but I hope it has brought some measure of humility and compassion.
If that filters bit by bit into my work, then I would gladly accept that over having more time and energy.
Of course, you or anyone may be able to learn without becoming a parent... that's not the thing. I guess it's just SOMETHING that can open you up to, let's call it humanity. Maybe you're already further down that path than you realise.
This post invites happy reflections…thank you for mentioning your partner’s pain and fear. I also completely missed that, in the beginning…it’s all very mysterious and captivating, even when we think we might be going mad.
Thank you so much for this. I totally understand and feel the need for the objective glory but I'm hoping that will change. Thanks for the mention of your partner's pain. That's something I'll keep in mind.
Personal questions demand personal answers. I know I wasn't the one who was asked the question, but I have something to say about it, because I faced similar questions forty years ago when I was considering marriage and a family. I'm reminded of a story about Raymond Carver. When he had small children at home, and money problems, and shitty jobs, he would steal time for writing by sitting in his car, a notebook propped up against the steering wheel. I don't know if the story is true, but I often thought about it when I made excuses for myself, for why I wasn't writing during the years I had small children at home, and a demanding job, and the sorts of pressures that probably all of us experience.
I have a friend who is a literary agent, and I was talking to her one day about this, and she said to me, "Writers write." So for some years after, I didn't think of myself as a writer at all, because I simply wasn't writing. Then, a dozen years ago, something changed, and I couldn't not write. I felt compelled to. And I began to use my other responsibilities as a kind of foil. I would avoid them by working on a piece of writing, an assertion of sorts, maybe the assertion of a creative self.
Now my kids are grown and starting their own families. I'm lucky enough not to have to work for money anymore. And I'm writing again more seriously now, and my children and my experiences as a parent and the four decades of being a part of what I used to think of as the "real world" are all sources and inspirations. I love my family. Being a parent is the experience of a lifetime, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Now, aside from climate change, the threats to our democracy, and the pandemic, all I have to worry about is having enough healthy time left in my life to accomplish something as a writer. I don't know what that means yet, but I'm working, and it's enough for now.
Side note: Story Club has been a blessing. I think of us as a community. Thank you all.
I am appreciative of the fellow who submitted this question because it's one that women writers have had to grapple with FOREVER and it is wonderful to hear men starting to grapple with it too. I'm glad that at least in some tiny quarter of our society, we are past the day when the Male Writer assumed he could work all day and then emerge from his study at 5 p.m. for gin and tonics, a nice dinner with some writer friends, and a pat on the head for his bathed and pajamaed children.
I fretted a lot about becoming a mother. Not just "what will happen to my writing time," but "will I lose myself as a person." I feared becoming a small figure in a housecoat in the background of someone else's picture. Ultimately I took the plunge but had only one child, which allowed me time to be a parent but also do other things in my life. Now in my 60s, I do not regret it at all, although the first three years or so were probably the most challenging of my life and my marriage. There will be really hard times when writing is lost in the shuffle, but they pass.
In the long run of your life, writing can be a disappointment -- unfinished or unpublished work, lack of recognition, work that you're not proud of. Children can also turn out to be a disappointment -- estranged and angry, making bad choices, even Trump supporters. ;-)
But writing can be a consolation when the children are frustrating, and children can be a consolation when the writing is frustrating. While a monastic devotion to art is often praised, maybe there is something for the "not all eggs in one basket" approach to life.
Ultimately I agree with George: It comes down to "know yourself."
A few years ago I attended a panel of authors at my son's school for their annual book fair "Book Night" event where they invite community members, parents, alumni etc. to discuss their recent publications. The panel had two women (including Min Jin Lee) and two men. Both the women talked about their struggles to find time to write, often in between loads of laundry and school drop offs. Both men described how they were patrons of writing spaces, where they paid to go away from their homes to work without distraction. Both women were as successful (if not more) than the two men on the panel. It was an interesting illustration of the role of work and art in a person's life.
I agree with everyone who has posted here that says it is a very personal decision. If you want to see some arguments on the side of not having a family, I suggest you read "There are no Children Here" one of the essays by Ann Patchett in her latest book, "These Precious Days" (I keep finding reasons to mention her book in these convos!). Her (many) reasons are also very personal.
I have two grown children, and have also had dogs. Dogs can take you away from your work too - especially when they are old and have to go out a lot! But in general I have found in both these instances, I got more than I gave, and my art (musical performance and only recently writing) has been better for it.
I like the "not all eggs in one basket" you mention. There's so much evidence that a healthy life depends upon relationships, not just family, but friendship as well.
You will absolutely lose yourself as a person, and that can be a beautiful thing because when you lose yourself you metamorpihize into something more delicate, and fleeting, and true.
As a father and writer I couldn’t agree more with this beautiful answer by George.
For the person asking, if you’re reading this, I believe becoming a father will ‘unlock’ a way of writing that is deeper than you could’ve ever imagined—just like it unlocks love on a deeper level.
I, for one, am very grateful for having my kids (even after almost losing one, with all the pain it entails, twice!). They’re even regulars in my writing now. ;)
Hi Jibran. I, too, am a parent, and my children have made me who i am today. That being said, those without children are living lives you and I cannot know, having taken a different road. Having a child "unlocked" you, as you say. That doesn't mean those without children will not "unlock" their writing and lead them to a deeper place. The idea that we with children somehow know a deeper love than those without children is an idea that we cannot prove. For you, it took you deeper. For me, as well. But i have many friends without children living deeply loving, fulfilling and satisfying lives. The human heart is wide and vast and, mostly, unknowable.
This comment shows real wisdom, Mary (as does Jibran's reply to you too).
It would be mistaken, I think, to imagine that parents and non-parents will end up with the same kinds of wisdom and levels of love. They won't IMO, because the two paths are just too different.
As you suggest, though, it would be equally wrong to assume that those attained by parents are necessarily superior. It is clearly the case that there are indeed levels of love and wisdom that parents found transforming, but that doesn't mean that these are only attainable through parenthood. There are many ways of necessary transformation other than having children.
It might equally be said that there are certain kinds of adventurousness that for obvious reasons are more likely to be undertaken by those without children, who are therefore more likely to reap the rewards that such risks can offer, and that this encourages a generally more open and so more creative mind than does parenthood. But this doesn't mean these adventures can *never* be gone through by parents.
I like how this is so inclusive. If nothing else happens in the world, a degree of understanding and empathy for people with radically different experiences of life will go a long way. I decided at fifteen to never marry or have children, concluding that without those chains I could experience more of Love and Adventure. This worked fairly well for a long time; eventually I began to feel I was missing out on something (the exact feeling I had tried so hard not to feel!) I began to change my mind, or to try to. (Not so easy to turn some ships around, though.) Finally I decided it was too late, I would have to be content with the results of my original thought. A year after that, BAM, I suddenly and quite unexpectedly got what I now thought I wanted! And it’s been difficult, and utterly challenging, and amazing, and astonishing. (And possibly better for writing, in my case, because time has become a priceless commodity, but even more so because I feel, as George intimated, more plugged in.) It’s strange to have been all in on both sides of this question, but apparently I would not have had it any other way.
"A year after that, BAM, I suddenly and quite unexpectedly got what I now thought I wanted! And it’s been difficult, and utterly challenging, and amazing, and astonishing."
Oh boy can I relate.
And this is of course the third possibility: that these two modes of being alternate throughout our lives, and also intermingle. My current relationship is the longest I've had, and the deepest and most loving, but also among the least restricting, which leaves all the more time for writing.
Thank you for that, Sean. I think they do alternate, and mingle. Sounds like a great relationship! In Desert Solitaire Edward Abbey wrote, “Love flowers best in openness and freedom.” When I first read that my thought was, sounds good, but most people don’t see it like that. I think he was right, though. It takes time to realize what levels of love we can create, and rise to.
Ah, I agree with you on all fronts Mary. Maybe I could’ve worded it differently.
I certainly believe that deep love and connection is possible without kids. Though I do think it cannot go without servitude and sacrifice in some way, which there are many roads for other than having kids. Taking care of homeless, sick parents, siblings, animals, etc.
It could very well be that the “valence” of the deep love will be different in each type of journey one takes. And I certainly don’t think I have experienced everything because I have kids. It’s likely that there are deep feelings I will never experience _because_ I have kids.
But I can only write from experience and everyone who reads it should read it as such. My experience.
You’re both right. This might be my favorite post by George (is it possible to have a favorite?). Hitting really close to my recent experience. I love the last line of your post, Mary. The human heart, like the universe from which it springs.
It’s incredible, right? I suppose a large part of what makes GS such a wonderful writer and teacher lies in thinking deeply about the world and our places in it. And his openness to everyone and everything is astonishing, especially during an era when so many of us may be closing windows and doors.
I think it's also George's humility and willingness to approach things with vulnerability even when we all look up to him as the 'expert.' It would be just so easy for him to coast, or to not reveal his doubts. But instead he lets us in, while also admitting his ambition. It's not pure altruism and it's not blind ambition. What a marvelous example he sets.
I agree this might be the best post ever by George. It touched my heart, was full of honesty, insight and humility. It surpassed the previous best post ever in my life, by George, which was something like two weeks ago. Similarly, the comments keep getting better, sharper, deeper. I am blown away by the intelligence and emotions investigated in story club. What a stroke of luck to have stumbled into this group.
Luck, yes. And some kind of literary magnetism, or gravity. I agree, like a great book, it just keeps getting better. I am so grateful and overjoyed to be a part of this journey.
“It was as if I’d joined the human race, for better or worse.”
I read this as I’m sitting here in the delivery room with my wife, excited and terrified in equal measure, waiting for my first child to born. What a gift. Thank you, George! And thank you to the other amazing comments here. (We, too, are looking at a week or two in the NICU.)
This is a difficult topic for me. I wandered into some of my emotional baggage on the issue of not having children in a reaction to Olsen's story, and many in this group took it the wrong way; however, I find this group to be a place of honesty so I hope my words are taken the right way. To quote Mary G., I hope my words are taken "as they were meant--not as an attack, but as an addition to your thoughts and experience."
I made a choice as a young man not to be a father. It had nothing to do with my artistic vision; rather, as a child of the 1980's I saw a world heating up and likely to face a nuclear disaster that would leave those still on the planet in a wasteland of human misery. I chose not to inflict that hell on any child of mine. Now, at 58 years old, I regret that decision greatly for the great absence that pervades my soul and heart. On Father's Day this year I cried at the realization that I am not a father and will never be a father. I have plenty of love to go around. I am my nieces and nephew's favorite uncle. I am a 30 year veteran educator and am everyone's favorite teacher. But I am not a father. While I am plagued with doubt and self-loathing for the choice I made, I would make the same decision again because I could not imagine sending a person I loved so much into a worse future. I have no hope in humanity's capacity to avert disaster. Conservative estimates have the planet heating up 3.2 degrees Celsius by the year 2100. When I compare the summer of 1970 to the summer of 2022, I see the evidence in my own being and it reaffirms my rational choice, and I must live with those emotional consequences as the result of my love for the child never born. And that emotional aftermath is the stuff of my art.
I often feel on the outside of society because of my choice. From my perspective, society forms itself around families with children and rightfully so from my point of view. Even the comments in this thread where people affirm that they were not truly alive until they had children reinforces my outsider status and I bet many other childless people in this group may feel the same.
I went to a bunch of elementary school graduations today and I was emotionally gutted. There was a profound sadness that I will never know the pride I saw in parents' faces today, but I was nauseous at looking at the beautiful young faces knowing what the world will look like in 2050 when these very children turn 40.
I guess my question is do those with children have a greater hope than I? I pray I am wrong and I am just a bitter 58 year old guy justifying a poor choice, but I really do believe this planet is doomed. Do you ever look at the world your children will inherit and have the reverse of my sadness and regret?
Hi Thom. To answer your question, I have a child (teenager) and I wouldn't say I have the reverse of your sadness and regret. It's hard for me not to feel things are pretty bleak at times (today is one of those times). I don't think that having a child has made me a more hopeful person. I feel very worried about what the future will hold for my child. But being around children and young people often makes me feel hopeful.
The reason I responded, though, is that I am around your age, and while I don't share your grief around not having children, I do recognize that feeling of regret. I wonder if a lot of us in mid-life go through a period of grief over roads not taken? I don't have any true regrets about the choices I've made, and I know I have a lot to be grateful for. But lately I've been hit with a lot of feelings of "oh sh**, I'm never going to do X" or "it's too late for me to do Y" or "I should have done Z while I could."
I am sorry you are grieving not having children. When you want children and don't have them, that is a real loss. But I wonder if you are being hard on yourself when you call yourself a bitter 58-year-old guy, though. I don't think many bitter people are favorite uncles and favorite teachers. (By the way, and I know you know this, but being a favorite uncle and favorite teacher to so many children is more than many biological fathers accomplish).
Thank you, Melissa, I think you have hit the nail on the head. For most of this week I really regretted even posting what I posted. Were I to do some editing, I would leave out the word "bitter" as that was an inside joke with myself. I am actually a joyful person who smiles and laughs all the time. But, I know regret, and I get really sad SOMETIMES. I love the hope you get from your kids. That is awesome. Maybe because you are my age, you got what I was saying perfectly. I never really had this particular sadness until recently, and I think it was sparked by my friends becoming grandparents. When they were "just parents" I would come home from their houses after a Sunday barbeque and say, "Darn that looks like a lot of work" and then moved on with my life while my friends sat down to do homework with their kids. Now, however, when I see the pure joy they get from their grandkids, I am envious. Obviously, you can't have one without the other. My friends' relationship with their grandkids is a wonderful reward for being such good parents. I never knew my friends' frustrations as parents, so I do not know their joys as grandparents. And that makes me sad, but it is just a natural consequence of choice. As the cliché goes, when you open the door on one thing you shut the door on another.
Oh, Thom. Your pain is so palpable. I'm so sorry. As you've read already in these threads, i am a parent, and so I don't carry your particular grief. But grief is grief, and I know it's a terrible feeling.
To speak to your questions: I spend a lot of time thinking (and worrying) about how the planet is dying. But i suppose I do have a sense of hope for the future. I don't know where it comes from, except that the world has been through so much tragedy, death, and war--and yet, here we are, the survivors of human history. I don't think I'll be alive to see it, but I have faith that younger people will find a way to solve what we've destroyed. Maybe that's ridiculous and naive, but there you have it. I'm about to be a grandmother, Thom. My children are bright and well-educated. If they have hope, then so do i. If they see fit to bring more children into this crazy world, then I believe in them. They are the future. I hold onto hope because the alternative is utter despair, and i refuse to be a despairing mother or grandmother. We keep hearing that it's too late, and then we hear there's still time. I don't know--perhaps my grandkids will live on another planet. i cannot know the future. I am a person who at times prays to a God she doesn't believe in. It works for me. And again, it beats the alternative.
I hope your decision doesn't color all the hours of your days. I hope it comes and goes. We make the best choices we can at the moment we make them and then....live with the consequences. Also, (and this probably doesn't help, but I'm saying it anyway)--the children grow up and leave. They move to other cities. They have their own lives. My house is empty of them now. I have to find meaning in other ways, though of course, they call and visit. And of course, they bring me great happiness. But day to day, this is it--me without them, living my life and wishing them the best. They love me, but loves means that they leave. That's how it works. The emptiness of living without them can sometimes overwhelm me.
I'm sorry that there is a constant beat from parents telling those without children that "they are not truly alive," as you write. We each have our own life experiences and none of us can say who has lived more deeply. It's clear you have a deep soul. I'm sorry for the way you are aching. I hope you write about it.
You have provided a brand new way for me to look at this , Mary. I don't think I ever really thought about what the "empty nest" really means. I have probably minimized it when my friends speak about it. One puts 20 to 25 years of work in, and then there you are with yourself again left to imagine a new way of life. Your words are going to make me more respectful of my friends' lives. Where I would respond with cynicism, I will now seek out empathy. On another note, I loved your battlefield story! I was most impressed by the silences between the words as if the real story occurred on the blank space on the pages, much like life. Kudos!
Not everyone's devastated when their kids grow up and leave. But yeah, for me it was very tough (and still is). That's just the way it goes! To say hello to anyone at all means one day you'll have to say goodbye.
Also, thanks for reading my little story. You're absolutely right--the story is mostly in what's not said.
School graduations are one of the most devastating places on the planet, Thom! Bunch of over-proud parents all together in one place over-filming their darlings and pretending to be interested in other people's... Avoid trigger situations! Cry sick! Day trip to Montauk!
I jest (actually not really). I love your honest doubt. Like George and others I thought I had really begun to turn with the world when I had children. But it was just A world. Like being invited to a cool party and thinking you've made it forever into the hip crowd, only then everyone goes home and you're alone with yourself again, separate. Is the planet doomed and my kids along with it? Some days it certainly feels that way. But this too: a farmer friend of mine once told me he sees himself as an orchestra conductor guiding the land to fruitfulness and harvest – here a wheatfield, there a courgette; now the strawberries, then in come the peas, and so on and so forth. And I love that image of hope and creation and life music. My kids (and all kids, including the ones I didn't pay attention to at school graduations!) are clever monkeys, as Michaeldmayo says below. Above all born kind. They will guide new things to fruitfulness and harvest, make their own good music for the planet. No regrets.
Many people don't make choices at all; things just happen to them, or they just go along with what others want to do. I think I understand the feelings you are expressing, but I wonder if you are being too hard on yourself. You made a conscious choice, a thoughtful and considered one. Your reasoning was completely valid - there is much to worry about the fate of the planet and the fate of the good people who live on it.
Your choice deserves respect. I want also to say it is apparent that you have committed to being a great uncle and a great teacher. In doing so, you seem to have made a meaningful difference in many young lives. I hope you are proud of yourself for all you have done for others, and proud of yourself for making conscious choices in your life, your examined life, worth living.
Well said, Jon! Especially the part about being too hard on yourself, and on all of our selves. Anybody who could write so caring a post as Thom did in the first place is right there better than he knows.
Thom, I have thought about your post and your grief for days. I admire you for not having had children. I admire your moral compass & thoughts of the world you would have brought children into. You and George have these large hearts that think beyond themselves. I had children to give myself something to do. I'd moved to NYC from the south, had a Greek sailor in tow, failed my Actors Studio audition (I have GAD and away from my teacher and mentor in Nola, I caved) & thought myself a terrible failure & bingo I got pregnant (married the sailor.) I spent the better part of 20 years with my eyes on the past I left behind and writing about it in a journal & later stories & then a memoir. I had a teacher tell me about a CNF "This character seems more interested in her past then she is in her husband and son." I was a terrible mother and my kids had to endure an emotionally distant mother ensorcelled by what had happened to her. Honestly, I had to learn to mother myself as I mothered them (I have a son and a daughter). Unlike you, I didn't think about the larger world and its morasses, I only thought about myself. In the long run, both my kids gave me what I'd missed as a child (unconditional love) & so are a blessing, but Christ, what they had to go through. You have a right to grieve but I admire your choice then as I do that of all the folk I know who chose not to reproduce themselves.
Lucinda, I had to think about your post a good while before responding. I have lived with your words in my head all week. Thank you for your honesty. Perhaps I can add a hopeful note to your post. I was raised by an emotionally absent mother. I had a wonderful therapist challenge me in my mid 20’s. It is the subject of another post on Story Club. She challenged me to look objectively at my mother. What brought her to motherhood? What did her childhood have to prepare her for the role? The therapist then asked me if I wanted a bunch of things over which she had no control to color the rest of my life and the rest of my relationship with my mother. My therapist encouraged me to start a new relationship, adult to adult. My mother loved the opera and my father hated it. In fact, I inherited my creative spirit from my mother so we began to meet in the realm of art. We went to plays, operas, and museums and got to know each other as adults. While it didn’t totally clean up the emotional baggage of being raised in an emotionally negligent home, it brought me to a place of healing. Instead of blaming my mother I began to see her as a co-victim of a multi-generational cycle and I began to heal and know some peace It sounds like you are well on that path with your kids. Please be kind to yourself as you and your kids work through the issues. It sounds like they have a great mom, one who is capable of honest self reflection and the ability to change the playing field going forward. That is a gift. Good luck!
Hey Thom. To be really candid, this isn't about kids, really. I typed up this big long comment to originally explain how I didn't want kids either, but decided to foster and adopt and took a two year shortcut through parenting to grandparenting. But, none of that is really my point, so I cut all that out to say this:
As you mentioned, society forms us to see all this as special and unique to having kids and building families. It's expected. But if I'm really, really honest about it all, like really honest, the love I feel for my grandkids, or my kid. It's not a special and unique kind of love. It's not different than what I have with my siblings or my best friends. The intensity of that is not changed because my kid or my grandkids aren't biological. I love them as fiercely as I do most of the people in my life. Kids... people, for that matter, need your time. They need your attention. That's it. And when you can give it, free and true and wholly, that's the unique and spectacular sensation. The reward for your time and your resources isn't 'look at this human I made' it's 'wow, I'm so lucky to have this person in my life'.
This isn't commentary or advocating for fostering or adoption, it's a flawed system and it is not for everyone. But you have niblings, you have students and there are humans in your community that will continue to need someone like you in their life who can look at them and think about how lucky and blessed you are to have them in your life. I encourage you not to think of any of your years as time lost without your own children, but experience gained that you can pass forward. Go and use that however you can.
Thanks so much for your "like really honest" post. Such a brave assessment that I don't hear too often. I admire your decision to foster and adopt. In addition to my regret about not biologically parenting, I sometimes feel guilt over never adopting. (I hope folks have read enough of my stuff to know that I am not mired in guilt. I am just being really honest with what hits me emotionally from time to time). Obviously, I can't blame my decision not to adopt on global climate change. These kids are here already and through no fault of their own are on their own. I had no money early in my life, but things went my way in my late 40's and I certainly would be the ideal candidate to foster a child and/or adopt a child. My wife and I discussed it, but we were afraid. Not going to sugar coat it. I am just being honest (like really honest) about it. So, for someone who bemoans not having kids, I must admit that there was another way to do it and we chose not to do it. I am still not sure what really fuels that non-decision decision. More to be probed. I agree that we all need to find our way to share whatever love we have to share in whatever we way we can share it. I look at friends who lost a child in utter and complete awe. They had perhaps the worst life can offer happen to them, but they get up every morning, love those still around them, and move on. It is a level of bravery I can't even imagine. Thanks so much for your honesty and affirmation.
Thom, forgive me for commenting one more time. I just want to gently suggest that it's possible to look back on one's own life with reflection instead of regret. I very firmly believe (and have written this in these threads before) that we make the best decisions we can in the moment we make them, given the tools we had at that time. You were who you were at the moment you decided it best to not have children. That's all. You thought it through and came up with the decision you came up with. In that way, it was the right decision at that time. There was no way for you to know that you would later feel the way you do now. There's so much we can't know! So you know, look back, but don't linger there. I love the story of Lot's wife (I am not religious but love the story) who looked backwards and turned into a pillar of salt, frozen in place and unable to move forward. Glance back, but do not stay there. Forgive yourself for being you! (I know you are not mired in guilt--you have written that. But there are some deep feelings, that much is obvious.) As far as not adopting--no guilt there! We--all of us--could have adopted kids, and yet most of us did not. You are not alone in that! Adopting and/or fostering aren't the road for everyone, though it's nice to think it could be. You admit to feeling fear about those ideas--that makes perfect sense! Thom, you seem like just a fantastic guy, loved and loving. i wish i could buy you a drink, but since I can't, I'll just pour one here in your honor. Be well.
There is still time for you to be a father.....the fate of the world even if lost on earth will begin again in the Universe somewhere else.There is so much beauty and magic to live in the moment and not burden yourself with being the answer to our collective self made problems. Do what you can write about what you see and feel. Be the positive force you want to be against all odds. Come what may be the positive creative force you want to be...for a second or billions of years.^^
Thom, I'm so sorry--this is some suffering you're going through. You say you have love enough to go around---nieces, nephews, "everyone's favorite teacher" ---which leads me to believe that the problem here is not that you're not a father, per se, of children produced biologically, but rather in how you define the term. A father is many things, and not always to one's own children. In fact, the best fathers, as I myself have known them, have not always been by blood, have not always been older, some have not even been alive. But fathers they've been all the same. And to my good fortune,. My husband & I, married 37 years next month, are also without children, like you a decision we made deliberately, though for different reasons. It was the right decision & even if it hadn't been, there are still among us men who step up, who have & will continue to step up, who are fathers. It is, I believe, a matter of definition. It sounds to me that anyone as heartfelt as you must also be one.
Thank you so much, Rosanne. I think I do need to expand my definition and rethink this a bit. These series of posts have been most helpful for me to work through some of my emotional baggage.
This is not going to be a popular post, but you need some tough love.
I am truly sorry you are in such pain, but you made a foolish decision (you didn't mention whether you were married and what your wife thought of this decision, or whether it was something factoring into whether you were going to marry or not) based on listening to doomsday prophets that haven't been right since the Jews thought Jesus' death heralded the end times. The earth always swings through cycles of change, and by periodic calculations, we're actually overdue to go into a "little" ice age. The "Earth is Doooooomed!" scenario is based on computer models that haven't been right yet (remember snows were supposed to be a thing of the past in England several years ago by one scenario) and hyped by biased media and scientists making their living off of peddling fear. If this is not the case, why do the people peddling this Refuse to meet in a comprehensive public debate, both sides arguing their points, and see how their arguments stand or fall? Even the IPCC study posited several scenarios for a possible future, but somehow only the worst one is ever talked about.
In short, it's bullshit and you fell for it.
That said, wallowing in guilt and grief over decisions you made long ago is pointless masochism. What's done is done, and it sounds like you've cut yourself off from hope and true joy; and writing based on pain gets old real fast. We're smart monkeys. We've survived a lot worse than whatever's coming (if it is) and have the brains and the tools to adapt and go on.
You're also denying your present and future readers the full scope of what your talents might be by dwelling on a very narrow vision of life and yourself. There's always hope, even in the bleakest of times. Life and History always comes in cycles. By denying this, you are denying reality itself.
I doubt all this will make much of a dent; but just for argument's sake, why not try considering what your life (and art) might be like if you didn't feel this way? Are you really helping the world by seeing nothing but darkness? It's never too late to change your life, and maybe change others with it...
Thanks for the tough love! For the record, I completely disagree with your analysis of the climate change data. However, in true Story Club fashion, I feel like you are the type of guy with whom I could share a few beers, debate the topic at the top of our lungs at the bar for five hours, and then leave friends ready to help each other move an old couch the next day. I think the world is missing that type of discourse these days, so I thank you for putting your points so bluntly and honestly. I am really not a person who wallows. I get really sad and full of regret sometimes, but that's just me. I actually have a great life. As a childless person, I fully enjoy my lack of those commitments. I realize there are adventures I can afford because I don't have tuitions to pay. My wife and I frequently choose to travel on a day's notice. However, I would be a fool not to acknowledge the flip side which is a deep well of regret. I put that caution before the person who asked the original question--there are some choices that can't be undone and there are consequences for those choices. That is just life and I think art can come from both sides of the choice. Cheers, mate. I look forward to our next debate!
Hey, glad to hear you're not draped around a tombstone; and yes, would be happy to get sloshed and argue the night away. I came out of Debate and love nothing more than a good argument. You do know this Monte Python skit, don't you?
Is it fair to say he's "cut himself off from hope and joy" and "dwelling on a very narrow version of life and [himself]," though? I believe he's expressing very real pain and regret in direct response to the subject of this blog post.
If you put a childless person before an article like this, expressing openness to a kind of humanity that (ostensibly only) parents can or will know, of course the reaction will be (if the person ever desired children in one way, shape, or form) one of rumination and regret. Holidays like Father's Day and events like an elementary school graduation will bring that to the surface doubly.
That said, I doubt he's "denying [...] the full scope of what [his] talents might be," much less reality itself. Or that he never feels otherwise, or sees nothing but darkness. We all contain multitudes and I doubt Thom is any exception.
Thanks, Alicia. Yes, you are hitting on one of the reasons I posted what I posted. When I joined Story Club, I never expected it to be a place for people to reflect on parenthood. I expected vigorous debates about syntax and narrative form, but not about parenthood. Several times now, discussions have wandered into this topic, most notably with Tillie Olsen. Of course we need to discuss the emotional stuff that the artist uses to create the story. Bring it on! However, as a childless person, I sometimes feel invisible in these conversations. When I heard a writer I admire so much (that's you George) state what his fatherhood has done for his art knowing that life choice is behind me never to be revisited, I was put into a tailspin. Just like on Father's Day. There are sometimes when your major life choices hit you square between the eyes, and George's response (perfectly articulated) hit me and caused great sadness and regret. At one point this week I was sorry I ever posted what I posted, then I read your words, "If you put a childless person before an article like this, expressing openness to a kind of humanity that (ostensibly only) parents can or will know, of course the reaction will be (if the person ever desired children in one way, shape, or form) one of rumination and regret." Thank you for seeing me and the others like me, Alicia!
I definitely see you! And appreciate you sharing what you did. As a 36-year-old (childless) woman, whether or not to bring children into this world is something I spend a lot of time thinking about. I relate to feeling invisible in these types of conversations. Nevermind catastrophic end of the world scenarios, raising kids feels like a tall order in a country without universal healthcare or affordable education. (And one that feels especially heavy on a day like today.) It's unlikely I could ever provide children with the same privileged upbringing I enjoyed, courtesy of my grandparents. Or at least, not without significant material sacrifice. I'm a broke millennial who has barely achieved financial stability for herself! Anyway, regardless of what I end up choosing, I feel my heart has been -- and continues to be -- broken open in other ways, as I'm sure yours has too.
It doesn't surprise me that you are "broke millennial" stressing over the path of life. I have developed some very close relationships at work with men and women born in the 1980's. Despite our 20 plus year age difference, I would categorize them as real friendships and not simply acquaintances. I was born in the last year of the baby boom and have always been out of step with the classic boomer vision of life. I hear my peers disparage the millennial generation and I always say, "Maybe you should get to know some of them." I treasure my 30-something friends. They have introduced me to some awesome music and food as well as providing me with great feedback on my life choices. I like to think I have provided some non-judgmental life advice to them as they navigate some really tricky turns in their life paths. I say to you what I say to my friends, "All will be well and all manner of things will be well." Yes, like me, you will have massive regrets, but that's ok because you will also have massive joy. I am so appreciative of the parents and grandparents who responded to my post. They loved their kids as much as possible but the kids left. What a great perspective.! I don't think I ever looked at it that way. Your phrase "broken open" is great. It states that ones heart must be broken to open. I think the only "sin" would be to not allow oneself to be broken open. This series of posts has been quite cathartic at a very difficult and regret-filled time for me. Your posts led the way. Thank you!
You are very welcome, and I'm so glad to hear my generation isn't as insufferable as the media would have you believe! I, too, have developed a handful of intergenerational friendships and my life is that much richer for it. It really is all about perspective, isn't it? I agree with you the only "sin" would be "to not allow oneself to be broken open." Heartbreak and regret: those sometimes necessary evils on the path to deep empathy, aliveness, and joy. Cheers to that.
I loved the question. So many of us have fears and worries, we fret over that fork in the road ahead. I guess it's a way of trying to control the future. Anyway, I never wanted kids (even as a little girl I'd tell people I didn't want kids) and I don't regret it. None of my childless friends regret not having kids. My choice had nothing to do with thinking that kids would interfere with any goal I had. I do think I'd regret, at the end of life looking back, "putting all my eggs in one basket" as some wise Story Clubber just wrote. I put time and energy into my marriage, my friendships, my yoga practice, and now this kick ass class right here.
"So writing at night was possible and writing on the bus on the way to work, and so on. It turned out that I didn’t really need much peace and quiet – I could write well in the maelstrom of the office and maybe, at that time anyway, even benefited from it."
If low wages and status don't bother you, then as a writer you could do worse than working, for a few years at least, as a security guard, a job that can provide plenty of time for writing on duty.
I was working as a nightguard in a psychiatric hospital, and was close to being sacked for falling asleep on the job. Reading just wasn't keeping me awake, or coffee or Red Bulls, but then I discovered that writing fiction is so demanding, and therefore so stimulating, that it did the trick. It felt quite odd to rush off to some violent incident in the hospital and still be working out sentences in your head, but as George suggests, the writing itself may have benefited from the maelstrom.
Regarding this thread's wider issue, all I can say is that I've definitely noticed an increase in the quality of writing if I can spend 10 to 12 hours per day on it, rather than the apparent industry standard of 3 to 5. I wouldn't claim to be in *the* zone at such times, but I'm certainly in *a* zone that seems to allow that subconscious so beloved by our mentor to take over. It can be quite draining, obviously, and you're more than a little mad, especially if you keep this routine up for months. But it's the only time when (I think) I've ever significantly improved.
Wasn't it Einstein who had a menial job in the post office while his mind was working on things that were, let's just say, a bit more intense and complicated?
Sadly the insights I reached on duty were somewhat below the level of Einstein's. Instead of revolutionising humanity's conceptions of time and space, mine were more along the lines of "Um, these bloodsplashed drunks being brought in in ambulances don't seem very happy, Sean. Maybe it's time you cut down on the booze."
Today's question is lovely for, among other things but most especially, its bravery; George's answer lovelier still for its honesty. And thank you both. I'm guessing that I'm older than the Clubber who posed the question and if experience, mine or anyone else's, counts for anything, I'd say this: listen to your heart. You'll hear it & will know what to do. Writing, or any sort of art or activity, and life are not either/or. They're both. And constantly. No escaping. When I was young I never thought I'd marry. I never saw myself as "marriage material", though I wasn't entirely sure what "material" meant, only that I saw myself as alone. Not lonely, just alone. (No cats involved!) Then I met the man who has been my husband for the last 37 years. When I clapped eyes on his handsome face for the very first time, I heard it---that all-essential word: "kind". I literally, quite literally, heard the word in my head. Who spoke? I think some version of my heart. Which I had the good sense to heed. All I can say is that his kindness has guided my days, writing & otherwise. So, if there's anything I'd suggest, such as I can offer anything, it would be to encourage you to listen, to pay close attention, to trust that you'll be guided, that you'll know what to do, that it isn't an either/or, it's a yes!, when you hear it.
Great story! And I love that it isn’t either/or. How often do we not know we have the key to the unlock the chains in which we’ve bound ourselves? (Thanks to The Eagles for the image and the great guitar work, not to mention the vocals!)
A scarily honest question and a wise answer from George.
Some quick thoughts from my experience. Please draw your own conclusions. I am a man. I had similar trepidations. I had three children. I realised how much time I wasted before becoming a father. I ended up working more but in a shorter time. I worked as a TV writer in a low stress medium paid job and was a stay at home dad while my wife worked full time and then did a PhD. Then my wife said to take some time to concentrate on my writing and not to worry about taking TV jobs I hated. I became a dilettante again with all that spare time. I have achieved nothing in 8 years while having near total freedom. I love my children. My life as a prose writer is unproductive and seemingly pointless. I’m pretty happy. I have few money worries if I live sensibly, but not as a result of my prose writing. Who knows what’s going to happen? I would not and could not have planned this but am satisfied with the circumstances. I don’t know what any of this means. Honestly, it probably says more about white privilege than anything else.
Enjoyed your honesty. Thankyou. I too feel the same way, we have fantasies of being great writers, and maybe we are not, and life passes us by. The best one can do is try and not mind so much if our fantasies turn out to be non productive fantasies. Writers are not rich ( except JK Rowling), so giving up a good full life, for little money is a monastic dream and perhaps based on a false sense of your own greatness......why give up on loving your wife and children? Good for you to prioritize your life, and speak honestly...
Isn’t it strange that having time somehow encourages us to ‘waste’ it? And how having almost no free time can provide focus? (Speaking for myself at least!)
I love the first paragraph of George's answer. And I'm looking forward to many smart comments. Such a very personal question and so depends on who you are! Maybe the decision is not entirely ours to make? Who knows, will you find the right person to make that commitment to? And even if you do, you still might not have a child. So complicated!
Having just started reading Silences (which is amazing so far), I could see how reading it (and a million other things) might make you think twice. I haven't gotten too far in it, so maybe she touches on this, but in the end, looking over your life, this life, our life--is art the only goal? Maybe for some it is. As I get older though, I start to think that maybe it's okay for that part-time art to exist. Our lives aren't only about one thing, our lives are multidimensional, and sometimes those other dimensions can be better than art.
When I spend time doing other things in my life, it takes the pressure off my desire to make something great and thus softening the disappointment in maybe not reaching my goals. Maybe that's a little of the "low expectations" camp, but it's how I work!
“Maybe the decision is not entirely ours to make?” Wow. Yes and no, maybe. I want to think we decided to be here in the first place. But is that true? And does it matter? What is the web of being that sustains us, anyway? Can we exist outside it?
Who knows? I just know that nothing ever works the way you think it's going to or the way you want it to. You can't get attached, and you have to have a sense of play. I think that's a good rule of revision, too, actually...
Yes. With living, writing or dancing, being able to go with the flow and adjust to the sudden change in rhythm, key, or chording is critical. Ah, but practicing non-attachment (and practicing, and practicing) is so important!! And a sense of playfulness. Being willing to stay in the game. Thanks, Julia.
I became a parent just a few weeks ago. Sharing some of the fears posed in this question, I treated the due date as a deadline to finish my novel. Ha! Didn't happen. I got blocked for the last four months of the pregnancy. All the time I was telling myself, "You won't get this freedom back, you're wasting an opportunity..." and that self-applied pressure did not help one bit.
But you know what happened? My life changed overnight. You can read books about parenting, take courses on it, ask people questions... but nothing can truly prepare you for it. And just as George said so eloquently, there's a new layer to everything in your worldview. Life feels different. I think that unlocked (and unblocked) something in me.
Despite the broken sleep and overwhelming sense of responsibility, I'm back writing again, the ideas are flowing, and I'm lovin' it.
My wife is an artist. She has had a good career, nothing earth-shattering (she's not famous), but she has had 40 one-person shows in New York City and in Maine, and is well-respected by her peers. Neither one of us ever thought we would have kids, but we got together in our thirties and had children fairly late. She managed to be a great mother and keep her serious work going, and our three children lived with her commitment to her work and never suffered for it. They watched her work hard and be with them totally when she was not in the studio and a wonderful example was set for them, and for me. They suffered my absences more; supporting a family in the city required a lot from me. My wife's experience demonstrates that it is possible to do this, to have a creative life and a family life, all at the same time, if one feels compelled to do both. I think that's the key, to feel compelled by something deep and fundamental inside oneself. Luck plays a role too, of course.
I have no business really, commenting here --- I don’t have children “of my own” --- Godchildren and stepchildren who came to me past the time when their survival depended on my devotion. I spent 3 years in my 20’s as a governess for a small child, but I was not her mother. I’m in my 60’s now and my observations could be blurry, but…
Over and over again, in my 30’s and early 40’s, my close male friends would express some version of the following at the birth of their first child, “yesterday I understood 1%, today 90%” or “we think we bring a child into the world but it’s really the other way around, a child brings us into the world.” (Galway Kinnell crafted an entire collection of poems (“The Book of Nightmares” ) inspired by the birth of his first child.) But I don’t know a single mother who expressed this thought --- that having children fostered a kind of induction.
I do know a woman who finishing her PhD research at John’s Hopkins listened to the voice recordings of black boxes retrieved from flights that had crashed and who do you imagine in this dark moment the pilots were calling for? One after the next.
By now I have witnessed many different styles of mothering and at close range, but always with my nose pressed to glass separating me from the viscera of that experience. I know mothers who judge me for not having made the “great sacrifice.” I know mothers who rely on my home as refuge. I know mothers who leave their children in my care as temporary relief. I know mothers who have given up a writing life so as not to aggravate a sense of being divided. I do not know any mothers who have a working life who do not feel divided.
For years I hosted an annual brunch for my women friends – ranging in age from 24 to 70. We’d gather at a long table and every year by the end of the brunch the mothers were all at one end, a law of gravity. All of them, every single one, bemoaning NOT the lack of time or lack of freedom, but a divided self. I’ve come to think that mothering does this, divides the self, in a way that fathering does not --- as if inside every mother’s body is a tiny amplifier, with a lifetime warranty, set to the frequency of the child’s need.
There may be mothers out there, for whom this is not your experience – I would be pleased to know.
In the meanwhile, every summer I devote myself to a writer --- reading a few books by the same author. For the last few years, I’ve privileged women who have written books with children underfoot. My modest way of honoring the willingness to endure this divide.
You wrote: "But I don’t know a single mother who expressed this thought --- that having children fostered a kind of induction."
This is my experience: I was absolutely gob-smacked by the weight of what had just occurred when I gave birth to my first child, by the sudden realization that a massive responsibility was now mine--forever. I was one person before my first child was born, and another person altogether the moment my baby emerged. Night and day. I can't begin to describe to you the intensity of that realization which I had known intellectually, but suddenly felt viscerally in every cell of my being.
Responding to your idea about a mother's divided self would take me far too long! Suffice it to say that all parents feel divided. There is the life a person leads outside the home, and then there is the parenting. Many fathers have that tiny amplifier you mention. It's just that traditionally, the role of parenting has fallen mostly on women.
and yes, of course, you have business commenting here! Happy to read your words, your take on things.
It’s very interesting to try, somewhat late in life, to try to split that role, especially since I am a baby boomer, my wife is a Millennial, and our child is Gen-A. We’re all approximately 30 years apart from one another. Needless to say a ton of communication and negotiation is required to get through each day. Sometimes painful, but always eye-opening.
George said it so well. I would add the following:
I echo your sentiments about needing time to do deep thinking and close the door and write. I have always known on some level that I am an introvert however this has crystalized recently as I have been reading "Quiet: The power of introverts in a world which cannot stop talking." I wonder whether you identify as an introvert and if not it is something perhaps to consider going forward.
Wow. George you are a sage and a kind one at that. While I'm still getting over my religious indoctrination, there is a concept in Jewish literature called mussar, which loosely translated is something like self-improvement or spiritual practice, and this newsletter is a wonderful example of that. (I felt so compelled to write, I haven't finished it yet.)
This is actually super personal for me: A week-and-a-half ago my wife gave birth to our first child, a boy named David Julian--who is probably the youngest member of the Story Club. He's still in the nic-u right now, but I've been thinking about this question a lot. (He's doing great! Thankfully. It was a complicated pregnancy, but he's healthy and just a tad on the small side.) I survived religious life by believing that art could save me; that I was writing something, that writing was the special thing I and only I had. Needless to say, that perspective has eroded as did a lot of my dedication to writing. But I can say that holding my son in the nic-u has given me something in ways that I can't express. Tenderness as George writes, it is as if I've joined the human race. Even though I've been so disillusioned lately with my own writing (for years now), I think inevitably whatever writing I do will suffer a bit, but I think it's a worthwhile exchange for what I hope will be a deeper insight into this strange endeavor of life.
After reading A Swim in the Pond, I had that old warm feeling that George was my rabbi and I an eager disciple at his feet.
Welcome to the world, David Julian! May you and your loved ones find joy and peace on this crazy spinning orb. My little girl started out life on the tiny side as well, but that just meant she could move faster than the other kids. :)
Can I offer personal testimony...
When I became a father I felt for the first time that it didn't so much matter whether my life attained any objective glory, by which identifiably provably unarguably best-ness; I'd always strived to prove that this book was better, that film more meaningful, that purpose more lofty...
What I came to feel mattered for me was a small, specific subjective item of wonder: in this case love for child and partner. I didn't have to prove (to myself or the world) that it was the best or most profound experience, just had to feel it and recognise that it mattered to me and that was enough.
Perhaps I should have known this anyway. Perhaps it was just me growing up a bit, which I should have achieved long before.
And it brought with it harm... I was blinded by my own subjective specific experience of wonder to the pain and fear felt by my partner.
I hadn't finished growing (and never will, I guess). These events happened, and I am learning from them much slower than I should or could, but I hope it has brought some measure of humility and compassion.
If that filters bit by bit into my work, then I would gladly accept that over having more time and energy.
Of course, you or anyone may be able to learn without becoming a parent... that's not the thing. I guess it's just SOMETHING that can open you up to, let's call it humanity. Maybe you're already further down that path than you realise.
This post invites happy reflections…thank you for mentioning your partner’s pain and fear. I also completely missed that, in the beginning…it’s all very mysterious and captivating, even when we think we might be going mad.
Thank you so much for this. I totally understand and feel the need for the objective glory but I'm hoping that will change. Thanks for the mention of your partner's pain. That's something I'll keep in mind.
Writing and love have their ways of coming back around to you. Congratulations!!
Mazel tov on the newest member of your family!
Thanks! And thanks for your great question last time!
Personal questions demand personal answers. I know I wasn't the one who was asked the question, but I have something to say about it, because I faced similar questions forty years ago when I was considering marriage and a family. I'm reminded of a story about Raymond Carver. When he had small children at home, and money problems, and shitty jobs, he would steal time for writing by sitting in his car, a notebook propped up against the steering wheel. I don't know if the story is true, but I often thought about it when I made excuses for myself, for why I wasn't writing during the years I had small children at home, and a demanding job, and the sorts of pressures that probably all of us experience.
I have a friend who is a literary agent, and I was talking to her one day about this, and she said to me, "Writers write." So for some years after, I didn't think of myself as a writer at all, because I simply wasn't writing. Then, a dozen years ago, something changed, and I couldn't not write. I felt compelled to. And I began to use my other responsibilities as a kind of foil. I would avoid them by working on a piece of writing, an assertion of sorts, maybe the assertion of a creative self.
Now my kids are grown and starting their own families. I'm lucky enough not to have to work for money anymore. And I'm writing again more seriously now, and my children and my experiences as a parent and the four decades of being a part of what I used to think of as the "real world" are all sources and inspirations. I love my family. Being a parent is the experience of a lifetime, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Now, aside from climate change, the threats to our democracy, and the pandemic, all I have to worry about is having enough healthy time left in my life to accomplish something as a writer. I don't know what that means yet, but I'm working, and it's enough for now.
Side note: Story Club has been a blessing. I think of us as a community. Thank you all.
agree total blessing
Jon I love this. And your side note, I feel the same.
Thank you Stacya.
Good luck on your writing!
Thank you Michael.
I am appreciative of the fellow who submitted this question because it's one that women writers have had to grapple with FOREVER and it is wonderful to hear men starting to grapple with it too. I'm glad that at least in some tiny quarter of our society, we are past the day when the Male Writer assumed he could work all day and then emerge from his study at 5 p.m. for gin and tonics, a nice dinner with some writer friends, and a pat on the head for his bathed and pajamaed children.
I fretted a lot about becoming a mother. Not just "what will happen to my writing time," but "will I lose myself as a person." I feared becoming a small figure in a housecoat in the background of someone else's picture. Ultimately I took the plunge but had only one child, which allowed me time to be a parent but also do other things in my life. Now in my 60s, I do not regret it at all, although the first three years or so were probably the most challenging of my life and my marriage. There will be really hard times when writing is lost in the shuffle, but they pass.
In the long run of your life, writing can be a disappointment -- unfinished or unpublished work, lack of recognition, work that you're not proud of. Children can also turn out to be a disappointment -- estranged and angry, making bad choices, even Trump supporters. ;-)
But writing can be a consolation when the children are frustrating, and children can be a consolation when the writing is frustrating. While a monastic devotion to art is often praised, maybe there is something for the "not all eggs in one basket" approach to life.
Ultimately I agree with George: It comes down to "know yourself."
A few years ago I attended a panel of authors at my son's school for their annual book fair "Book Night" event where they invite community members, parents, alumni etc. to discuss their recent publications. The panel had two women (including Min Jin Lee) and two men. Both the women talked about their struggles to find time to write, often in between loads of laundry and school drop offs. Both men described how they were patrons of writing spaces, where they paid to go away from their homes to work without distraction. Both women were as successful (if not more) than the two men on the panel. It was an interesting illustration of the role of work and art in a person's life.
I agree with everyone who has posted here that says it is a very personal decision. If you want to see some arguments on the side of not having a family, I suggest you read "There are no Children Here" one of the essays by Ann Patchett in her latest book, "These Precious Days" (I keep finding reasons to mention her book in these convos!). Her (many) reasons are also very personal.
I have two grown children, and have also had dogs. Dogs can take you away from your work too - especially when they are old and have to go out a lot! But in general I have found in both these instances, I got more than I gave, and my art (musical performance and only recently writing) has been better for it.
I like the "not all eggs in one basket" you mention. There's so much evidence that a healthy life depends upon relationships, not just family, but friendship as well.
Friendship may well be the ultimate aphrodisiac of the soul.
You will absolutely lose yourself as a person, and that can be a beautiful thing because when you lose yourself you metamorpihize into something more delicate, and fleeting, and true.
As a father and writer I couldn’t agree more with this beautiful answer by George.
For the person asking, if you’re reading this, I believe becoming a father will ‘unlock’ a way of writing that is deeper than you could’ve ever imagined—just like it unlocks love on a deeper level.
I, for one, am very grateful for having my kids (even after almost losing one, with all the pain it entails, twice!). They’re even regulars in my writing now. ;)
Hi Jibran. I, too, am a parent, and my children have made me who i am today. That being said, those without children are living lives you and I cannot know, having taken a different road. Having a child "unlocked" you, as you say. That doesn't mean those without children will not "unlock" their writing and lead them to a deeper place. The idea that we with children somehow know a deeper love than those without children is an idea that we cannot prove. For you, it took you deeper. For me, as well. But i have many friends without children living deeply loving, fulfilling and satisfying lives. The human heart is wide and vast and, mostly, unknowable.
This comment shows real wisdom, Mary (as does Jibran's reply to you too).
It would be mistaken, I think, to imagine that parents and non-parents will end up with the same kinds of wisdom and levels of love. They won't IMO, because the two paths are just too different.
As you suggest, though, it would be equally wrong to assume that those attained by parents are necessarily superior. It is clearly the case that there are indeed levels of love and wisdom that parents found transforming, but that doesn't mean that these are only attainable through parenthood. There are many ways of necessary transformation other than having children.
It might equally be said that there are certain kinds of adventurousness that for obvious reasons are more likely to be undertaken by those without children, who are therefore more likely to reap the rewards that such risks can offer, and that this encourages a generally more open and so more creative mind than does parenthood. But this doesn't mean these adventures can *never* be gone through by parents.
I like how this is so inclusive. If nothing else happens in the world, a degree of understanding and empathy for people with radically different experiences of life will go a long way. I decided at fifteen to never marry or have children, concluding that without those chains I could experience more of Love and Adventure. This worked fairly well for a long time; eventually I began to feel I was missing out on something (the exact feeling I had tried so hard not to feel!) I began to change my mind, or to try to. (Not so easy to turn some ships around, though.) Finally I decided it was too late, I would have to be content with the results of my original thought. A year after that, BAM, I suddenly and quite unexpectedly got what I now thought I wanted! And it’s been difficult, and utterly challenging, and amazing, and astonishing. (And possibly better for writing, in my case, because time has become a priceless commodity, but even more so because I feel, as George intimated, more plugged in.) It’s strange to have been all in on both sides of this question, but apparently I would not have had it any other way.
"A year after that, BAM, I suddenly and quite unexpectedly got what I now thought I wanted! And it’s been difficult, and utterly challenging, and amazing, and astonishing."
Oh boy can I relate.
And this is of course the third possibility: that these two modes of being alternate throughout our lives, and also intermingle. My current relationship is the longest I've had, and the deepest and most loving, but also among the least restricting, which leaves all the more time for writing.
Thank you for that, Sean. I think they do alternate, and mingle. Sounds like a great relationship! In Desert Solitaire Edward Abbey wrote, “Love flowers best in openness and freedom.” When I first read that my thought was, sounds good, but most people don’t see it like that. I think he was right, though. It takes time to realize what levels of love we can create, and rise to.
So very nicely said, Sean. Thank you for adding your thoughts.
Ah, I agree with you on all fronts Mary. Maybe I could’ve worded it differently.
I certainly believe that deep love and connection is possible without kids. Though I do think it cannot go without servitude and sacrifice in some way, which there are many roads for other than having kids. Taking care of homeless, sick parents, siblings, animals, etc.
It could very well be that the “valence” of the deep love will be different in each type of journey one takes. And I certainly don’t think I have experienced everything because I have kids. It’s likely that there are deep feelings I will never experience _because_ I have kids.
But I can only write from experience and everyone who reads it should read it as such. My experience.
Thank you for taking my words as they were meant, Jibran--not as an attack, but as an addition to your thoughts and experience.
You’re both right. This might be my favorite post by George (is it possible to have a favorite?). Hitting really close to my recent experience. I love the last line of your post, Mary. The human heart, like the universe from which it springs.
George's reply to the questioner was so loving and thoughtful--I learn so much about kindness and love from his words, week after week.
It’s incredible, right? I suppose a large part of what makes GS such a wonderful writer and teacher lies in thinking deeply about the world and our places in it. And his openness to everyone and everything is astonishing, especially during an era when so many of us may be closing windows and doors.
I think it's also George's humility and willingness to approach things with vulnerability even when we all look up to him as the 'expert.' It would be just so easy for him to coast, or to not reveal his doubts. But instead he lets us in, while also admitting his ambition. It's not pure altruism and it's not blind ambition. What a marvelous example he sets.
“…he lets us in.” What a gift that is.
I agree this might be the best post ever by George. It touched my heart, was full of honesty, insight and humility. It surpassed the previous best post ever in my life, by George, which was something like two weeks ago. Similarly, the comments keep getting better, sharper, deeper. I am blown away by the intelligence and emotions investigated in story club. What a stroke of luck to have stumbled into this group.
Luck, yes. And some kind of literary magnetism, or gravity. I agree, like a great book, it just keeps getting better. I am so grateful and overjoyed to be a part of this journey.
“It was as if I’d joined the human race, for better or worse.”
I read this as I’m sitting here in the delivery room with my wife, excited and terrified in equal measure, waiting for my first child to born. What a gift. Thank you, George! And thank you to the other amazing comments here. (We, too, are looking at a week or two in the NICU.)
Can’t wait to join the writer-dad-human club.
Best wishes! The NICU is a special place and the NICU nurses are really special people.
You're already in the Human Club, Ryan! You & your fam. Yay for you all---and all blessings!
Oh, Ryan. All best wishes to you and yours.
That is some timing, Ryan!
This is a difficult topic for me. I wandered into some of my emotional baggage on the issue of not having children in a reaction to Olsen's story, and many in this group took it the wrong way; however, I find this group to be a place of honesty so I hope my words are taken the right way. To quote Mary G., I hope my words are taken "as they were meant--not as an attack, but as an addition to your thoughts and experience."
I made a choice as a young man not to be a father. It had nothing to do with my artistic vision; rather, as a child of the 1980's I saw a world heating up and likely to face a nuclear disaster that would leave those still on the planet in a wasteland of human misery. I chose not to inflict that hell on any child of mine. Now, at 58 years old, I regret that decision greatly for the great absence that pervades my soul and heart. On Father's Day this year I cried at the realization that I am not a father and will never be a father. I have plenty of love to go around. I am my nieces and nephew's favorite uncle. I am a 30 year veteran educator and am everyone's favorite teacher. But I am not a father. While I am plagued with doubt and self-loathing for the choice I made, I would make the same decision again because I could not imagine sending a person I loved so much into a worse future. I have no hope in humanity's capacity to avert disaster. Conservative estimates have the planet heating up 3.2 degrees Celsius by the year 2100. When I compare the summer of 1970 to the summer of 2022, I see the evidence in my own being and it reaffirms my rational choice, and I must live with those emotional consequences as the result of my love for the child never born. And that emotional aftermath is the stuff of my art.
I often feel on the outside of society because of my choice. From my perspective, society forms itself around families with children and rightfully so from my point of view. Even the comments in this thread where people affirm that they were not truly alive until they had children reinforces my outsider status and I bet many other childless people in this group may feel the same.
I went to a bunch of elementary school graduations today and I was emotionally gutted. There was a profound sadness that I will never know the pride I saw in parents' faces today, but I was nauseous at looking at the beautiful young faces knowing what the world will look like in 2050 when these very children turn 40.
I guess my question is do those with children have a greater hope than I? I pray I am wrong and I am just a bitter 58 year old guy justifying a poor choice, but I really do believe this planet is doomed. Do you ever look at the world your children will inherit and have the reverse of my sadness and regret?
Hi Thom. To answer your question, I have a child (teenager) and I wouldn't say I have the reverse of your sadness and regret. It's hard for me not to feel things are pretty bleak at times (today is one of those times). I don't think that having a child has made me a more hopeful person. I feel very worried about what the future will hold for my child. But being around children and young people often makes me feel hopeful.
The reason I responded, though, is that I am around your age, and while I don't share your grief around not having children, I do recognize that feeling of regret. I wonder if a lot of us in mid-life go through a period of grief over roads not taken? I don't have any true regrets about the choices I've made, and I know I have a lot to be grateful for. But lately I've been hit with a lot of feelings of "oh sh**, I'm never going to do X" or "it's too late for me to do Y" or "I should have done Z while I could."
I am sorry you are grieving not having children. When you want children and don't have them, that is a real loss. But I wonder if you are being hard on yourself when you call yourself a bitter 58-year-old guy, though. I don't think many bitter people are favorite uncles and favorite teachers. (By the way, and I know you know this, but being a favorite uncle and favorite teacher to so many children is more than many biological fathers accomplish).
Thank you, Melissa, I think you have hit the nail on the head. For most of this week I really regretted even posting what I posted. Were I to do some editing, I would leave out the word "bitter" as that was an inside joke with myself. I am actually a joyful person who smiles and laughs all the time. But, I know regret, and I get really sad SOMETIMES. I love the hope you get from your kids. That is awesome. Maybe because you are my age, you got what I was saying perfectly. I never really had this particular sadness until recently, and I think it was sparked by my friends becoming grandparents. When they were "just parents" I would come home from their houses after a Sunday barbeque and say, "Darn that looks like a lot of work" and then moved on with my life while my friends sat down to do homework with their kids. Now, however, when I see the pure joy they get from their grandkids, I am envious. Obviously, you can't have one without the other. My friends' relationship with their grandkids is a wonderful reward for being such good parents. I never knew my friends' frustrations as parents, so I do not know their joys as grandparents. And that makes me sad, but it is just a natural consequence of choice. As the cliché goes, when you open the door on one thing you shut the door on another.
Oh, Thom. Your pain is so palpable. I'm so sorry. As you've read already in these threads, i am a parent, and so I don't carry your particular grief. But grief is grief, and I know it's a terrible feeling.
To speak to your questions: I spend a lot of time thinking (and worrying) about how the planet is dying. But i suppose I do have a sense of hope for the future. I don't know where it comes from, except that the world has been through so much tragedy, death, and war--and yet, here we are, the survivors of human history. I don't think I'll be alive to see it, but I have faith that younger people will find a way to solve what we've destroyed. Maybe that's ridiculous and naive, but there you have it. I'm about to be a grandmother, Thom. My children are bright and well-educated. If they have hope, then so do i. If they see fit to bring more children into this crazy world, then I believe in them. They are the future. I hold onto hope because the alternative is utter despair, and i refuse to be a despairing mother or grandmother. We keep hearing that it's too late, and then we hear there's still time. I don't know--perhaps my grandkids will live on another planet. i cannot know the future. I am a person who at times prays to a God she doesn't believe in. It works for me. And again, it beats the alternative.
I hope your decision doesn't color all the hours of your days. I hope it comes and goes. We make the best choices we can at the moment we make them and then....live with the consequences. Also, (and this probably doesn't help, but I'm saying it anyway)--the children grow up and leave. They move to other cities. They have their own lives. My house is empty of them now. I have to find meaning in other ways, though of course, they call and visit. And of course, they bring me great happiness. But day to day, this is it--me without them, living my life and wishing them the best. They love me, but loves means that they leave. That's how it works. The emptiness of living without them can sometimes overwhelm me.
I'm sorry that there is a constant beat from parents telling those without children that "they are not truly alive," as you write. We each have our own life experiences and none of us can say who has lived more deeply. It's clear you have a deep soul. I'm sorry for the way you are aching. I hope you write about it.
Love means that they leave. Powerful thought Mary^^
You have provided a brand new way for me to look at this , Mary. I don't think I ever really thought about what the "empty nest" really means. I have probably minimized it when my friends speak about it. One puts 20 to 25 years of work in, and then there you are with yourself again left to imagine a new way of life. Your words are going to make me more respectful of my friends' lives. Where I would respond with cynicism, I will now seek out empathy. On another note, I loved your battlefield story! I was most impressed by the silences between the words as if the real story occurred on the blank space on the pages, much like life. Kudos!
Not everyone's devastated when their kids grow up and leave. But yeah, for me it was very tough (and still is). That's just the way it goes! To say hello to anyone at all means one day you'll have to say goodbye.
Also, thanks for reading my little story. You're absolutely right--the story is mostly in what's not said.
School graduations are one of the most devastating places on the planet, Thom! Bunch of over-proud parents all together in one place over-filming their darlings and pretending to be interested in other people's... Avoid trigger situations! Cry sick! Day trip to Montauk!
I jest (actually not really). I love your honest doubt. Like George and others I thought I had really begun to turn with the world when I had children. But it was just A world. Like being invited to a cool party and thinking you've made it forever into the hip crowd, only then everyone goes home and you're alone with yourself again, separate. Is the planet doomed and my kids along with it? Some days it certainly feels that way. But this too: a farmer friend of mine once told me he sees himself as an orchestra conductor guiding the land to fruitfulness and harvest – here a wheatfield, there a courgette; now the strawberries, then in come the peas, and so on and so forth. And I love that image of hope and creation and life music. My kids (and all kids, including the ones I didn't pay attention to at school graduations!) are clever monkeys, as Michaeldmayo says below. Above all born kind. They will guide new things to fruitfulness and harvest, make their own good music for the planet. No regrets.
Thanks for the bright light of hope, Em! Well said! Love the conductor analogy.
You sound like you’re doing a great job. I wish there were more thinking, caring educators like you around.
Many people don't make choices at all; things just happen to them, or they just go along with what others want to do. I think I understand the feelings you are expressing, but I wonder if you are being too hard on yourself. You made a conscious choice, a thoughtful and considered one. Your reasoning was completely valid - there is much to worry about the fate of the planet and the fate of the good people who live on it.
Your choice deserves respect. I want also to say it is apparent that you have committed to being a great uncle and a great teacher. In doing so, you seem to have made a meaningful difference in many young lives. I hope you are proud of yourself for all you have done for others, and proud of yourself for making conscious choices in your life, your examined life, worth living.
Well said, Jon! Especially the part about being too hard on yourself, and on all of our selves. Anybody who could write so caring a post as Thom did in the first place is right there better than he knows.
Thom, I have thought about your post and your grief for days. I admire you for not having had children. I admire your moral compass & thoughts of the world you would have brought children into. You and George have these large hearts that think beyond themselves. I had children to give myself something to do. I'd moved to NYC from the south, had a Greek sailor in tow, failed my Actors Studio audition (I have GAD and away from my teacher and mentor in Nola, I caved) & thought myself a terrible failure & bingo I got pregnant (married the sailor.) I spent the better part of 20 years with my eyes on the past I left behind and writing about it in a journal & later stories & then a memoir. I had a teacher tell me about a CNF "This character seems more interested in her past then she is in her husband and son." I was a terrible mother and my kids had to endure an emotionally distant mother ensorcelled by what had happened to her. Honestly, I had to learn to mother myself as I mothered them (I have a son and a daughter). Unlike you, I didn't think about the larger world and its morasses, I only thought about myself. In the long run, both my kids gave me what I'd missed as a child (unconditional love) & so are a blessing, but Christ, what they had to go through. You have a right to grieve but I admire your choice then as I do that of all the folk I know who chose not to reproduce themselves.
Lucinda, I had to think about your post a good while before responding. I have lived with your words in my head all week. Thank you for your honesty. Perhaps I can add a hopeful note to your post. I was raised by an emotionally absent mother. I had a wonderful therapist challenge me in my mid 20’s. It is the subject of another post on Story Club. She challenged me to look objectively at my mother. What brought her to motherhood? What did her childhood have to prepare her for the role? The therapist then asked me if I wanted a bunch of things over which she had no control to color the rest of my life and the rest of my relationship with my mother. My therapist encouraged me to start a new relationship, adult to adult. My mother loved the opera and my father hated it. In fact, I inherited my creative spirit from my mother so we began to meet in the realm of art. We went to plays, operas, and museums and got to know each other as adults. While it didn’t totally clean up the emotional baggage of being raised in an emotionally negligent home, it brought me to a place of healing. Instead of blaming my mother I began to see her as a co-victim of a multi-generational cycle and I began to heal and know some peace It sounds like you are well on that path with your kids. Please be kind to yourself as you and your kids work through the issues. It sounds like they have a great mom, one who is capable of honest self reflection and the ability to change the playing field going forward. That is a gift. Good luck!
Hey Thom. To be really candid, this isn't about kids, really. I typed up this big long comment to originally explain how I didn't want kids either, but decided to foster and adopt and took a two year shortcut through parenting to grandparenting. But, none of that is really my point, so I cut all that out to say this:
As you mentioned, society forms us to see all this as special and unique to having kids and building families. It's expected. But if I'm really, really honest about it all, like really honest, the love I feel for my grandkids, or my kid. It's not a special and unique kind of love. It's not different than what I have with my siblings or my best friends. The intensity of that is not changed because my kid or my grandkids aren't biological. I love them as fiercely as I do most of the people in my life. Kids... people, for that matter, need your time. They need your attention. That's it. And when you can give it, free and true and wholly, that's the unique and spectacular sensation. The reward for your time and your resources isn't 'look at this human I made' it's 'wow, I'm so lucky to have this person in my life'.
This isn't commentary or advocating for fostering or adoption, it's a flawed system and it is not for everyone. But you have niblings, you have students and there are humans in your community that will continue to need someone like you in their life who can look at them and think about how lucky and blessed you are to have them in your life. I encourage you not to think of any of your years as time lost without your own children, but experience gained that you can pass forward. Go and use that however you can.
Thanks so much for your "like really honest" post. Such a brave assessment that I don't hear too often. I admire your decision to foster and adopt. In addition to my regret about not biologically parenting, I sometimes feel guilt over never adopting. (I hope folks have read enough of my stuff to know that I am not mired in guilt. I am just being really honest with what hits me emotionally from time to time). Obviously, I can't blame my decision not to adopt on global climate change. These kids are here already and through no fault of their own are on their own. I had no money early in my life, but things went my way in my late 40's and I certainly would be the ideal candidate to foster a child and/or adopt a child. My wife and I discussed it, but we were afraid. Not going to sugar coat it. I am just being honest (like really honest) about it. So, for someone who bemoans not having kids, I must admit that there was another way to do it and we chose not to do it. I am still not sure what really fuels that non-decision decision. More to be probed. I agree that we all need to find our way to share whatever love we have to share in whatever we way we can share it. I look at friends who lost a child in utter and complete awe. They had perhaps the worst life can offer happen to them, but they get up every morning, love those still around them, and move on. It is a level of bravery I can't even imagine. Thanks so much for your honesty and affirmation.
Thom, forgive me for commenting one more time. I just want to gently suggest that it's possible to look back on one's own life with reflection instead of regret. I very firmly believe (and have written this in these threads before) that we make the best decisions we can in the moment we make them, given the tools we had at that time. You were who you were at the moment you decided it best to not have children. That's all. You thought it through and came up with the decision you came up with. In that way, it was the right decision at that time. There was no way for you to know that you would later feel the way you do now. There's so much we can't know! So you know, look back, but don't linger there. I love the story of Lot's wife (I am not religious but love the story) who looked backwards and turned into a pillar of salt, frozen in place and unable to move forward. Glance back, but do not stay there. Forgive yourself for being you! (I know you are not mired in guilt--you have written that. But there are some deep feelings, that much is obvious.) As far as not adopting--no guilt there! We--all of us--could have adopted kids, and yet most of us did not. You are not alone in that! Adopting and/or fostering aren't the road for everyone, though it's nice to think it could be. You admit to feeling fear about those ideas--that makes perfect sense! Thom, you seem like just a fantastic guy, loved and loving. i wish i could buy you a drink, but since I can't, I'll just pour one here in your honor. Be well.
There is still time for you to be a father.....the fate of the world even if lost on earth will begin again in the Universe somewhere else.There is so much beauty and magic to live in the moment and not burden yourself with being the answer to our collective self made problems. Do what you can write about what you see and feel. Be the positive force you want to be against all odds. Come what may be the positive creative force you want to be...for a second or billions of years.^^
Thom, I'm so sorry--this is some suffering you're going through. You say you have love enough to go around---nieces, nephews, "everyone's favorite teacher" ---which leads me to believe that the problem here is not that you're not a father, per se, of children produced biologically, but rather in how you define the term. A father is many things, and not always to one's own children. In fact, the best fathers, as I myself have known them, have not always been by blood, have not always been older, some have not even been alive. But fathers they've been all the same. And to my good fortune,. My husband & I, married 37 years next month, are also without children, like you a decision we made deliberately, though for different reasons. It was the right decision & even if it hadn't been, there are still among us men who step up, who have & will continue to step up, who are fathers. It is, I believe, a matter of definition. It sounds to me that anyone as heartfelt as you must also be one.
Thank you so much, Rosanne. I think I do need to expand my definition and rethink this a bit. These series of posts have been most helpful for me to work through some of my emotional baggage.
This is not going to be a popular post, but you need some tough love.
I am truly sorry you are in such pain, but you made a foolish decision (you didn't mention whether you were married and what your wife thought of this decision, or whether it was something factoring into whether you were going to marry or not) based on listening to doomsday prophets that haven't been right since the Jews thought Jesus' death heralded the end times. The earth always swings through cycles of change, and by periodic calculations, we're actually overdue to go into a "little" ice age. The "Earth is Doooooomed!" scenario is based on computer models that haven't been right yet (remember snows were supposed to be a thing of the past in England several years ago by one scenario) and hyped by biased media and scientists making their living off of peddling fear. If this is not the case, why do the people peddling this Refuse to meet in a comprehensive public debate, both sides arguing their points, and see how their arguments stand or fall? Even the IPCC study posited several scenarios for a possible future, but somehow only the worst one is ever talked about.
In short, it's bullshit and you fell for it.
That said, wallowing in guilt and grief over decisions you made long ago is pointless masochism. What's done is done, and it sounds like you've cut yourself off from hope and true joy; and writing based on pain gets old real fast. We're smart monkeys. We've survived a lot worse than whatever's coming (if it is) and have the brains and the tools to adapt and go on.
You're also denying your present and future readers the full scope of what your talents might be by dwelling on a very narrow vision of life and yourself. There's always hope, even in the bleakest of times. Life and History always comes in cycles. By denying this, you are denying reality itself.
I doubt all this will make much of a dent; but just for argument's sake, why not try considering what your life (and art) might be like if you didn't feel this way? Are you really helping the world by seeing nothing but darkness? It's never too late to change your life, and maybe change others with it...
Thanks for the tough love! For the record, I completely disagree with your analysis of the climate change data. However, in true Story Club fashion, I feel like you are the type of guy with whom I could share a few beers, debate the topic at the top of our lungs at the bar for five hours, and then leave friends ready to help each other move an old couch the next day. I think the world is missing that type of discourse these days, so I thank you for putting your points so bluntly and honestly. I am really not a person who wallows. I get really sad and full of regret sometimes, but that's just me. I actually have a great life. As a childless person, I fully enjoy my lack of those commitments. I realize there are adventures I can afford because I don't have tuitions to pay. My wife and I frequently choose to travel on a day's notice. However, I would be a fool not to acknowledge the flip side which is a deep well of regret. I put that caution before the person who asked the original question--there are some choices that can't be undone and there are consequences for those choices. That is just life and I think art can come from both sides of the choice. Cheers, mate. I look forward to our next debate!
Love that line about moving the old couch. You had to know.
Hey, glad to hear you're not draped around a tombstone; and yes, would be happy to get sloshed and argue the night away. I came out of Debate and love nothing more than a good argument. You do know this Monte Python skit, don't you?
https://youtu.be/xpAvcGcEc0k
Yes. Hilarious!
I really enjoy the vinegar some clubbers throw in too.
Is it fair to say he's "cut himself off from hope and joy" and "dwelling on a very narrow version of life and [himself]," though? I believe he's expressing very real pain and regret in direct response to the subject of this blog post.
If you put a childless person before an article like this, expressing openness to a kind of humanity that (ostensibly only) parents can or will know, of course the reaction will be (if the person ever desired children in one way, shape, or form) one of rumination and regret. Holidays like Father's Day and events like an elementary school graduation will bring that to the surface doubly.
That said, I doubt he's "denying [...] the full scope of what [his] talents might be," much less reality itself. Or that he never feels otherwise, or sees nothing but darkness. We all contain multitudes and I doubt Thom is any exception.
Thanks, Alicia. Yes, you are hitting on one of the reasons I posted what I posted. When I joined Story Club, I never expected it to be a place for people to reflect on parenthood. I expected vigorous debates about syntax and narrative form, but not about parenthood. Several times now, discussions have wandered into this topic, most notably with Tillie Olsen. Of course we need to discuss the emotional stuff that the artist uses to create the story. Bring it on! However, as a childless person, I sometimes feel invisible in these conversations. When I heard a writer I admire so much (that's you George) state what his fatherhood has done for his art knowing that life choice is behind me never to be revisited, I was put into a tailspin. Just like on Father's Day. There are sometimes when your major life choices hit you square between the eyes, and George's response (perfectly articulated) hit me and caused great sadness and regret. At one point this week I was sorry I ever posted what I posted, then I read your words, "If you put a childless person before an article like this, expressing openness to a kind of humanity that (ostensibly only) parents can or will know, of course the reaction will be (if the person ever desired children in one way, shape, or form) one of rumination and regret." Thank you for seeing me and the others like me, Alicia!
I definitely see you! And appreciate you sharing what you did. As a 36-year-old (childless) woman, whether or not to bring children into this world is something I spend a lot of time thinking about. I relate to feeling invisible in these types of conversations. Nevermind catastrophic end of the world scenarios, raising kids feels like a tall order in a country without universal healthcare or affordable education. (And one that feels especially heavy on a day like today.) It's unlikely I could ever provide children with the same privileged upbringing I enjoyed, courtesy of my grandparents. Or at least, not without significant material sacrifice. I'm a broke millennial who has barely achieved financial stability for herself! Anyway, regardless of what I end up choosing, I feel my heart has been -- and continues to be -- broken open in other ways, as I'm sure yours has too.
It doesn't surprise me that you are "broke millennial" stressing over the path of life. I have developed some very close relationships at work with men and women born in the 1980's. Despite our 20 plus year age difference, I would categorize them as real friendships and not simply acquaintances. I was born in the last year of the baby boom and have always been out of step with the classic boomer vision of life. I hear my peers disparage the millennial generation and I always say, "Maybe you should get to know some of them." I treasure my 30-something friends. They have introduced me to some awesome music and food as well as providing me with great feedback on my life choices. I like to think I have provided some non-judgmental life advice to them as they navigate some really tricky turns in their life paths. I say to you what I say to my friends, "All will be well and all manner of things will be well." Yes, like me, you will have massive regrets, but that's ok because you will also have massive joy. I am so appreciative of the parents and grandparents who responded to my post. They loved their kids as much as possible but the kids left. What a great perspective.! I don't think I ever looked at it that way. Your phrase "broken open" is great. It states that ones heart must be broken to open. I think the only "sin" would be to not allow oneself to be broken open. This series of posts has been quite cathartic at a very difficult and regret-filled time for me. Your posts led the way. Thank you!
You are very welcome, and I'm so glad to hear my generation isn't as insufferable as the media would have you believe! I, too, have developed a handful of intergenerational friendships and my life is that much richer for it. It really is all about perspective, isn't it? I agree with you the only "sin" would be "to not allow oneself to be broken open." Heartbreak and regret: those sometimes necessary evils on the path to deep empathy, aliveness, and joy. Cheers to that.
I loved the question. So many of us have fears and worries, we fret over that fork in the road ahead. I guess it's a way of trying to control the future. Anyway, I never wanted kids (even as a little girl I'd tell people I didn't want kids) and I don't regret it. None of my childless friends regret not having kids. My choice had nothing to do with thinking that kids would interfere with any goal I had. I do think I'd regret, at the end of life looking back, "putting all my eggs in one basket" as some wise Story Clubber just wrote. I put time and energy into my marriage, my friendships, my yoga practice, and now this kick ass class right here.
"So writing at night was possible and writing on the bus on the way to work, and so on. It turned out that I didn’t really need much peace and quiet – I could write well in the maelstrom of the office and maybe, at that time anyway, even benefited from it."
If low wages and status don't bother you, then as a writer you could do worse than working, for a few years at least, as a security guard, a job that can provide plenty of time for writing on duty.
I was working as a nightguard in a psychiatric hospital, and was close to being sacked for falling asleep on the job. Reading just wasn't keeping me awake, or coffee or Red Bulls, but then I discovered that writing fiction is so demanding, and therefore so stimulating, that it did the trick. It felt quite odd to rush off to some violent incident in the hospital and still be working out sentences in your head, but as George suggests, the writing itself may have benefited from the maelstrom.
Regarding this thread's wider issue, all I can say is that I've definitely noticed an increase in the quality of writing if I can spend 10 to 12 hours per day on it, rather than the apparent industry standard of 3 to 5. I wouldn't claim to be in *the* zone at such times, but I'm certainly in *a* zone that seems to allow that subconscious so beloved by our mentor to take over. It can be quite draining, obviously, and you're more than a little mad, especially if you keep this routine up for months. But it's the only time when (I think) I've ever significantly improved.
Wow! Third para first sentence is the start of a story IMO.
Wasn't it Einstein who had a menial job in the post office while his mind was working on things that were, let's just say, a bit more intense and complicated?
Indeed.
Sadly the insights I reached on duty were somewhat below the level of Einstein's. Instead of revolutionising humanity's conceptions of time and space, mine were more along the lines of "Um, these bloodsplashed drunks being brought in in ambulances don't seem very happy, Sean. Maybe it's time you cut down on the booze."
Today's question is lovely for, among other things but most especially, its bravery; George's answer lovelier still for its honesty. And thank you both. I'm guessing that I'm older than the Clubber who posed the question and if experience, mine or anyone else's, counts for anything, I'd say this: listen to your heart. You'll hear it & will know what to do. Writing, or any sort of art or activity, and life are not either/or. They're both. And constantly. No escaping. When I was young I never thought I'd marry. I never saw myself as "marriage material", though I wasn't entirely sure what "material" meant, only that I saw myself as alone. Not lonely, just alone. (No cats involved!) Then I met the man who has been my husband for the last 37 years. When I clapped eyes on his handsome face for the very first time, I heard it---that all-essential word: "kind". I literally, quite literally, heard the word in my head. Who spoke? I think some version of my heart. Which I had the good sense to heed. All I can say is that his kindness has guided my days, writing & otherwise. So, if there's anything I'd suggest, such as I can offer anything, it would be to encourage you to listen, to pay close attention, to trust that you'll be guided, that you'll know what to do, that it isn't an either/or, it's a yes!, when you hear it.
This is terrific, Rosanne—thank you for sharing it!
Well expressed Rosanne^^
Great story! And I love that it isn’t either/or. How often do we not know we have the key to the unlock the chains in which we’ve bound ourselves? (Thanks to The Eagles for the image and the great guitar work, not to mention the vocals!)
A scarily honest question and a wise answer from George.
Some quick thoughts from my experience. Please draw your own conclusions. I am a man. I had similar trepidations. I had three children. I realised how much time I wasted before becoming a father. I ended up working more but in a shorter time. I worked as a TV writer in a low stress medium paid job and was a stay at home dad while my wife worked full time and then did a PhD. Then my wife said to take some time to concentrate on my writing and not to worry about taking TV jobs I hated. I became a dilettante again with all that spare time. I have achieved nothing in 8 years while having near total freedom. I love my children. My life as a prose writer is unproductive and seemingly pointless. I’m pretty happy. I have few money worries if I live sensibly, but not as a result of my prose writing. Who knows what’s going to happen? I would not and could not have planned this but am satisfied with the circumstances. I don’t know what any of this means. Honestly, it probably says more about white privilege than anything else.
Enjoyed your honesty. Thankyou. I too feel the same way, we have fantasies of being great writers, and maybe we are not, and life passes us by. The best one can do is try and not mind so much if our fantasies turn out to be non productive fantasies. Writers are not rich ( except JK Rowling), so giving up a good full life, for little money is a monastic dream and perhaps based on a false sense of your own greatness......why give up on loving your wife and children? Good for you to prioritize your life, and speak honestly...
Isn’t it strange that having time somehow encourages us to ‘waste’ it? And how having almost no free time can provide focus? (Speaking for myself at least!)
You speak for me, too! I think that's why the deadline was invented!
It’s so right. A bit like the option paralysis when faced with too many choices.
Exactly.
I love the first paragraph of George's answer. And I'm looking forward to many smart comments. Such a very personal question and so depends on who you are! Maybe the decision is not entirely ours to make? Who knows, will you find the right person to make that commitment to? And even if you do, you still might not have a child. So complicated!
Having just started reading Silences (which is amazing so far), I could see how reading it (and a million other things) might make you think twice. I haven't gotten too far in it, so maybe she touches on this, but in the end, looking over your life, this life, our life--is art the only goal? Maybe for some it is. As I get older though, I start to think that maybe it's okay for that part-time art to exist. Our lives aren't only about one thing, our lives are multidimensional, and sometimes those other dimensions can be better than art.
Agree. My parents thought art was the only goal, and for a while I bought into that concept, too. It made me miserable.
When I spend time doing other things in my life, it takes the pressure off my desire to make something great and thus softening the disappointment in maybe not reaching my goals. Maybe that's a little of the "low expectations" camp, but it's how I work!
High goals and low expectations might be the ticket to staying alive in each moment.
I like how you put that!
I think we’re psychic twins.
: )
“Maybe the decision is not entirely ours to make?” Wow. Yes and no, maybe. I want to think we decided to be here in the first place. But is that true? And does it matter? What is the web of being that sustains us, anyway? Can we exist outside it?
Who knows? I just know that nothing ever works the way you think it's going to or the way you want it to. You can't get attached, and you have to have a sense of play. I think that's a good rule of revision, too, actually...
Yes. With living, writing or dancing, being able to go with the flow and adjust to the sudden change in rhythm, key, or chording is critical. Ah, but practicing non-attachment (and practicing, and practicing) is so important!! And a sense of playfulness. Being willing to stay in the game. Thanks, Julia.
I became a parent just a few weeks ago. Sharing some of the fears posed in this question, I treated the due date as a deadline to finish my novel. Ha! Didn't happen. I got blocked for the last four months of the pregnancy. All the time I was telling myself, "You won't get this freedom back, you're wasting an opportunity..." and that self-applied pressure did not help one bit.
But you know what happened? My life changed overnight. You can read books about parenting, take courses on it, ask people questions... but nothing can truly prepare you for it. And just as George said so eloquently, there's a new layer to everything in your worldview. Life feels different. I think that unlocked (and unblocked) something in me.
Despite the broken sleep and overwhelming sense of responsibility, I'm back writing again, the ideas are flowing, and I'm lovin' it.
Where there's a will, there's a way.
That’s beautiful! Thank you!!
My wife is an artist. She has had a good career, nothing earth-shattering (she's not famous), but she has had 40 one-person shows in New York City and in Maine, and is well-respected by her peers. Neither one of us ever thought we would have kids, but we got together in our thirties and had children fairly late. She managed to be a great mother and keep her serious work going, and our three children lived with her commitment to her work and never suffered for it. They watched her work hard and be with them totally when she was not in the studio and a wonderful example was set for them, and for me. They suffered my absences more; supporting a family in the city required a lot from me. My wife's experience demonstrates that it is possible to do this, to have a creative life and a family life, all at the same time, if one feels compelled to do both. I think that's the key, to feel compelled by something deep and fundamental inside oneself. Luck plays a role too, of course.
Lady Luck. And Chance and Fate. I’m still wondering how much luck is made, rather than merely inflicted.
What a gracious answer. I feel that there is so much more to write about once I set about living, rather than simply training and setting up to write.
I made that mistake, trying to write after much reading and hardly any living. But the pool, or ocean, waited in the shadows, beckoning…
I have no business really, commenting here --- I don’t have children “of my own” --- Godchildren and stepchildren who came to me past the time when their survival depended on my devotion. I spent 3 years in my 20’s as a governess for a small child, but I was not her mother. I’m in my 60’s now and my observations could be blurry, but…
Over and over again, in my 30’s and early 40’s, my close male friends would express some version of the following at the birth of their first child, “yesterday I understood 1%, today 90%” or “we think we bring a child into the world but it’s really the other way around, a child brings us into the world.” (Galway Kinnell crafted an entire collection of poems (“The Book of Nightmares” ) inspired by the birth of his first child.) But I don’t know a single mother who expressed this thought --- that having children fostered a kind of induction.
I do know a woman who finishing her PhD research at John’s Hopkins listened to the voice recordings of black boxes retrieved from flights that had crashed and who do you imagine in this dark moment the pilots were calling for? One after the next.
By now I have witnessed many different styles of mothering and at close range, but always with my nose pressed to glass separating me from the viscera of that experience. I know mothers who judge me for not having made the “great sacrifice.” I know mothers who rely on my home as refuge. I know mothers who leave their children in my care as temporary relief. I know mothers who have given up a writing life so as not to aggravate a sense of being divided. I do not know any mothers who have a working life who do not feel divided.
For years I hosted an annual brunch for my women friends – ranging in age from 24 to 70. We’d gather at a long table and every year by the end of the brunch the mothers were all at one end, a law of gravity. All of them, every single one, bemoaning NOT the lack of time or lack of freedom, but a divided self. I’ve come to think that mothering does this, divides the self, in a way that fathering does not --- as if inside every mother’s body is a tiny amplifier, with a lifetime warranty, set to the frequency of the child’s need.
There may be mothers out there, for whom this is not your experience – I would be pleased to know.
In the meanwhile, every summer I devote myself to a writer --- reading a few books by the same author. For the last few years, I’ve privileged women who have written books with children underfoot. My modest way of honoring the willingness to endure this divide.
You wrote: "But I don’t know a single mother who expressed this thought --- that having children fostered a kind of induction."
This is my experience: I was absolutely gob-smacked by the weight of what had just occurred when I gave birth to my first child, by the sudden realization that a massive responsibility was now mine--forever. I was one person before my first child was born, and another person altogether the moment my baby emerged. Night and day. I can't begin to describe to you the intensity of that realization which I had known intellectually, but suddenly felt viscerally in every cell of my being.
Responding to your idea about a mother's divided self would take me far too long! Suffice it to say that all parents feel divided. There is the life a person leads outside the home, and then there is the parenting. Many fathers have that tiny amplifier you mention. It's just that traditionally, the role of parenting has fallen mostly on women.
and yes, of course, you have business commenting here! Happy to read your words, your take on things.
It’s very interesting to try, somewhat late in life, to try to split that role, especially since I am a baby boomer, my wife is a Millennial, and our child is Gen-A. We’re all approximately 30 years apart from one another. Needless to say a ton of communication and negotiation is required to get through each day. Sometimes painful, but always eye-opening.
David! So much fodder for your writing!
Hope so!
I love this perspective. Thank you.
Thought-provoking, thank you. I wonder how it goes when one’s self was divided before be coming a parent?
George said it so well. I would add the following:
I echo your sentiments about needing time to do deep thinking and close the door and write. I have always known on some level that I am an introvert however this has crystalized recently as I have been reading "Quiet: The power of introverts in a world which cannot stop talking." I wonder whether you identify as an introvert and if not it is something perhaps to consider going forward.