Dear Modern Austen: Should I have a child?
Modern Austen advises Mother-To-Be...Maybe? to consider whether she wants to have a child, not whether she should.
Dear Modern Austen,
I want to be a mother, I can see myself as a mother, but I’m on the fence about whether I should have a child. The question feels separate somehow. My partner and I know we’re ready to have the job title “parents,” but we haven’t really thought about the qualification that earns us that title: raising a child.
Since the pandemic started, many of our friends have started having kids. Some are on their second or third. How quickly we’ve moved on from the stage of all of us getting married in waves (my partner and I haven’t done that either) to all of us having kids—all of us who have been able to answer the question “should I have a child?”, that is.
When I asked a close friend who has a 2-year-old and another baby on the way how she finally decided she was ready to have a child, she said she ultimately had to force herself not to overthink it. She wanted a kid, she knew she and her partner were as ready as they could be, so they just went for it.
But I can’t stop thinking (am I overthinking?) about it. I’m always mulling over these same factors:
What if I can’t do it? By this I mean, what if I can’t get pregnant? I’ve put my body through a lot over the years, and I’m concerned my fertility has been impacted. And I would be devastated to learn that I can’t get pregnant. It would be like mother nature stole the choice from me. How hurtful, how cruel. And what would my partner think? He would be supportive, I know, and suggest all sorts of treatments we could try, and adoption if it came to it, but I know this would devastate him, too. And we certainly don’t have the money or insurance coverage for IVF treatments—I paint, he teaches music in an elementary school.
Perhaps more painfully, what if I have a child and it turns out I’m not a good mother at all? What if I just can’t do it? I’m selfish and protective of my time, you see. I’m not even all that sure I like kids. Do I want my entire life to change? Can I keep a kid alive?
Then there’s the issue of not liking my kid. That could happen, right? I could subconsciously set impossible standards and expectations, take out a life’s worth of disappointments on the poor kid. They’ll blame me and charge me for their therapy.
On the flip side, what if I over-love my kid, worship the fucking ground they walk on. I hate it when parents brag about their kids, talk nonstop about them. I hate parents who raise children who think they’re perfect because all they’ve ever heard is praise. I don’t want to love my kid this way. I don’t want to spoil them, I don’t want them to grow up to be a brat. In short, I don’t want to fuck them up, but I’m not sure there’s any way for a parent to avoid it.
Then there’s the state of the world. I’m not sure that I agree with the argument that I shouldn’t have children because of the climate crisis (seems like another way for corporations to put the blame on all of us without taking responsibility for their role in the crisis), but it would be a problem my child would have to deal with on a catastrophic scale. But the world is fucked up and scary beyond the climate crisis. Nuclear war seems imminent, women’s reproductive rights are being ripped away in the United States. Do I want to bring a child into such a dystopia? I should also ask if it is safe to have a child. Safe to carry a child and give birth, safe to raise a child.
I suppose I’m also afraid of what having a child will do to my creativity. How will my art change? Will I still have time for it? For the longest time, I’ve thought of my paintings as children. Well they’re my creations, anyway. I’ve spent a lot of time nurturing my craft. Motherhood will be a different kind of devotion. Will I have to choose between my art and my child? Right now I can’t see a way to have both.
I’m on the fence about whether I should have a child because it requires making hard choices. I’ve never been good at making hard choices. I’m not the most decisive person. What would happen if I don’t have a child? I’m not sure. I’m not sure if I will regret it.
What do you think, Modern Austen?
Mother-To-Be…Maybe?
If there’s a personal matter you’d like Modern Austen’s advice on, you can send your letters to modernaustenblog@gmail.com. Please indicate whether you’re comfortable with your letter being published, & do use a clever pseudonym.
Dear MTB…Maybe?,
I respond to your letter as a woman who also doesn’t have a child & wonders if she should. No, not whether she should have a child—whether she wants a child. There’s a difference, Mother-To-Be. The way you phrased your question is how I’ve heard lots of women phrase it lately: Should I have a child? Is it OK to have a child? It’s how I think about it, too. It sounds like we’re asking for permission. Whose permission are we asking for?
It would seem this world we modern heroines live in isn’t as modern as I thought. We don’t consider whether we want a child but, instead, think about what it would mean to conform to or reject the societal pressure & expectation that all women should be mothers. Like you, I can also see myself as a mother one day, raising children the way I want & believe they should be raised. I’m going to say something that I think might resonate with you: I often wonder if my impulse to become a mother is just another manifestation of my impulse to create. And, if that’s the case, is art enough?
Your art has fulfilled you thus far in life, not by choice but by calling. I don’t know why we talk about life choices as though they’re as simple as deciding whether you want milk & sugar in your tea. You weren’t given the choice between becoming a painter & becoming a mother. The way you talk of your work, I would guess that painting found you & you’ve dedicated yourself to it because you love it, want to produce your best work, want to change the world with your art. Only now that everyone you know is having kids, & you’re at an age where the society that surrounds you wonders why you’re not having them, does it feel like you chose art over children. I’ve been pondering this myself.
When did I make the choice not to have a child? Did I ever make that choice? No, of course not. It is a choice that some people definitively & consciously make, but in my case it just hasn’t happened yet. And it might not happen. If I go on devoting myself to writing & living creatively, am I OK with that? Perhaps my friends & their mothers will feel sad for me should I remain childless. They’ll think I chose wrongly. How sad it is that motherhood is still all a woman is fit for, that anything else is frivolous & must, eventually, be given up. But we know better, don’t we MTB? Because we’ve found happiness by following our passions.
I don’t know that Jane Austen ever consciously chose writing novels over having children. It would take a close reading of her letters to find an outright rejection, though she never married or had children. She did write this to her niece Fanny Knight in 1817:
“Oh, what a loss it will be when you are married! You are too agreeable in your single state—too agreeable as a niece. I shall hate you when your delicious play of mind is all settled down in conjugal and maternal affections.”
Tell us what you really think of marriage, Jane! Aunt Jane describes marriage as a kind of loss. Though, I suppose, there is loss no matter what path in life you choose to take. Jane Austen was an author & aunt, & she was lucky to have financial support from a brother after the death of her father. This is sometimes depicted as depressing & sad: The writer of Pride and Prejudice living as a childless spinster in a home owned by her brother. What I find sad is how the people who adapt Jane’s work today make more money than Jane could have ever imagined making.
Remaining unmarried in Jane Austen’s time (& marriage needed to come before children) would have been a security risk for a woman. Marriage was an economic proposition that a woman’s financial security nearly always relied on. We see this anxiety in many of Austen’s novels, where securing a good match was about fortune more than love. And, of course, there was the matter that a woman, & any children she came to bear, would become her husband’s property.
There aren’t many happy marriages in Austen’s work, providing further evidence for what she thought of the institution. We also know of one proposal Jane received, from Harris Bigg-Wither in December 1802, which she accepted then declined the next day. As for children, she would have seen her brothers lose wives during childbirth, would have grieved nieces & nephews who never made it through childhood. When it came to marriage & having a family, how could Jane not have feared loss—loss of self, loss of art, loss of life? And there’s still reason to fear these things. For Jane, it would have seemed safer to think of her novels as her children:
“I am never too busy to think of S&S (Sense and Sensibility). I can no more forget it, than a mother can forget her sucking child.”
— Letter from Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra, 25 April 1811
What baffles me is when people call women who don’t have or don’t want children selfish, particularly when they’ve prioritized other passions over having a family. Selfish for what? For liking their life the way it is? For rejecting the financial stress of feeding & clothing & educating a child? For wanting to make art instead of babies? You have a right to fear what having a child will do to your life, MTB. The question is, what will you do with this fear?
Is your fear grounding you & moving you closer to a decision about whether you want a child? Is it helping you sort out what you do & don’t want? From your letter, I can tell that you’re not as indecisive as you imagine yourself to be, but you’re letting fear of the unknown & what others might think cloud your own judgment of whether you want a child. Let’s start with your fear of finding out you physically can’t have a child, fear of the devastation you & your partner would feel should this be true. Like you, I can only try to imagine the pain & devastation I would feel if I discovered my body cannot carry what I most want in the world. It’s a pain you can only know from living through it. And, as you point out, any options you pursue—IVF treatments, adoption—could never take away the pain that nature has “stolen” something from you. What I will say is that your logic seems backwards: You haven’t even decided that you want to have a child, & you’re already thinking about whether you can physically do it. Have a child, don’t have a child, but get your reasons in order. If you use your fear of what might be physically impossible to make your decision, you won’t find a way forward, which you & your partner can only do if you first settle on what you want.
“Have a child, don’t have a child, but get your reasons in order.”
It’s only natural to wonder whether you would make a good mother, & the fact that you care so much reveals that you’re not as selfish as you make yourself out to be, that you would do your best as a mother, which is all anyone can expect from a role that has no experts. At the beginning of your letter, you mention that you & your partner are ready for the title “parents.” How confident that declaration is! Why have you spent the rest of your letter undermining that confidence? Because you feel becoming a parent is somehow separate from raising a child? What if I told you that I see this as an acknowledgment of taking on a responsibility that’s greater than yourself, greater than your family, greater than your child? A higher calling, if you will. And as an artist, I think you’re familiar with higher callings. You see the greater narrative & the literary device parenthood plays within it. Like making art, having children is about having hope for the future.
Which leads me to the state of the world. The world must seem pretty awful no matter what time you’re living in. It’s an ageless feeling. Yet it hasn’t stopped us from having children. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t things we should worry about but, perhaps, that we need to keep going in spite of it all. There will always be catastrophes ahead. What’s bad now could get worse, but what if it gets better? To give up on the future is to stop believing in change, to stop believing in something greater than the self. Now, is it safe to have a child? It’s always been dangerous, always a risk, so assessing whether you can do this safely—especially in light of the hideous attacks on a woman’s right to choose in America & elsewhere—should factor into your decision to have a child. Your life is important.
“You see the greater narrative & the literary device parenthood plays within it. Like making art, having children is about having hope for the future.”
Throughout your letter, you’ve asked the question “Am I ready?” in 5 or 6 different ways. This, too, is something you must decide for yourself. All I can do is push you to examine your own mind & heart, which is something every modern heroine should do. I will say one more thing: I have friends who chose to have children, & I have friends who decided it isn’t for them. Neither have regrets. My friends who do have children have told me that you need to be prepared to meet the love of your life, & it isn’t romantic or fun. It’s often a heavy burden, & it’s always a great responsibility. This love of your life must be clothed & fed & educated & loved even when you don’t like them very much. It will be the hardest thing you ever do, a 24/7 job. And in the end, you really don’t have much control over how your child turns out. Despite the stress, the anxiety, the hard work, my friends who are parents are filled with wonder & awe every day as they watch their children become people. And that is the only thanks you’ll get for raising a child.
I’m sure Jane Austen would also sing the praises of being a fun, cool aunt, rather than a parent. You get to play with & spoil other people’s children without having to worry about how they’ll turn out.
You already know the answer to your question, Mother-To-Be…Maybe? Listen to what your heart is telling you.
Yours,
Modern Austen