Those Who Have Always Known: An explanation for those who haven't

Written by Stacey Tuesday, 09 March 2010 08:05

Some people are born to be parents. You know them when you meet them. They love kids. They love teaching them, caring for them, watching them grow and learn. They have infinite patience for those younger than themselves and their faces light up at the sight of any baby or toddler. They're the ones who knew when they were teenagers they would be parents, not in the sense of assuming based on the cultural expectations, but in knowing that's what they wanted in life.

For some, health issues or failed relationships might have made them wonder if they needed to change their plans, but in their guts, they've always known they would have kids in one sense or another. If not by natural means, then by adopting, fostering, teaching, mentoring, etc. They just know that some form of child rearing should be a part of their lives.

On the childfree side of the fence, the "early articulators" are exactly like that. That absolute certainty has always been with us. It might have been questioned in hormonal moments or stifled by cultural expectations, but in our guts, we've always known parenthood was not supposed to be part of our life experience.

Both are extremes from the perspective of anyone who's ever had to actively make the choice. Those of us who’ve always known seem stern and inflexible. We’re set in our beliefs, often staunchly. Our reasons for our choice are varied and personal, but even if the circumstances that put those reasons on our mental lists were to vanish, we’d still be extremely hesitant to change our tunes. For those with that nebulous in-born certainty, we could never feel quite right on the opposite side of the fence. We’d be left with that nagging, underlying discomfort of “living a lie.”

While this one choice (if it is such a thing) is a small part of who we are in general, it is an essential part of the core of our identities. It is one of the most basic aspects of our beings. It cannot be shifted. It cannot be removed. It cannot be altered. It is as much a part of what shapes us as the culture into which we were born. Without conscious thought, we plan our entire lives around that small point… which makes it a rather large point.

Even the most empathetic of us cannot truly understand the internal turmoil of those who must consciously make the decision. We try. We really do. We want to support them. We want them to come to a conclusion they can happily live with. We silently root for them to fall on our side of the fence, while acknowledging that we cannot have any real influence.

Our capacity to relate has a rather uncomfortable limit, because the early articulator has never been there. We may have waffled on other major decisions, but we have never had to actively make the one decision in life –besides death- that cannot be undone: whether or not to have children. That choice has always been made for us, in a way we do not comprehend, even if we weren’t aware of it.