\u201cHow can you want to be a teacher and not want children?\u201d I don\u2019t think I have the right answer for this question. Quite honestly, I don\u2019t think there is one right answer. There\u2019s the right answer for me, and there\u2019s the right answer for everyone else. Except, I think what everyone who asks me that wants to hear me suddenly change my mind and have a burning desire to reproduce. As if that somehow affects their lives more than it does mine. The fact that I even have to answer this notion, almost daily, is ridiculous. Wanting to be a teacher does not mean that I must have children. I\u2019d reckon the ones I teach are going to be close enough to my own kids. Why would I want to make that even harder for myself? Even if I had an innate desire to be a mother, it would surely be fulfilled by my future students.<\/p>\n
Regardless, even though that desire, if I had it, would be fulfilled, teaching is more than being some surrogate mother to different groups of people. Especially, with the group of people I plan on teaching. They\u2019re not even kids. They\u2019re fully grown adults. Yeah, I might grow fond of them, and I might grow protective of them, but my job won\u2019t be to be a substitute mother. My job would be to help them help themselves through the power of opening their minds to new lenses. Everything else in their day-to-day life that their own<\/em> mother does, is well beyond me and what I\u2019ll be getting paid for. Now, that\u2019s not to say that I won\u2019t go above and beyond to help and protect my future students when need be. I will most certainly go out of my way to let them know that my classroom and I are indeed a safe space, and I will always be a trusted adult for them. One of the things that I am most excited for, as a teacher, is being able to provide as much emotional support as I can. That\u2019s as motherly as it gets with being a teacher. I don\u2019t berate them and teach them how to go out into the world. I help them figure out the world they\u2019re already in. I help them make sense of the world they\u2019re already in. I\u2019ll be a useful tool, not a total caregiver. I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s hard to articulate. It\u2019s completely different. It\u2019s almost like saying \u201cOh, how can you want to be an IT and not want kids?\u201d. What does career have to do with personal preference? It doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n When I was younger, I played with Barbies, Bratz, any doll I could get my hands on. I loved them. I loved the idea of creating another life and controlling it. Perhaps, living vicariously through my freshly done up dolls was what made me feel alive. Every time my playmates and I played with dolls, we always played \u2018family\u2019 with them. They would have their doll be magically pregnant with their fifth kid, and somehow still have a supermodel career. I distinctly remember pretending to want my doll to have a kid, too. Not because I was living vicariously through the doll, but because I thought everyone was supposed to have their doll possess a fruitful lineage.\u00a0 I always thought I was weird for not instinctively wanting my Barbie to have a family. I only gave her one because that was what everyone else was doing. I always kept the roleplay going and said that my barbie had one kid, a dead husband, and a large mansion obtained from the dead husband. Ambitious, I know. Other times she was \u2018thinking\u2019 about getting pregnant but was too busy with an acting career in Los Angeles to \u2018buy\u2019 a baby. Funny how young me thought babies needed to be bought but also knew you can inherit a mansion from your rich ex-husband. Priorities, I guess.<\/p>\n Sometimes, the mere fact that the Barbie only thought<\/em> about having kids wasn\u2019t enough for some of the playmates I had. My five-year-old companions insisted that she have kids.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy can\u2019t she have kids now?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe doesn\u2019t want them now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, she has to have kids.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause she just has to.\u201d<\/p>\n Because she just has to<\/em>. She must. We were five. Quite frankly, I don\u2019t know why I didn\u2019t nip that in the bud right away. I don\u2019t know why I didn\u2019t stick up for myself (even at five years old) and say \u201cListen, it\u2019s my Barbie. I do what I want\u201d. Or something like that, at the very least. If I had to guess, based off the emotions that I feel from that memory, it was because I thought she was right. I thought that women did have to have kids later on in life, and I was ashamed for not wanting to. I was ashamed about being the odd one out. Even now, I still feel weird, and I still feel like it\u2019s some big secret that I\u2019m not supposed to say. I feel an overwhelming sense of kinship every single time another female friend of mine mentions that they don\u2019t want children either. Except, I can\u2019t quite figure out exactly why I feel this way. I know that back then that\u2019s all women were expected to do, but this isn\u2019t back then. Why can\u2019t the world let us be?<\/p>\n The thought of having children quite literally makes me cringe. The thought of me being pregnant makes me extremely upset. I\u2019m so terrified of it all. I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s a phobia for being with child, but if there is, I have it. Now, I have a lot of empathy. Some might say too much. Yet, I can\u2019t understand women when they\u2019re excited about it. My brain can\u2019t compute it. I\u2019m happy that they\u2019re happy, and I am happy for them, but I\u2019m not happy with them.<\/p>\n At least I had a few comforting people along the way. My grandpa (dad\u2019s father) of all people is so adamant that I do whatever the hell I want. Quite literally whatever the hell I want. He\u2019s on my side more than he\u2019s on my dad\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are you leaving so early?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI have to go to work?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, you don\u2019t\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cGrandpa, I need money\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cCome with me to the casino then. Play slots with me and trick all the stupid men into giving you their money\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI should start taking advice from you more often\u201d.<\/p>\n He always is supportive of anything I want to do. Any hopes, dreams, aspirations, or whims he\u2019s right behind me. He suggested that any man I date smell like Old Spice and gasoline, however that\u2019s what he smells like, and\u2026 well no. I told him that the only true standard I have for a man is that he doesn\u2019t want kids either. He didn\u2019t bat an eye. \u201cGood, men are stupid\u201d. Honestly, he\u2019s an icon. It\u2019s too bad he probably tanked his health with all the drinking. He won\u2019t be around for much longer, I don\u2019t think.<\/p>\n Another comforting person for me was one of the previous housekeepers we had, Dorothea. She had the exact same stance as my grandpa. She was the Russian grandma I never had.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we lost her due to COVID, but I know she\u2019s probably somewhere arguing with God about how he folds His bedsheets. I absolutely loved her. My relationship with my mother is amazing, but if anyone was a substitute mother it was her. She would always tell me to not let any man keep me from doing what I want, even if it\u2019s as small a task as brushing my teeth. \u201cDon\u2019t let a man keep you from your teeth or your dreams\u201d. I\u2019m sure it makes better sense in Russian. When we would go up to New York, I would always update her on all my trivial drama. I told her about figuring out how I don\u2019t want kids, like at all, she said \u201cGood. You owe men nothing\u201d.<\/p>\n Dorothea and my grandpa are old people, so I find it quite funny that they want to crush the patriarchy and yet the current events in Texas are an actual thing. It\u2019s such a perturbing thing to think of. Men that would probably feel as if their masculinity would be ripped away if they even looked at a box of tampons are making these decisions about my body. My happiness. My life. I can\u2019t imagine how the women who are directly affected feel. How does one begin to understand that the government and half of the country would justify abortion with the death penalty? How does one begin to understand that the government would much rather focus on a barely-there heartbeat instead of the heartbeats of thousands of cages and in abusive foster care homes? What about the heartbeats that are living on the street? What about the heartbeats of those small, scared heartbeats sold to nasty, old men for God knows what? There\u2019s all of that going on and the Texas government decided to focus on giving any abortion getter the death penalty. Never mind the rape babies, and never mind the fatal pregnancies. Anyone who gets one gets the death penalty. Because, somehow, someway, that heartbeat is way more important than everyone else\u2019s. I feel absolutely hopeless. It is so tragic that these things are even up for debate nowadays. I guess whoever decided the global time zones set America a little too far back, even when we\u2019ve made a decent amount of progress with our weird culture. Somehow, life preferences were made political, women\u2019s bodies were made political, and telling people about this universally small preference of mine feels like I\u2019m coming out of the closet to select people all over again.<\/p>\n It\u2019s funny. When I told my parents I was bisexual, my mom said \u201cOkay, cool.\u201d, and my dad thought I was just copying Lady Gaga because she had also just come out as bisexual. Eventually, my dad accepted it in his weird way, and started saying he could ask the waitress for her number for me. However, when I told them that I didn\u2019t want kids, my mom said \u201cYeah, that\u2019s what I said too. You\u2019ll come around\u201d. My dad and I, though, got into a screaming match about it. He called me selfish because I wasn\u2019t going to give him grandchildren, and I was going to cause our name to die out. He, apparently, had forgotten that I have a sister. I\u2019m also selfish because \u201cWhat if your boyfriend wants kids?\u201d. As if that\u2019s not the first thing I clear up in a relationship. As if I haven\u2019t already tied myself to the stake and started my own fire by mentioning children early in the relationship and at a young age. I explained to him in the only logic he could understand by telling him that I didn\u2019t want to be all worn out from a tiny, alien-like human playing Mortal Kombat with my insides. He told me I was being \u201ctoo feminist\u201d about the issue, and to stop being selfish. Thanks, Dad.<\/p>\n When not wanting kids is mentioned, it suddenly becomes a societal issue. It suddenly is no longer about the pursuit of happiness and is instead a responsibility. \u201cBecause she just has to\u201d. Precipitously, it is no longer about me. It is about everyone else. Almost as if my would-be child is going to be the first to discover the cure for all ailments. At first, I thought this extreme dislike came from just not wanting to go through pregnancy. I told people I plan on adopting and that today\u2019s children needed help, never mind the future children. There is, after all, a population issue. I used that as an excuse. Turns out, that was not only a lie to them, but eventually a lie I started telling myself. Even up to four years ago I tried convincing myself that I wanted to adopt. I don\u2019t. I really, truly don\u2019t. I don\u2019t even like calling my cat my \u201cson\u201d. It feels gross. I\u2019d genuinely give my life and everything I own in exchange for my cat\u2019s happiness, but \u201cson\u201d is an overkill.<\/p>\n I, recently (up to a year or two ago), started being a little more vocal about not wanting offspring, and I noticed a few things about everyone\u2019s reactions. I had to tell them something shocking. They wouldn\u2019t leave me be unless there was a shock factor involved. So, I told them the truth: I\u2019d sooner end my life if it meant not going through all of that. I don\u2019t think I could ever get an abortion because my empathy is crippling. I decided at thirteen that if I ever fell pregnant, I\u2019d drink until I put myself in the hospital. (Yes, my therapist already told me no). For a while, I had contemplated the good ol\u2019 coat hanger, bleach, starving, painkillers, hell I agreed to start doing cocaine. Instead, I resulted in something smoother. Truth be told, I\u2019ve never admitted that to anyone, but it must be said. I sugar coat it, tell them I\u2019d probably kill myself, and they laugh uncomfortably and drop the subject with a few more pleas.<\/p>\n I mean, let that sink in. I sure had to. The mere fact that societal pressure has forced me to contemplate the possible end of my life at thirteen years old is\u2026 definitely something. I have to practically scream in the name of a foreigner\u2019s god to get them to stop, and I\u2019m sick of it. Why can\u2019t I scream in the name of my god? Why isn\u2019t that enough? It\u2019s my life, not theirs. I\u2019ll be sipping port wine in Italy, France, and Scotland while you send your kid off to 30 years of loan payments and most likely a mental illness given this society that we live in. That\u2019s almost exactly what I used to tell them. That I didn\u2019t want kids because I don\u2019t want to pass my problems and the world\u2019s problems on to an innocent soul. While that\u2019s true and valid, it was still another false reasoning for both me and the recipient. Honestly, I don\u2019t care that anyone who wants to have kids wants them. Good for them. I\u2019m happy for them. Build your happiness while I build mine.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t believe that I used to think it was all my fault that I was the anomaly. I thought I was an anomaly and planned my death all because some (probably white) man, way back when, decided women should stay home solely to bear and raise children. Now, all of us \u201coutsiders\u201d are reaping the plentiful benefits. My career has nothing to do with this troubled societal ideology. I want to teach college kids to help them decide on things they already know. I want to help them grow their own<\/em> seeds. I want to help them plant their own<\/em> seeds. I don\u2019t want to do that for them. Helping adults achieve their dreams is not the same as bringing a whole baby into the universe and helping it learn to go to work and do their taxes. I can still be a teacher and not want children. Wanting children is not a prerequisite. Stop telling me it is because society told you that. I don\u2019t want kids because I just don\u2019t. That should be enough. That is enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mia Figueroa \u201cHow can you want to be a teacher and not want children?\u201d I don\u2019t think I have the right answer for this question. Quite honestly, I don\u2019t think there is one right answer. There\u2019s the right answer for me, and there\u2019s the right answer for everyone else. Except, I think what everyone who… <\/p>\n