Last night on "60 Minutes" Morley Schaefer interviewed Dame Helen Mirren. I've always found her pretty fabulous, but I wanted to cheer at the following (not necessarily verbatim--I wasn't taking notes) exchange:
MS: "Do you ever regret not having children?"
HM: "No, never"
MS: (faintly surprised facial expression) "Really? Why?"
HM: "Because it has given me freedom".
I suspect it is safe to say that most women either become, or want to become, mothers. But it is so refreshing to hear a famous woman talk about the real reason for childlessness that so may are afraid to admit out loud (and perhaps even to themselves).
3 comments:
I caught that interview when it first aired right before the Oscars and found her to be completely right-on in so many ways. Since reading your post, I've been thinking through other reasons not to have children, and the best one I've come up with so far: so as not to slip into utter and complete selfishness. Yes, yes, the common (mis)perception is that it takes a truly selfLESS person to have children, but it's been my experience that parents' unreasonable demands ultimately confirm thier selfISHNESS. "I gave you life, so you must care for me." Or worse, "I had children to carry on my family name (or to pass on my genes), blah blah blah." Why not just grow old and disappear with some dignity. Children are nothing more than another form of territorial pissing! (There, I said it....)
I have to wonder if "most" women really do in fact "want" children, or if they're actually just conditioned into thinking they "want" children--a sort of social obligation/expectation. This is not to say that "most" mothers don't love their children, but rather to wonder if "most" mothers would have chosen other paths if we lived in a different sort of world.
I come to this question not only from years of studying feminism and cultural theory, but also from years of witnessing widespread bad and disinterested parenting.
I agree wholeheartedly with both of you. To this day I sometimes find myself saying "I always wanted children" but then this happened, and so on, and blah blah blah, hysterectomy, blah, blah, blah. But the fact that I really, truly, haven't missed it that much speaks volumes.
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