Page 28 - MidWeek - Oct 6 2021

28 MIDWEEK OCTOBER 6, 2021
Ilove my boyfriend. We’ ve been together two years. Recently, however, we’ve been expe- riencing conflict over the issue of children. He wants kids; I don’ t. I’ ve always felt strongly about this, and he said he was fine with this when we started dating. But he’s been bringing up the subject of kids a lot lately (I suspect he’s thinking about popping the question). The discussions have grown fraught — to the point where he was in tears at the end of an argument. I even- tually said I could be open to kids because I love him and don’t want to lose him. But can this be healthy for us long-term? – Conflicted
Sorry, But It Seems I Have The Wrong Num-Num
feelings toward their infant.” In other words, the public has an overly rosy, sentimen- tal — and scientifically incor- rect — view of what’s often referred to as the “maternal instinct.” There is no such thing — and the term “in- stinct” is the problem. The ac- tual scientific definition of an instinct is an innate behavior (“factory-installed” — pres- ent at birth rather than learned afterward) that members of a species perform automati- cally. An example is a baby’s crying — alerting everybody in earshot, “YO! I HAVE UNMET NEEDS!” (Nobody has to send their baby to cry- ing school. It automatically
Though many things in life come with the opportunity to push the “back” button, once you have a kid, you have a kid. You can’t just drop ’em off at the fire station if they turn out to be precociously criminal — already hot-wir- ing cars at age 7.
Deciding whether to have kids is a very recent state of affairs, coinciding with the development and availabil- ity of reliable birth control (starting in the late 1950s with the Lippes Loop IUD). For most of human history, unless a woman spent her fertile years all alone on one of those New Yorker cartoon desert islands, there was a good chance she’d have not just a child but the be- ginnings of a litter.
There’s a widespread (and mistaken!) assumption that a woman who gives birth will immediately and uncondi- tionally bond with her baby, explains anthropologist and
primatologist Sarah Hrdy. Probably because of this, many people seem to believe the only thing stopping any woman from wanting a child is having yet to bring one into existence.
wails its little head off when it’s wet, scared, cold or wants a sip o’ nippy.)
pression or even a new part- ner who doesn’t want another man’s child are contexts that may even trigger infanticide: a horrifying maternal im- pulse, but a maternal impulse just the same. Thankfully, this impulse is relatively rare in our society, and many women (and men!) report “falling in love” with a child they never planned to have.
him — which is quite differ- ent from wanting children.
In fact, neither humans nor other mammals “auto- matically nurture each baby born,” Hrdy observes. Clini- cal psychologist Idun Røseth and her colleagues, review- ing research on mother-in- fant bonding issues, report: “Most mothers find that feel- ings of affection come within a week from birth. However, some mothers are still strug- gling with this after many months. ... A small percent- age may even have hostile
The impulse to nurture one’s infant is just one motivation that may arise in a woman. Hrdy has long emphasized that ambivalence and even rejection of an infant are oth- er impulses a new mother may feel. In reality, “maternal commitment” tends to emerge “piecemeal,” Hrdy explains, and is “chronically sensitive to external cues.”
Maybe you’ d become one of those “in-love” women and be wildly happy you’ d had children. However, in your email, you repeatedly made it clear that you don’t want kids. You are only consider- ing it because you love this man and don’t want to lose
You might ask friends who are parents to an infant and other young kids to let you spend a long weekend with them. Admittedly, this isn’t the same as parenting your own kids, but it might give you a sense of whether you’re actually up for the job — or whether you’re like me. Per- sonally, though I have great respect for devoted, loving parents, if I were in charge of a thing that screams like it’s being eaten alive by a zombie, it would take about 20 minutes before there was grain alcohol in my coffee — and in someone’s sippy cup.
By “external cues,” she means a woman’s current context — such as whether she’s unable to adequately feed and protect her infant. War, famine, postpartum de-
Proo
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