Friday, December 16, 2005

Childfree

I think there might be some deep, important reason why I'm childfree. I've noticed my base, instinctive reactions seem to be pushing me in that direction. I do have your normal care-for-and-protect-a-child instincts, and my instincts when interacting with babies seem to be optimal for the baby's development, but my instincts are also pushing me away actually reproducing myself. It's not that they're pushing me away from sex, it's just that they're totally anti-breeding.

For example, women who are biologically ready to reproduce find more testosterone-heavy physical features attractive on men, but women who are not in a position to reproduce find testosterony features unattractive. I find them unilaterally, 100% unattractive. In the BBC's gender quiz, I picked the less testosterony man as more attractive every single time. I also find behaviours associated with testosterone just unpleasant, something to wrinkle my nose at and walk away from, much like if you saw someone spitting on the sidewalk.

I also find behaviour that results from paternal instincts unpleasant. I see a man being proud or protective of his children or trying to teach them stuff, and it just puts me right off. It's the same visceral reaction as I would have if I walked past an aquarium containing an octopus. The strange thing about this is that most of the traits that I find attractive in men are things that would be considered good in a father - kindness, gentleness, intelligence, loyalty. But a whiff of the paternal, and I'm turned right off. I don't feel that way about maternal instincts - I feel completely neutral when I see a mother being maternal - but the slightest hint that a man might enjoy childrearing and I'm pressing my legs together, crossing my arms tightly over my chest, and cowering away.

I think this might be because there's something in my body - some physical problem, or perhaps some hereditary disorder that I don't know about - that makes it unadvisable for me to have children. I used to want children very much, but this was in early puberty before I developed a libido. As my libido grew, my desire for children shrank. By the time I was actually in a situation where I could have become pregnant if I had chosen to do so, I was vehemently childfree. There must be something in there somewhere that gives me these strange instincts - the same way that when I had a slight tendon injury on my foot, my instincts told me not to put my full weight on it, even though there was no pain when I actually did put my full weight on it. Maybe because I'm so shortwaisted, there would be no way for me to gestate without hurting my bones. (Ick!) Maybe I carry some sort of bad genes. Maybe any babies I'd attempt to have would be born with a serious disability. I don't know of anything definitive, but it really seems like there's some reason for these bizarro instincts I have.

Which brings me to the CF community. I feel strangely unwelcome in the CF community because of my relative youth. CF people like to complain about Kids Today (which isn't one of my favourite pastimes, but not a surprising trait), and I've noticed all too often that they group people in their early 20s - people whom I would consider both adults and my peers - in with Kids Today. It's very off-putting to lurk around in what is essentially a support group for a minority lifestyle, and hear people who could be me, or who were me just a couple of short years ago, cited as Part Of The Problem. I'm sure if I walked in and said I'm 24 and want to get a tubal, they'd all be completely supportive - I'm sure I'd get all the best advice they could give me, and they would passionately defend my right to get sterilized at such a young age. But if I walked in and said I'm 24 and no, I don't see what's wrong with emailing your co-worker instead of walking over to their cube, I'd be flamed out of there.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ok...the CF part just really confused me. What is CF and what are you talking about near the end?