Yesterday my friend sent me a photo of a baby grimacing with its thumbs up. Most recipients would have smiled and moved on. But I got stuck on it. I looked at the baby's face, my face straight. I turned my head and squinted, imagining it making cute baby noises. No cluckiness. Nothing. Just a slight sense of discomfort.
Our most recent Bureau of Statistics data tells me that I am less than two years off being the median age (29.6 years old) for having my first baby. My eggs are at their best, raring to go. But my instinct and my emotions are completely not into babies. I only finished university in 2015. I just started my grad job. I have no money. I'm not even ready to commit to furry animals (fish only, thank you, although I did consider a rescue parrot this year).
I'm completely disinterested in having a baby. I'm 27 and non-maternal.
This baby thinking only has recently begun to come up for me because some of my friends are starting to get married (apart from my gay friends, thanks government) and babies are starting to be a thing that we talk about. More significantly than that, I think, is the fact I now work in an office surrounded by pregnant women and mums, women whom I can relate to.
Before this year, my conception of "babies" was that they were a thing that could happen in the distant future. Now, they are a thing that I feel like I need to factor into my life plan. Because even though I have no maternal instinct, I'm not rash enough to make the call that I definitely don't want babies or that I never will. So, logic and foresight beat instinct, and "potential baby" now appears in my imaginary three to eight-year plan, in among all the other things (crush my career, live in NYC, change the world, and so on). Scheduling "baby" into my life timeline sort of feels like scheduling a tentative holiday for a few years' time in a country I'm not particularly interested in.
Sometimes I feel resentful that I even have to think about it. Resentful that I feel like I have to achieve certain career goals by the time I am in my early 30s, in case I want to have a baby, and that my male colleagues don't have to think that way. Resentful (or envious) that my housemate told me last night that he'd never thought about the timeline-baby thing; that my love, who is 31, says he would love to have kids but he's in no rush; that my Dad was 50 when I was born.
But before I get all ranty about the injustice of it all, I remember, women having children is the most natural thing in the world. It is a beautiful thing. And also, life is unfair, so I just need to get over it.
Thinking about babies brings with it so many conflicting thoughts and feelings. I feel guilty, because I think about my Nan, who had seven kids, changed the world, and was the best person ever, and I wonder why I don't want to follow her path. I think about my Mum, who like me, never felt maternal, but when I came out she realised this whole new level of love, which she has given to me fiercely and unconditionally – and I wonder why I don't feel the desire to have that same experience. I think my family is the most important thing to me and if I don't have babies, I won't have my own family – but still, that emotional pull just isn't there.
Writing this, I feel exposed and vulnerable, and scared of how people will react. But I also feel pretty damn lucky that I live in a time where I am empowered to make my own decisions. That if I do have a baby one day, I can decide when and how that happens, along with my fellow baby parent. And that no one can dictate what I do with my life, other than me.
Claire Thurstans is a Fairfax Media columnist.
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