“Having a child” vs. “Being a parent”
I thought having kids would make me normal.
My stage show, HEAUX CHURCH runs til Nov 8th. Check out the trailer at the end of this post!
“There’s a difference between wanting to have a child and wanting to be a parent”, Lena Waithe said to me as we sat across from each other in iHeart’s red studio while recording this week’s episode of Tell Me Something Messy. As you can see from the clip, it visibly shook—dare I say gagged me, because I had yet to hear my internal feelings affirmed so clearly.
Before we go any further into this, I want to say to everyone reading this who has or wants to have kids, I am so grateful for you and the parents you are or hope to become! Kids need curious, devoted, and open-hearted guardians like you! My intention with this reflection is to make space for those who are questioning or have decided for themselves that they don’t want kids. I’d like to dispel any shame that might come with that and normalize curiosity around what it means to not become a parent.
Most of my life I dreamed of having kids. It was one of the few things I was certain of. Like most, I wanted to get married, buy a house, and have fifty ‘leven kids (actually, two max!). But a few years ago, that all changed during a solo trip to Amsterdam.
As one does on solo trips, I posed a lot of big questions trying to get to the heart of some unrest I’d been feeling in my life for close to a year. Questions about career, community, relationships, purpose, and family. With an ocean between me and my home, I dared to ask the hardest questions of myself and challenged myself to answer them without judgment. One of those questions was, “Do you want kids?” With an unmatched clarity, I heard my soul speak, “No, I don’t.” Immediately I started weeping. Not from relief, but fear. I had built my life (and my marriage) with kids as a vital and unwavering checkpoint. An anchor to the foundation of my existence. So, who am I if I no longer want them?
Once the initial shock of my realization dissipated, I had to ask a different question. “Why did you want kids in the first place?” The answer came just as clearly; “to be normal.” My heart begins a cold sweat recounting that moment. Somewhere buried underneath years of trauma, I thought if I had kids it would make my queerness more acceptable to society, and more importantly, to my mother. I thought it would mend a brokenness I felt and fuel my engine for living. What an unfair burden I would have put on my offspring- making them responsible for my worth. Responsible for fixing strained and devastated familial relationships.
But thankfully the self-work I’ve been doing the last few years has been about knowing my worth without needing external validation. Accepting that just by existing I’m worthy. That work gave me the courage to ask those hard questions around kids. As I further unpacked, I began to articulate for myself that the reality of the parent I’d want to be would take much more time, effort, and sacrifice than I actually wanted to give. This realization was met with shame. Am I being selfish? Why don’t I want to give that time, effort, and sacrifice? To move through the shame rather than ignoring it, I asked another question; Why should I want to?
When you start asking questions, you realize how much of your shame actually doesn’t belong to you, but has instead been placed on you by way of society, community, and family. Women understand this pressure around kids intimately. Social scripts signal that if a woman doesn’t desire kids that there’s something wrong with her. Perhaps she’s not a “real woman”. Not “normal.” I say, fuck normal. The most powerful and compassionate thing a person can do for themself is follow their own script. Other people don’t get to dictate what is normal for you.
“Having kids” always sounded fun to me—dressing them up, attending recitals, sharing with them my philosophies of life. But the reality of them is sleep deprivation, school pick ups, and navigating their ever-evolving personalities. To get even more specific, I had to contend with the idea of having Black kids in a world that is so anti-Black. The worry of my Black child becoming a Black teenager then a Black adult. Their safety. How they’re treated. Having to explain racism, homophobia, and misogyny. Having to help them navigate social media, and AI, and the slew of norms that I didn’t grow up with. While all of that is manageable and parents do it daily, I realized *I* don’t want to manage that. And that doesn’t make me a bad person. Doesn’t make me selfish. Doesn’t make me abnormal. How liberating to realize I’m not less than because I don’t want to take up that mantle.
When I returned home from Amsterdam, I had to have a difficult conversation with my husband. We lovingly went back and forth, unpacking it together and separately. He understood where I was coming from, and admitted it allowed him to say the quiet part out loud too. He wanted kids, but not the responsibility of them. Not the responsibility of being a parent.
When Lena said there’s a difference between wanting to have a child and wanting to be a parent, I felt seen.
How many people have kids because they thought it’s what they were supposed to do? Because they were following a social script? Because they were trying to fix a relationship or feel their worth? There’s no shame or judgment necessary with those questions, but I think it’s important to identify and acknowledge so that you can navigate your relationship with your children in a way that allows them to be who they are as opposed to you dictating who they need to be for you.
I think it’s okay to have desires, wants, and fantasies for your kid. It’s natural, and perhaps even necessary. But more important is asking your kid who they are, and guiding them to their own freedom. In my opinion and observation, when you “want to be a parent”, it’s not that you’re better at parenting than anyone, but you understand your role is to protect and advocate for who your child is becoming, not burdening them with your own wants.
Having kids may have made me “normal” externally, and may have repaired my relationship with my mother, but it would all be built on something false since my truth was really not wanting kids. I thought everything would crumble with that realization, but in fact they opened up. It allowed me a chance to imagine a different life for myself, one scripted by my own wants and needs. So I’m saying the quiet part out loud to hopefully inspire you to do some digging. Even if you already have kids, you get to still explore your feelings. Ask why you want kids? Ask why don’t want them? Ask who you are with and without them? Dare to answer yourself. As Lena says in our convo, whatever answer you come up with is right! Your answer is beautiful and correct. The most important thing is your willingness to ask and answer—the rest will reveal itself to you.
Watch my full conversation with Lena Waithe!
HEAUX CHURCH Trailer:
HEAUX CHURCH runs until Nov. 8th at Ars Nova!
To send me questions, comments, or share a messy story please email TellMeSomethingMessy@gmail.com
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And in case you haven’t heard it yet today, you are so deeply loved. I love you.
Loved reading your take on this subject, as this is a journey of self discovery I went on in my own life. I'm sure you can imagine the extra layer of "fraught" that comes with making this choice as a woman.
Something you said really resonated with me, and that I've thought about a lot around the work it takes to be the parent you would want to be. Because I chose not to have children, I was able to do so much work on myself in my 30s and 40s and get to a deep place of understanding and healing. If I chose to have kids, much of that work might have been postponed, delayed, or maybe not happened at all.
I'm grateful I got the chance to know myself and work on myself without the responsibilities of motherhood. I know some people might call that selfish, but I actually feel there is a selfLESSness in recognizing that you are not in an evolved enough emotional place to raise a kid.
I now think I might be in the place to be a really solid parent, but I'm in my late 40s so having a kid is not on the cards. With that said, I've been thinking a lot lately about how I use the knowledge I've gained to help young people. You can channel that parental energy in many different ways.
As always, love reading your work!