all new and shiny

my nephew, who I haven’t met yet. Very soon. I can’t believe I am an auntie, its great! My parents are finally grandparents. He is going to be the most spoilt grandkid in history, but then thats what grandparents are for isn’t it?

I get asked a lot here in mexico as to why I don’t have kids. They don’t understand the fact that I don’t want them. Women get pitying looks on their face and try to persuade me to give Paul a child. He is amazing with small children, they instantly adore him. But he is happy with what I want and thats what matters. It can annoy me sometimes when women here try to tell me I am missing out by not having children. I think sometimes women have children to fill a hole in their lives, to have someone to love. Not most of the time, but sometimes I wonder where the utter desperate need to have a child comes from in some women I meet or when they meet a woman who is happy without children to try to persuade her she is not a whole person without them. I feel for them, especially if they are trying and not succeeding to get pregnant. That must be hard, to want something that your body refuses to give you when it happens so easily for others.

I think the cultural identity of women is bound up in having children, especially in a society which is still male dominated and full of maschimo. The house is the womans centre of power here and she has to fulfill her role or she isn’t a ‘proper’ woman. In the village I was staying in recently the young women were watched by their brothers and fathers to make sure no improper behaviour took place. Made me appreciate growing up in Ireland.

Of course when they do get to me I realise there is a part of me that wonders what it would be like, “Am I missing out?” and sometimes (round the middle of my monthly cycle when the hormones are raging) I think ‘Lets do it!’ then that passes and I think phew.. Actually Paul was the first guy I was ever with I actually thought that about. It was really strange. I was afraid I was going to get ‘accidently’ pregnant so I went on the pill for a while. I want too many things for myself this life, I look at my life and where I want to be in the future and children just don’t appear in the picture. They are amazing and wonderful and they change your life and they bring a love with them that is so strong it can change the world, I just don’t feel the need to have my own, I am going to have to find that connection to the world myself, that power and love and bring it forth. Because thats what children give us, that connection to pure spiritual unconditional love that has no boundries and no limits. But we feel it for them because it is always present in us and we can feel that for the whole world.

I am just going to have to spoil my nephew and my friends kids and be the mad auntie who lives in strange parts of the world and comes to visit bearing gifts and sweets.

xx to all you childless women out there, whether by choice or not, there is an identity for women past the titles ‘mother’ and ‘grandmother’ and xx to all you women with children, if you ever need a babysitter I shall be glad to hang with the madness for a while. I used to babysit two small boys of a friend of mine a lot and it was organised chaos, amazing and I adored them but I was always happy to see her come home too, they wore me out and their batteries were still up and going. I think kids get duracell and adults have changed into a weaker brand.

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