The Fall of Indecision

Another summer has just passed. I’m fine with that. I enjoy fall; it’s weird to think my favorite time of year is when everything outside is dying. I can’t help it. I love autumn’s beautiful death. I’m sitting in my cold house trying to be frugal and not turn on the heat. As I write now, I’m hiding inside several layers of clothes trying to keep warm. I’m hiding in my clothing like I’m hiding in this text—I’m trying not to talk about myself. I saw a painting once at an amateur art show. Using simple acrylic mixtures, the artist crafted a frightening self-portrait and the vision haunted me—still haunts me. She had captured a version of herself that looked frightening and hideous. Her blond hair was stiff and damaged, like a woman who had permed her hair too much. The makeup under her bloodshot eyes ran black down her cheeks. She was cowering in a corner looking frightened and crazed. This is how I look to myself sometimes. Or, like Kafka’s Gregor when he wakes to discover himself as a disgusting insect—embarrassed, ashamed and afraid to let people see. It might be my biggest fear—letting someone see my foulness, or even looking at it myself.
It’s so much easier to think about other people’s darkness rather than our own. I love other people’s filth; it’s exciting. I think most people do. That’s why sometimes there are news stories that capture the public’s attention. My mom likes a television show called Nancy Grace. Nancy Grace is a reporter who urgently and relentlessly covers the most fascinating and disturbing killers. Sometimes it’s so horrible, it’s hard to imagine they are real people, but they are. Two years ago—around this same time of year—Nancy Grace was investigating a case involving a toddler named Caylee Anthony. The Florida police suspected the mother had killed her, since little Caylee had been missing for over a month and her mother, Casey, had not reported it. The skeletal remains of the girl were eventually discovered and Casey was charged with murder. My mom likes to call her a sociopath; she has a degree in psychology and enjoys diagnosing people she sees on TV.
It was said that Casey would feed her three-year-old daughter Xanax and leave her in the trunk of her car while she partied with her friends. She had told people Caylee was being watched by “Xanny the Nanny.” Everyone assumed the nanny was a real lady until they learned what Casey was capable of. Florida investigators found evidence that led them to believe Caylee had died in the trunk one night and Casey had eventually dumped her body down the street from their house. “What would cause someone to do this to another person? Especially a mother doing this to her—”and I never finish the thought.
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When I was in second grade, I had a friend named Stephanie. Stephanie had several dolls that she dressed and powdered daily. She liked for them to smell like real babies because it helped her to pretend she was a real Mom. I had one doll that I can remember playing with. Her name was Lilly. I took her everywhere until one day my mom accidentally picked the doll up by the arm and, as a result, it fell off. My mom told me she was so scared to give me back my toy. She imagined I’d be traumatized by the dismemberment and not be able to understand. What happened, however, was something she didn’t expect. I spent fewer than ten seconds examining her amputation and then decided I didn’t care. There is one picture of me holding Lilly. The doll I see in the picture is naked, but simple, with just a cloth body and plastic limbs. Her right arm is missing and the remaining arm and legs are dirty and distorted from the rough travels of a three year old. The exposed cloth is dirtier, still. It looks stained and ragged and it is obvious I had never bothered to dress her; never bothered to clean her; never bothered to nurture her at all.

I am an only child. There’s a lot of pressure on me to have children. My mom wants a grandchild more than anything in the world. She could easily win Nurturer of the Year awards. She has a collection of Bob Ross on VHS that she has recorded over the years; I think she’s in love with him. She has always surrounded herself with plants and animals. At any given moment we have had at least two dogs. We’ve had doves, guinea pigs, cats, and parrots. Before I was born my mother even had a pet fox. All of the animals love her as do all the children in my family. She’s like Cinderella—she might as well have blue birds make her bed in the morning surrounded by little animated heart bubbles that pop in the air when she sings to them.
It’s safe to say I don’t enjoy children. My family asks me constantly when I’m going to have some. I used to say never, but in a mysterious and dismissive way which would prompt people to smile knowingly and say, “You have plenty of time.” People don’t say that anymore. I can sense the urgency and my coy dismissals aren’t as cute as they used to be.
Once, while I was at work, a new mother, Nikki, brought in her baby. Everyone was excited. All the female voices immediately raised an octave higher. I got nervous. At some point the child got passed to me as if we were all embers of coal, taking turns being awakened by the sacred child. Her name was Natalie and she looked alien and androgynous in her yellow onesie. I remember thinking her body felt hot, so I didn’t hold her close. Instead, I dangled her in the air a few feet in front of me, staring awkwardly at her strange human features. After a moment, I realized people were noticing. It seemed to me then—although maybe this was my paranoia—that all their faces turned towards me with a piercing curiosity, as if they had just noticed I was not actually a woman. It was if as I was just like Lilly: dirty, distorted, naked, and devoid of female anatomy.
When my family gets together, all the kids go barreling towards my mom. “Aunt Ruthie!” She sneaks them chocolate and manages to make sleepy, stone-faced babies smile. They have to be reminded what my name is and it’s painfully obvious I was not born with the magical-mothering gene. I know my family gets uncomfortable with my indifference to younger cousins. For instance, my cousin Dan has three kids already and hopes for one more. He doesn’t tell me I should be practicing being a mother on his kids; he’ll just toss one in my lap when I’m not looking and hope something clicks. I never know what to do. I use words that are too big for them and sarcasm they couldn’t possibly understand. I don’t know what tone to take or how to dodge laughing at their botched jokes. I hate answering fifty questions and I don’t meet their nonsensical understanding of the world with delight and amusement. I meet it with impatience.
Besides feeling inadequate, my thoughts on having children are plagued with fear. What if I wait too long and then decide I really do want them?
What will my husband and I be missing?
What if I end up alone and in a nursing home, while all the people who once loved me are dead, and I’ll have no children to come see me?
What if I really will love them more than anything in the world? When I tell people I don’t like kids, they say it’s different once you have your own. That it’s like a switch turns on and all of a sudden you love your child more than you’ve ever loved anything. It’s the kind of love that’s incomprehensible; indescribable; it’s love that defies language. I’m scared—scared to miss out on that kind of love.
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Worst of all, though, would be having a baby to discover I was right all along. I don’t like them. What I hate most is the selflessness expected from mothers. It seems as if some mothers I know forfeit their identity to motherhood. I see a bizarre worship of children all around me. American movies, restaurants, stores, garage sales; everything is geared towards making your child happy. Whatever happened to parents maintaining adult life and setting up little Bobby in his play pen with some vacuum accessories, because children never like the overpriced toys they are pampered with anyway.
I have two friends whose phone calls I avoid. They are not able to have a conversation in peace. Every other sentence they distractedly deliver to me is paralleled by six others directed at their child. “Don’t do that . . . put that down . . . what? . . . Yes, you can have cereal . . . Give Mommy the fork.” As a result, most breeders I know have been reduced to nonsensical babblers, who instead of talking directly to me, imitate their child in an irritating baby voice saying things like, “I just love to keep my mommy awake, don’t I?” Maybe that’s why I don’t like to hold babies. I’m afraid they’re contagious and I, too, will become one of the empty drones who have hollowed themselves out in order to make room for children.
Of course, I know that all mothers are not like this. My mom has her own personality. She paints in her garage where she surrounds herself with giant healthy plants she has grown from seedlings. She plays a twelve-string guitar and rides a Harley Davidson. Even while I was young she maintained a separate space from me. I was taught to be quiet while she was on the phone, and I knew how to entertain myself—I had to. Why—if I know there is such a thing as Moms who maintain balance in their lives—do I spend so much time angry at mothers and blaming my culture for its arbitrary rearing standards? In fact, why am I angry at all? I’m a modern day woman and nobody expects anything from me. My mom is the only person who would be upset and I know she would understand. Why am I angry?
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When I think about my full-bodied reaction to children and motherhood, I think of Buddhist monks. They devote their life to finding wisdom and their method is unique. Instead of looking to science or scripture, they look inside themselves. Buddhists sit for—sometimes—hours in deep meditation exploring their senses for wisdom—wisdom they are born with. How do I know I should not have children? My body tells me so. My question concerning how Casey Anthony could do that to her child never got finished. When I think of what she has done I’m not thoroughly confounded. Instead, I’d describe it as a semblance of curious fear that I, too, might know what it would be like to feel dangerously burdened by my child. And, when I look into the selfless world of motherhood, I don’t see honor. I feel suffocated because I see prison.
Of course, I love my mom and I know the world needs good mothers. Because I don’t want to spend my life harboring negativity, I need to make peace with my decision. After all, a lot of women have this choice to make. I’m not special or alone. It is one of the—if not the—most important, difficult, and irreversible decisions we will make in our lifetime.
Unfortunately for us, it’s a choice we don’t really make just once. We have to keep deciding. Every time my mom retells one of her favorite stories from when I was baby, I reconsider. Every time one of my friends—whom I have known forever—passionately tell me about the joys of being a parent, I reconsider. When I see my mom and aunt team up to take care of my ninety-year-old grandma by bringing her two meals a day, changing her sheets, scrubbing her bathroom, doing her laundry, reading her the paper, doing crossword puzzles with her, I reconsider. I used to see them all sit around the kitchen table, drinking coffee, and talking about local news and gossiping about neighbors. Now I’m old enough to sit with them. We are friends united in affection and bonded by blood. I reconsider.
No matter what I end up deciding, I will be left wondering if my life would be better had I chosen differently. My indecision is cozy, warm, and safe. Winter is almost here and another season has passed. I’m fine with that.