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A girl with blonde hair and small hands stood behind a stone column as I stood slightly off the curb of my elementary school’s carpool lane, with one foot dangling in the road. I introduced myself and she asked me my grade.

            “First.”

            “Excuse me?” No longer a timid voice reached her lips.

            “First. I’m in first grade.”

            She stifled a laugh. “You’re in FUST grade? What is FUST?” She laughed again. The spit on her horse lips repelled me. Her straw-like hair, stringy and limp, lay like jagged thorns on her forehead. Her eyes were Satan’s crystals. It wasn’t my fault I couldn’t pronounce those pesky r’s, creeping into the words I needed, not every day, but every now and then.

            That same year I sat on my grandmother’s couch, upside down, admiring the rug with the intricate stitch, and said, “I’m never having kids.”

She laughed and told me, “You’ll change your mind when you’re older!”

I shrugged and continued staring at the carpet, not really thinking much about my future disdain towards kids, until I grew up and my dislike for them seemed to be everywhere.

            Here’s the problem: little boys are sticky. You could keep little wipes and washcloths with you at all times, but that cretin will still be there underneath. Fingers with cheeto puff fuzz and marinara-coated mouths haunt me. It’s not just that, though. 

It’s their little penises.

They make me uncomfortable. They look like carrots, or small potatoes, laid out in the sun for years, stained white and lifeless. They’re like the basilisk " don’t look it in the eye and maybe I’ll live through the traumatic event of diaper time. Especially in women’s restrooms, the trauma of diapers and strange little penises seems to be something I’ll never be able to avoid. I avert my eyes while mothers swiftly lift the little boy’s legs and swipe, swipe underneath their little butts and swoosh there goes the diaper and poof the penis is gone.

            My nephew is two years old, but when he was born, I helped my sister change his diaper and dear god, the circumcision. Aesthetically, as a woman, I’m pleased this custom has taken hold for the suitors in my life, but that poor flesh worm. It looked like a bloody, scabbed finger. I couldn’t stand it. My sister, Meghan, changed the bandage at each diaper event like it was nothing but a small cut on the leg. Sometimes I still awake in the night, sweaty and shaking, imagining a time when I would have a loud, sticky baby boy with a gnawed up sausage that called my name, requiring a new bandage.

            When my nephew was a few months old, Meghan collapsed in the bathroom and Mom called me to come babysit. Her husband, Collin, took her to the hospital and Mom left to go get diapers. I’m not sure why we required diapers at that moment, but it must have been urgent. She was mocking my inability to take care of a child and my lack of motherly care. I almost had a heart attack holding him because he was breathing a steady 2 beats in and out and suddenly the little brat switched it up to 3 beats. How dare he switch up the rhythm? Did you know that some infants just die? He could have been dead and the breathing was actually mine that I had mistaken as his. When my mother returned, I basically football spiraled him into her arms. After that, whenever Meghan asked if I wanted to hold him, my answers were quick excuses:

·       I think I feel a cold coming on

·       He looks nice over there, way over there

·       My arms don’t feel very strong today

·       Oh, I’m actually on my way out

            What if he died in my arms? What if his neck just broke because I held him wrong? What if I held him too tightly? What if I dropped him? What if I accidentally choked him, because I don’t know my hands may have a life of their own. One time he peed on me. If it were up to me, I would put him in a cage and maybe throw a steak in there every now and then.

            Although babies cause me to have a panic attack every time I even think of the possibility of taking care of them, I can deal with middle school kids pretty well. I was first a camp counselor when I was 15. My cabin consisted of 7-8 year old girls. Instead of the cool sister vibe you give off when dealing with girls older than 12, these girls assume everyone is their mother. I am not your mother; please get off me, little slug. One night while we were watching a competition between two cabins, one of my campers came and sat on my lap. I thought to myself: Aw, how sweet. This isn’t so bad.

She turned to me and said: “You have a mustache.”

Oh. Okay you little snot. I try my best but sometimes societal expectations that men uphold for women are too much and you’ll understand when you’re old and grumpy and have a mustache like me.  

            You can’t say that to a delicate little flower, though, so I gave her a tight squeeze, leaned in slowly, and whispered sweetly in her ear, “Thank you.” B***h. I mean, why be honest with tomorrow’s leaders when you can lie and break their hearts when they grow up and realize that the human body is covered in hair? Little girls don’t know that, though. I guess I can help further their innocence, as some sweet counselor did for me. I hope I never pointed out the flaws on a woman, but how would I have known I was doing anything wrong? Children are ignorant, but this shouldn’t excuse them for rudeness.

            Then there was Johnny. It was my last year at camp. I was 17. I was naive. I thought I wasn’t good with kids, but I found out I just hate kids. We went on a campout with my cabin, 13-year-old girls and another cabin, 13-year-old boys. God help us all. We rode the bus to the campsite, swam, and had dinner. There was a huge room for all the campers to sleep in so we set a guys’ side and a girls’ side. We made a human barricade including chairs, but nothing could stop the onslaught: Hurricane Johnny. He was a small boy for his age, but with the eyebrows of a man. He was quick-tongued. He was an a*****e. It was his second week at camp and for everyone else it was his or her first " he felt entitled. He was a trouble camper, or Code Green, as we called it. We were all settling down for bed when Johnny storms over to me:

            “I want to sleep there.” He points to a girl’s sleeping bag.

            “No, go to the boys’ side.”

            “No.”

            “Go to bed, Johnny.”

            “NO.”

I look over to my counselor, signal Code Green, and she approaches. Johnny yells:

            “What are you going to do? YOU CAN’T TOUCH ME! I’ll SUE you! You can’t TOUCH ME!”

            What a shriek. What a little s**t, but he was right: we couldn’t touch him.  He had broken our invisible spell. I saw the children thinking they can’t touch us. We are invincible. They were. They were a little children army with Johnny as their leader. They would take over the camp. We tried to reinstate control, but Johnny slapped my hand away when I tried to usher him towards his side. He pointed at me and screamed:

            “You’re a FAT B***H!”

            Oh, I must be. He’s right. I must be fat since a 13-year-old the size of a radish says I am. Johnny will get the s**t slapped out of him, unless he finds one of those women that love a******s for some reason. He must have learned it from somewhere, too. His father and his mother are both to blame. They grew a weed when they could have easily grown a flower. What do you do when your child is an a*****e? You can’t just stop feeding it and hope it leaves. The chances are too high. I’d just rather not risk it.

            One time when I was 12, I played flag football with a bunch of boys at an end of the year picnic for a school I didn’t even go to. I was already in unknown territory and to make matters worse, there was a boy I liked who was playing football as well. I was trying to impress him and the first thing I do is run backwards straight into this child, knee first. He fell to the ground and then I stepped on him. It was a progression of oops, oh my god, what the f**k. All the guys laughed at me and that little boy screamed and screamed and screamed until I didn’t even feel sorry for him anymore.

            One time, my nephew sneezed into my mouth. He purposely pulled open my mouth with his little claws and spewed his munchkin diseases onto my tongue.

            One time when I was four, I went to a day camp with this girl and I told her that gnats crawl into your eyes and eat your eyeballs. She cried until the counselors put me in time out. Okay, that one was my fault, but the girl cried about everything.

            One time, I saw a little boy smack his mother with his shoe until he could get some candy into his drooling mouth.

            One time, I saw two parents buy their kids ice cream cones after the kids had screamed for ten minutes, begging and snotting all over the place. When the parents finally complied, the kids threw the ice cream cones on the ground and then ran away.

            One time, this little boy scratched my leg with his toenail. I considered cutting off my entire leg to avoid ever having to feel that again.

            One time, I actually considered having kids, but I’m saving my kids.

            I’m saving my kids from going to the restroom after talking to their crush and discovering not one, but two, pieces of spinach wedged between their front teeth like an annoying third wheel. I’m saving my kids from going on a first date where they will be so nervous and excited that they’ll pee their pants in a cold movie theatre seat. In desperation, they’ll tie their scarf around their waist and claim, “It’s the latest fashion trend! You wouldn’t understand.” I’m saving my kids from sitting in a senior history class as a freshman on the first day of high school. I’m saving my kids from being the only kid in middle school who doesn’t have the “cool” shoes and feeling like they aren’t good enough due to just some stupid shoes. I’m saving my kids from feeling worthless, from feeling ugly, from feeling weak, from feeling small or stupid or broken.

            I’m saving my kids from awkward dates where the guy only talks about drinking:

“My favorite drink? Definitely a rum and coke, man. That s**t gets me stoked.”

Or girls who only talk about their ex boyfriends:

“And ten there was Tyler. He’s the one who took my virginity. I’ll never forget the way we fucked.”

My sister, Erin, loves kids. I have never been able to understand why. Erin has always wanted kids, even when she was a kid. When she was 16, mom bought her a scary realistic baby doll that would blink and you had to feed it and everything. Erin changed its diaper, slept with it, gave it a name, tried to teach it how to walk, and some other weird happenings. I guess a plastic version is a little better than the one that cries and whines and can’t even stand up on its own.

Another problem with kids is that you can’t return them. You can return jackets and you can send food back to the cook to make again. You can return pets or give them away to someone else as birthday gifts. I don’t think my friends would look at me fondly if I gave them my kid for Christmas. I imagine it going like this:

“You won’t believe what I got you.” I’ll say, trying to get them excited.

“Oh boy!” They’ll say, practically jumping and down because I’ve been talking it up all week. Then they unwrap the large box and little Charles comes tumbling out with stained jeans and shaggy hair.

“Oh…” My friend will say. “It’s so...human.”

I dated this guy in high school once for a few months and he had this little sister. Most girls know in the dating world that a guy with a little sister is definitely a plus because that means he has a somewhat respect for women and has the immediate responsibility to protect a girl, like you. There’s also a limit. I don’t do well with kids under the age of 12. Of course, this particular little sister was 10. I remember sitting at the dinner table with his family, just having a good time eating spaghetti and talking about school. Ms. Boyfriend’s Mom looked over at the sister and proceeded to scold her:

Ms. Boyfriend’s Mom: Your nails are filthy and you need to go clean them

Sister: Ugh

At this point, I look over the sister and notice three things: one, the sister is eating her spaghetti with her hands. Not with one hand, either, but both hands dug fully into her plate like a monkey. Two, her nails were black. She is white. Three, the nails were long and slightly curled like talons. She could probably sit on top of the table and just perch with her claws out, ready to snag anyone’s food at the right moment. It took the mom about ten minutes of arguing and persuading in front of all of us to get the sister to leave the table and to clean and cut her nails. The spaghetti was wiggling around in my stomach as if it were whispering dirty nails dirty nails dirty nails.

Maybe one day I’ll have kids. Maybe I’ll meet a really nice man with brown hair parted slightly to the right and who wears a sport coat that coordinates with his shoes and belts, and says things like, “You’re dashing today” and “Honey, did you get the milk?” Maybe we’ll find a nice house in the suburbs of Massachusetts and we’ll have matching pillows with little white flowers in the middle. Maybe I’ll start liking coffee and we’ll get a dog and name it Sam.

But that isn’t me. I love cats and don’t drink coffee. I want to live in California and learn to surf, learn to cook, take yoga classes, forget the milk, and marry a man who never wears a shirt. Maybe I’ll buy the matching pillows, but I haven’t decided yet.

The man with the sports coat would probably try and convince me to have kids, which is exactly what I don’t want to happen. If I meet the right guy, I may want to settle down and think about having kids, but I know it isn’t a decision I definitely want to make without really thinking about it.

There are people I meet that are very surprised when I tell them that I don’t want kids, like my grandparents who not only assume I want to have kids, but also assume I want a baby boy. They assume everyone wants a baby boy, but I’m not sure where that assumption stems from.

There are some of my parents’ friends who just brush it off, oh you’ll have plenty of time to change your mind. I don’t want to change my mind. If I do, that’s cool, but it’s not like I’m waiting for a time to figure out my destiny that Yes, I want kids, my true reason for existing has been discovered. It isn’t like that.

Then there are the boys, the perfect boys, the ones I could see myself marrying, the ones I never could, because they see starting a family in their near future. I don’t. The golden boys I thought I could fall in love with and start a life with, even though I am still young, broke my dreams because they want kids, lots of them, and I can’t give that to them.             

Sometimes I think this makes me less of a woman and I start to consider what makes me a woman if I don’t have kids. There are women who will tell me this, too, especially in the religious world. There are the Duggars on 19 kids and counting (or is it 40 kids? Seems like it to me). They don’t believe in birth control. Oh my goodness, where would I be without birth control? Birth control is the only true God. I don’t believe that a woman is any less a woman if she does not have kids. Is a man only a man if he can get an erection? Is he only a man through his genitals? That doesn’t make any sense. Am I still a woman if I don’t have breasts or don’t give birth? I don’t think so. I give life to this world through my own. I admit it would be cool to look down at a child and think my body made that, but that simply isn’t what I aspire to do. I have too much to do, too much to see, too many places to go. I have a life to live before I can even think about starting another.

What is my purpose in this world? I think it’s to simply capture life, at its rarest, rawest moments. I have so much more to give than simply life, just life. I have words to say and that, to me, is life in its own version. I respect those that want to have kids, but for me, leave me alone to sip my tea, pet my cat, and ponder a new poem, in solitude. 

Reviews

[Cody Austin]

I am astounded to get to the bottom of this and not see any reviews, it's disturbing really. I haven't laughed this hard since I read Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. Your prose is magnificent, and the story,the story, wow. Oh my god, or oh my birth control, #OhMyBirthControl. This is hillarious. You write what other people are afraid to, I cringed at parts with delight, I've never really thought about circumcision but anytime I hear about it from now on it will be vivid. Flesh worm is a new one for me. This needs to be entered in some sort of contest. I wish more people would write so bluntly, they're thinking it, but you said it. Brilliant.

[Kelley Quinn]

I just saw this! Thank you so much for this great review! I'm glad you enjoyed it (: