Responses to the Question, “Why Didn’t You Ever Have Kids?”

“Diapers are an environmental disaster (and also, yuck).”

“I enjoy my carefree lifestyle of two jobs, an elderly mother whose crises necessitate expensive bi-weekly trips out of state and a diabetic cat that needs insulin shots twice a day.”

“It was so great to catch up with you after all these years, really, but would you look at the time?”

“According to their profiles, all the sperm donors available were Rhodes Scholar finalists for both the Fields Medal and the Man Booker Prize who’d at least bronzed in the Olympics, and I really just wanted a regular kid.”

“That’s kind of a personal question, isn’t it?”

“I hate getting up before 9 am (mainly because I am sometimes up until then finishing freelance work).”

“I considered it, but I couldn’t afford a nanny, a dangerously ill-trained au pair or even a teenager who might work for $5 an hour and access to my unlocked liquor cabinet.” (That mid-shelf bourbon is fucking expensive.)

“My mother had it rough with my grandmother. I had it rough with my mother. My cat seems to think I’m pretty fucking awesome.”

“Do you ask childless middle-aged men this question?”

“As a matter of principle, I’m opposed to minivans.”

“Yes, I realize I’ve missed out on an integral part of the female experience. But the one week a month I spend writhing on the bathroom floor and bleeding through every goddamn overpriced tampon in the box helps remind me that I am, and always shall be, one with the sisterhood.”

“Why didn’t you ever have a cat?”

“Watch an episode of Better Things and then let me know if you still have any questions.”

“That’s really none of your business, is it?”

“Maybe I’m infertile! Maybe I had a miscarriage! Maybe I never met the right partner! Maybe I thought the prospect of having a child alone only made sense for women with a trust fund and the patience of Gandhi!”

“Maybe I wanted to break a dysfunctional family pattern and the only way I could figure out how to do it was to not have kids.”

“Maybe it’s none of your fucking business.”

“You’re right, I will have regrets when I’m in menopause! I regret staying in my dorm to study that night in 1984 when R.E.M. played The Rat. Beyond that, I’m good.”

“Yes, I realize there will be no one to take care of me in my old age. No one I can demand to hop on a plane to change my burned out lightbulbs and clip my toenails, no one who will spend hours scrubbing my kitchen — cleaning out the moldy cheeses and rancid mystery meats from the fridge, handwashing all the dishes because the dishwasher is broken and I’m too cheap to get it fixed — and who I will then berate because I would have preferred said adult child (almost certainly a daughter) use a different kind of cleaning solution, one that I refuse to believe has not been on the market since 1992. I’m good with paying strangers to put up with this kind of shit, thanks.”

“MAYBE IT’S NONE OF YOUR MOTHERFUCKING BUSINESS.”

“Yeah, probably I’m just selfish.”