I Pretended to be Pregnant.
I’m not upset, I swear. So please don’t feel the need to console me. Just hear me out. This may not be ha-ha-funny, but I swear it’s written with a sense of humor.
I went to get a mani/pedi today. I walked in to the nail salon and it was stacked with mother’s treating themselves to painted nails while their kids (patiently, I was impressed) waited.
I was already dreading what I knew to be inevitable. The manicurist who doesn’t speak much English but is of some Asian descent (I know, I can’t tell by accent or looks. I’m sorry. I’m sure that is racist in some way) will notice my wedding ring and assume that because I went along with one tradition that I’m looking forward to the next. She will ask me, “Are you a mother?” When I say, “No” she will continue to prod and ask me if I want to be. If I say no, I might as well chuck the book I’m reading into my foot-soak because I will spend the next forty-five minutes explaining/defending my choice and listening to a lecture about how abnormal I am.
I was not being paranoid. This has happened before. Ever since I got married and wear proof of it on my hands, the nail salon ladies ask me if I want kids. Last time I told a Korean manicurist that I did not and put my nose back in my magazine. She stopped filing and squeezed my hand until I made eye contact with her. She scolded me saying that in her country to choose not to give a man a child and a parent a grand-child is a sin against the family and woman-hood. (I so wanted to ask, “So, aren’t you glad you are no longer living in that country?”)
She told me that I would change my mind and predicted my grim future of changing my mind when it’s too late and I have no eggs left!
I can forgive people from other cultures who just can’t help but be curious and kind of rude at the same time. It doesn’t really bother me to the core. It only annoys me because if I’m paying you and tipping you more than 20% - I think I get to decide our social interaction for that amount of time - and my nose in the book should be a BIG HINT.
I go on and on about this all the time to the point where I’ve been accused of “protesting too much” and just being boring. As far as I know right now, as a 35 and 3/4th year old, I do not want to give birth to or raise a child. My husband feels the same way. In fact that was the tipping point that allowed me to fall down the rabbit hole of love with him after we were together about a year and had a serious discussion that should we ever spend our lives together - do we want the same kind of life? Nearly six years later, we are so sure of our decision that it gets stronger every year as we realize that at this point - we don’t have the DESIRE (ding, ding, ding number one reason) nor the resources (time, money, family nearby, jobs that have normal hours where you can do both raising of a child and working to pay for it) to go and procreate.
I told my husband that I can see one instance where he might end up with a child. If I start taking flying lessons in about 10 years (which I’m sort of secretly longing to do now that I’m over my fear of flying) and I die in some prop plane landing mishap because I got too cocky and wanted to circle the pretty mountain one more time before landing - he will remarry. At that point in his life as an adult male - he’ll have been with a woman longer than he’s been without and he’ll need to have a second marriage. He will probably marry a woman who is about 15 years his junior who has huge gobs of family money and she will want children. At this point - he’ll have gone through a mid-life and dead-wife crisis and he’ll say, “Okay. Let’s do it. As long you can stay at home full time.” He says that that scenario sounds like the most realistic one for deciding that he wants to raise a child.
So anyway, quite often I’m confronted - and I actually feel completely blindsided - by my friends who either forgot that I don’t want kids, or never knew or just feel like asking, “When are you and Neil having kids?” Since these are dear friends of mine whether they be real close friends or casual comedy friends, whatever, I will say, “We are Childless By Choice.” I try to make it sound official - because it is official and a real lifestyle that has a name - books written about it and stuff.
They are always dumbfounded (only the people who have kids or the desire to are dumbfounded.) They insist, “You’ll change your mind.” And the worst, “But you’ll never know what it’s like to have the love of a child run to the door the minute you get home.”
Let’s break this down. I want to continue working in late-night TV or just TV at all. I want to continue touring as a comedian and I want to get 100x more successful at both. I’m putting in 50+ hours a week and up to 20 weekends a year out of town. If I have a kid - that ENDS IMMEDIATELY. So I cease knowing the love of doing what I dreamed of for a living from my bedroom in Needham, Massachusetts. I will stop the train that I feel is chugging along promisingly. I will literally throw away the last 15 years of compromised living in the name of following my bliss to have a kid. So I better make sure it’s THE ONLY THING I WANT TO DO. And I have no interest in doing it. Not even a little bit.
This isn’t to say that moms can’t be career women. I know many. I don’t have it in me to do both. I don’t even desire to do both but think, “Oh well, I don’t think I could handle it.” I don’t even daydream about it. The closest I can come to describing my non-maternal feelings is that it feels just like YOUR MATERNAL feelings. It’s private, it’s not just animal, it’s a decision as well.
Friends of mine and professionals whom I pay to hear me whine say, “When your friends tell you that you will change your mind, why do you get so threatened? Can’t you just say ‘Yeah, maybe I will’ and move on?”
Well, WHY do people have to say that mind-changing thing at all? Why do they have to win? Why does anyone have to win? Can’t they accept who I am and accept that I know myself? It feels like I’m disappearing in front of them when I am told that because my decision is unusual (only 16% of couples in the U.S. remain childless by choice) that somehow I am wrong or immature. Why should I have to ‘give in’ just to make them comfortable? The worst part is I tried that tactic. I’ve said, “Yeah, maybe” and guess what? They don’t stop. The floodgates open and the next thing I know they’ve set a date for my baby shower. I can never, ever, “win.”
The worst part is that some of the people who ask me this - are mutual friends of both my husband and me and they have NEVER asked him.
So I’m at the nail salon. I sit down. First of all, sidenote, the Asian woman must think all white girls look alike because she said, “We haven’t seen you in so long. Your new haircut looks pretty.”
I don’t have a new haircut but it’s new to them because I HAVE NEVER BEEN IN THAT SALON. So I just thought that was funny.
Anyway - she asked me within four minutes. “Are you a mother?” I said, “No.” She said, “I’m sorry.” I said, “That’s okay.” She said, “Do you want to be a mother?” I sat still. How would I answer this in a way that allowed me to go back to reading. She said, “You not ready yet but you will be a mother.” So I said to her, “Well, if you can keep a secret….” and I nodded to my stomach. She said, “How long?” I said, “We haven’t told anyone yet. Very early.” She waved me off. “Okay, okay. I see. I see. Just a few weeks along. I ask no more.”
She smiled at me all throughout the manicure and kept patting my hand. She said something in some Asian language to the pedicurist who then looked up at me and said, “Oh!” She smiled at me.
When I left the pedicurist hugged me SO HARD and kissed my cheek. She said, “You are glowing.”
So obviously manicurist told pedicurist about my very secret baby. Not cool. I also was glowing because I’m wearing a fabulous shimmer from Benefit cosmetics.
And in case you don’t get what I just wrote above - I am not pregnant. I lied to shut them up. Not only did it shut them up, I got a free arm massage with hot oil, many smiles, winks and hand pats, AND a big hug and kiss at the end.
I guess it pays to be a mother. Now I know the love of an Asian manicurist waiting to welcome you at the door.
