I AM A CHILD-FREE CAT-LESS LADY
A brief memoir
By Jaimee K Martello (she/her)
Content warning: discussions of misogyny, miscarriage, abortion, mental ill health, suicide
Call me a United States childless cat lady. Sans cat. I could go hardcore fem and preach pussy power but I’ll keep it a low-key housecat for the trolls in the back.
Recently a woman at my yoga studio talked about her chance of living a child-free, single life. This was not her wish, but she recognised that the cookie-cutter family does not fully bake for all of us. Another friend in our conversation knew I was child-free and asked me, ‘I’m not sure, but I may not want to have children, can I ask about your journey?’ She fears making it official and is also 15 or 20 years younger than me.
I am an open book, so I was honest with my two friends, and I’ll be truthful with you now through my lens.
At age nine or ten I remember telling my mother, ‘When I get married four years after Allison, our kids could be friends!’ I am a middle child with two bookend sisters. Allison was four years older, and Aja two years younger. Consider this future-forecasting kid-math.
But my mother was honest, ‘It does not always work that way.
‘You don’t get married in linear succession. You may fall in love with your future husband before her, or perhaps not at all.’ This blew my maturing mind away. Reagan was in the White House when I realised, ‘Could I grow up and not have a family like mine?’ Abortion rights and trickle-down economics were hot topics. But the only thing I thought ‘trickled down’ was a traditional family unit. Were my prince charming and white picket fence not guaranteed?
In high school, I had a few pregnancy scares. It was with one boy, but I will defend my gals with a different story than mine. I was a thin girl with an irregular period and undiagnosed anxiety disorder. Enter… intrusive thoughts. My cycle was, and still is, painful. But as a teenager, I thought the worst of the worst. There would be so much blood. My stomach always cramped on my period and would give me cold sweats and the shakes. None of it felt natural. Once I was over a month late, my boyfriend and I talked about it and he immediately wanted it taken care of. He couldn’t be a father. I didn’t want to be a mother, but I wasn’t comfortable getting an abortion. When it came the clotting was gruesome. When not in the bathroom, I would lie in the foetal position and try to breathe. I wondered if it were a miscarriage. I didn’t know why my pain was extreme, and I didn’t ask. I didn’t grieve for the loss of a baby because I didn’t go to a doctor. I didn’t know what was going on. I was an unready adolescent. My speculation was confusing, perhaps overdramatised by my inclination to panic, and I started to question my fertility. That made me sad.
A few months later my period was very late again. I was scared and this time I didn’t tell my boyfriend what was going on. I didn’t tell anyone.
Distracted, I was unprepared for an assignment at school. My English class assigned reading Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. I had forgotten to complete the book. My teacher called in sick and a substitute was present. I thought I was in the clear. But the substitute handed out a pop essay asking for a detailed synopsis of the novel. I wanted to cry. I wanted to run home. But I didn’t. I said fuck it, I ignored the prompt and wrote a page front and back about how terrified I was of being pregnant, how my life would change, and that I was not ready. And that no, I didn’t read Sense and Sensibility, nor did I think that affected my future in that moment of fear.
Writing the paper was cathartic. Just as if I were journaling in my bedroom. Except, I handed it in. I handed it in! A cry for help? Maybe? I think a 17-year-old kid should have better outlets to ask for help than a Hail Mary pass to a substitute teacher.
When the teacher returned to class he announced, ‘I realize a pop essay wasn’t the fairest of me.’ He crumpled our class’s paperwork and tossed them into the trash. In front of all of the 22 seniors including me. ‘I’ll give you another chance tomorrow.’
He didn’t look at me, nor did I suspect he read them at the time. It felt like a coincidence, although he was likely a caring teacher and a good actor.
I got my period that night and rented Sense and Sensibility starring Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, and Emma Thomson (who also wrote the screenplay) from Blockbuster. I cried. I remember my mother coming home from food shopping to me in tears. ‘Are you okay?’ I wasn’t. But as I helped her bring in the groceries I felt better.
I still love that movie. It inspired me to finish reading the book. But I wish I could read the words crafted in crisis by a seventeen-year-old me.
I am thankful that generations younger than me talk more about the female body than we did. In the late 90’s we didn’t have tampons in the girls’ room in New York schools, we were left to fend for ourselves which could lead to embarrassing and scarring situations for a teenager.
The United States has a vocal anti-choice movement against abortion; I don’t understand how we protest for our children to be born, but once you’re here… good luck to you. If that child grows up and chooses not to have children, our leaders and the general public openly call us old maids, librarians, and spinsters.
In college, the internal (not maternal) instinct that I was infertile grew ever louder. My cycle was still irregular and painful. I struggled with growing pains, young adult angst, and the chaotic college experience. My future felt uncertain. My problems were the same as high school. Classwork, boys, friends. But everything was louder. The solutions carried more weight. In a sociology class, the instructor spoke about secondary needs. As a reference, he said we are not only in college to master a career but to meet our future husband or wife. I didn’t know if I would have that. To date, my partners were emotionally abusive and fed off my desire to please people.
I battled one of the darkest depressions I have ever had. I contemplated suicide on multiple occasions. I never talked about my mental health openly until my mother forced me to call a hotline. I was prescribed Prozac over the phone.
When I thought about my future, I told myself I could adopt kids. I still believed my destiny -as most little girls- was to grow up, get married, and have kids. But my body didn’t feel physically capable. And my relationships weren’t yielding either.
As years and boyfriends passed, I never developed the need for children that my sisters and female friends had. Women would tell me it will come, or it may come. One minute you won’t have it and the next every fiber of your being will want to be a mother.
Didn’t come.
This next suggestion, or nudge, toward motherhood, was… well, I’ll tell you...
I was in a long-term relationship that showed no signs of a future traditional family unit. At a party for my younger sister’s engagement (these things, proven, do not happen in linear succession), a female family member said, ‘You know you are in control, right? If you wanted a baby.’
I wholeheartedly apologise if they were not suggesting I trap my boyfriend. But I think they suggested I trap my boyfriend.
It didn’t matter if I were in control or not. I could adopt. I could try a surrogate or insemination. These things were completely in my control if I chose to effort toward a child. I didn’t choose to. And I hope future girls and women continue to make their own choices.
I was also scared. I live with high-functioning anxiety and have survived depression. Unless I tell you that I am anxious, you will never know. I am a successful, over-productive, ambitious self-starter. I finish projects. I’ve grappled with intrusive thoughts since I was a child; an anxiety condition which has only just joined the conversation in society.
But, yes, I was terrified of not being a good parent. Of passing on my emotional defects to a child. That my miswiring would send me spiraling. When you make a statement like this out loud you will be told that a mother’s instinct will kick in. The bond during your term will get you through it. You can lean on family and friends for advice. All of that may be true. But why risk it if it was still something I didn’t see in my future?
This is my personal, and rightful decision, as a responsible adult who does not want to cast pain onto the next generation.
US VP candidate, JD Vance said in a 2021 interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the country was being run by ‘a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too’. This was a stupid, childish, dated comment. Why is my choice/someone’s circumstance to be child-free in the US a politician’s talking point and target of slander?
After the Harris vs Trump debate on Sept 10th during which former President Trump stated immigrants were responsible for ‘eating the dogs… eating the cats.. eating the pets of the people that live there,’ Taylor Swift posted her endorsement for Kamala Harris. Signed With love and hope, Taylor Swift Childless Cat Lady. Over 11m people liked it on Instagram. At the risk of alienating his next-generation audience, Vance continues to push the conservative narrative of defining women as purely mothers.
Why is being child-free as an adult a political conversation at all?
This may not be a political essay, but why the hell are we making it one? I believe in an individual’s right to choose, more than just our family composition, but our religious beliefs, our right to basic needs like food and housing, our freedom of speech, and more. I am frustrated that supporting choice as fundamental principle labels me as a (miserable) leftist.
My story and my choices are personal, not political. I care about our nation; I love my nieces and nephews, and my friends’ and colleagues’ kids. And, damn it, do I want the best for their future? YES. And their parent’s future, and mine. Hopefully, my husband and I have another 45 years on planet earth to care about this country. I think the stakes are stupid-high for me and my child-free compatriots.
My personal journey was not an act of liberation, defiance, or protest. I decided what was best for me, and in the present for both myself and my husband. My family. Being child-free was not a country or political-based choice, it was an individual one and came of lifelong learning. I honor every individual’s choice; I only ask the same. The principle of choice is a human right that should not be undermined by capitalism, government, or religion.
My experience is genuine as is yours. Family is not cut from a mold. And it is not a tool to be wielded against us. Also, I am not miserable. My cup runneth over.
My friend, who is questioning her choice ahead asked, ‘How did you find the resolve and conviction in your decision to be childless?’
‘Age. I’ve lived long enough in my shoes, in my head, and with my heart to know that my decisions… are mine. My journey is not yours. You have some time, but use it wisely, and I will be here to support your choice, whatever the outcome.’
For those making this political: Do not think you have the allowance to feel bad for us. And don’t assign us a pet, a political party, or a nickname. Only my husband can cat-call me.
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