With the Supreme Court of the United States seemingly ready to make a major ruling within days on reproductive rights, I think I might take away the abstraction and deal instead with real situations. I could go in many directions here, but I think I might take a path here that isn’t as well trod and calcified. Anti-choice/pro-choice: those are binary choices and relatively easy to understand. But when it comes down to human reproduction, unforeseen complexities and ironies crop up everywhere.
Sometimes it is the people who have planned pregnancies, rather than unplanned pregnancies, that perplex me most. Here’s what I mean. One of my good friends from high school married shortly after graduation, had a child, who is about to be four, and told everyone who inquired that she was going to be their own one. They moved into a house located in a recently gentrified part of town that is simply not convenient towards much of anything, indeed, it is many miles drive from more affluent parts of the city, much less a grocery store, though in that part of town they could at least afford a mortgage on two paltry salaries.
Their house is old, harkening back to a time where families made do with much less space. It is a two-bedroom, one-bathroom house that was already cozy enough with three people. It will be even cozier in seven months. It is fortunate that the soon-to-be-born child will be female, as the older girl will have no choice but to share a bedroom with her sister. I’m not sure what they would have done if a boy was forecast.
As I’ve foreshadowed in my previous paragraph, I’ve now learned that his wife is set to give birth again at the end of the year. I find this decision quizzical, as my friend never went to college or technical school and will not return to school to retool, though I have begged him to do it. He got into some legal problems in high school—nothing major, just some minor possession of marijuana when he was in high school. He was also very much a minor at the time, does not retain a criminal record, is registered to vote, is a dutiful Dad, but will never make much at his current job without at least a four-year degree.
In the past four years, he has complained constantly about how little money he and his wife take in regarding income. I do my best to listen and be sympathetic, but the decision he and his wife have chosen to make seems to make no sense to me. Now, far be it to me to second guess any couple’s rationale about whether or not to procreate. It will certainly never be my decision, only theirs, but when I pressed my friend about why they suddenly wanted two kids instead of one, the most he could tell me is that he didn’t want his current child to grow up as an only child. I hear that cited all the time, but I think it is a sentiment motivated out of best case scenario. I think I would have been happier as an only child.
Though I regret this, my two sisters and I have no relationship at all, much bad blood, haven’t spoken in a year, and I have prepared myself to never resume communication with them for a very long time, if I ever do. Parents have a very natural way of presuming and hoping for outcomes and resolutions that may never come to pass. I really hope my friend and his wife have not bitten off more than they can chew. Perhaps one set of their parents or both is willing to assist them with this brand new challenge.
And I’ll admit, a part of me is frustrated. With one child, pre-pandemic, we were able to sustain a friendship. Now with two young children, we will likely find it very difficult to get together in the future. Perhaps not. But it will take a lot of planning ahead of time. But in any case, I wanted to show that we can get hung up on opposite sides of a divide, a divide that doesn’t lend itself easily to bumper-sticker slogans or fits of rage or indignation. If it were up to me (and it’s not, and never will be), I would have never had more than one child, as is increasingly the case with college-educated middle class White Americans.
Anti-choicers make major logical mistakes, to me, when they make tacit assumptions that every life is sacred and should be preserved. I’m not opposed to the notion of adoption, but I also recognize that this world continues to overpopulate at an alarming rate. And I do not want any parent to feel resentment towards a child they chose voluntarily to raise, for whatever reason. I can’t speak to the situation of my friend with much certainty as I do not live his life, but raising a small child in a pandemic has been a massive challenge. I suppose I can’t understand why someone would want to add an addition layer of complication to what has already been very difficult.
One of the reasons I’ve never wanted kids of my own is that I realize how difficult it is. You have no owner’s manual, and mostly the example of your parents (or some close family member) to rely on, which you hope is a good one. But beyond that, you’re on your own. I’d never tell my friend this, but the dour personality towards his life and his job will not serve him well in the days going forward. I will continue to encourage him to further his career, so that money is not such a lingering worry. But you can never make a person do anything he or she doesn’t want to do.