why communities NEED child free women in order to thrive
we all have an equal obligation to the future of humanity.
The very first time I ever babysat, it was for a family of four who attended church with us. I was somewhere between the ages of ten and fourteen. I’d never even changed a diaper before, but I was now in charge of an infant, two girls under five and an eight year old boy. I cried almost as much as the baby did from all the stress, and the panic I felt.
I miraculously managed to get the kids to bed and tidy up the house before their parents returned; nevertheless, I was traumatized. I’m never having kids, I vowed. At church I felt pressured into feigning maternal interests because practically every other Sunday school lesson taught in the young women’s classes were engineered to groom us for motherhood. Much of what I did and said while shackled to my parent’s religion was insincere if not an outright lie.
During my middle and high school years, I knew I liked kids, I thought they were cute and funny, and when they waved at me, I would smile and wave back. But I had no idea how to interact with them or what to do when they were upset. I certainly didn’t ever want the needs of a child to supersede my own goals and priorities. Instead, I opted to devote my life from the ages of 18 to 22 to other peoples’ kids, and made efforts to acclimate them to survive the rapidly evolving world we’ll all be inhabiting together.
My career in early childhood education began in the midst of the pandemic, around October of 2020. Admittedly, my entrance into the profession wasn’t out of duty or because of my own educational aspirations; as an 18-year-old entering the hellscape of a job market, the only establishments that offered me interviews were daycares and preschools. Looking back, it underscores just how endangered qualified teaching candidates are. This isn’t to disparage any of the young people who are teachers and caregivers for young kids. I’ve worked alongside dozens of brilliant, kind hearted, talented, and thoughtful teachers who were under the age of 25; many of us were even teenagers during pivotal times in education’s history.
In late 2020, the cream of the crop veteran teachers were forced out due to their high risk for COVID, and the abysmal pay for ECE professionals scared off people with a family to financially support, so they resorted to hiring inexperienced teenagers like me to raise America’s youth while their parents slaved away at their respective workplaces just the same. I was compensated $13.50 an hour for my labor. Still too rich for food stamps though, even though I had a whopping $20 weekly grocery budget and regularly ate sleep for dinner.
My senior year ground to a halt on March 13th, 2020. By October of the same year, I would be in charge of 25 young kids in a K-5 class with only a middle aged male coteacher and a revolving door of floating staff members who were there to provide us with our lunch breaks. Some were mediocre, some were batshit insane, some were cruel and hateful, some were literally on drugs, some were overqualified, lots were pretty decent teachers, and some of them taught children as if they were the human embodiment of joy and light. Those were the teachers I sought to emulate.
Following my predecessor’s firing, I stepped into the lead teacher role and took over the school age classroom at a popular American preschool chain. One of my first successes was with a boy who holds a very special place in my heart. A hyperactive, intelligent, and incredibly hilarious five-year-old boy I’ll call Pete expressed being terrified to use the bathroom in our class because “Foxy is going to jump out of the toilet and eat me!”
Despite the other teachers assuring him repeatedly that there were no monsters in the toilet, Pete stood by the bathroom door, distressed and doing a potty dance with growing urgency.
“Look, I made this just for you. It’s anti-Foxy spray so she can’t get you,” I said, showing Pete a spray bottle filled with water. After misting it into the air several times, he finally found the strength and courage it took to pee. I only had to Foxy proof the bathroom a dozen more times after that.
Another kiddo I’ll call Elliot was an autistic second grader who had frequent emotional outbursts and high sensory needs; he despised wearing shoes, and getting him to wear a mask was out of the question. He spent much of the day in his sensory sock, or making creative story videos using the screen recording options on his district issued chromebook that was meant for his homework assignments. Many of his interactions with teachers and other children had an undercurrent of animosity and frustration, and it seemed he mostly wanted to be left alone.
Nearly every night, Elliot was the last to get picked up, so we spent plenty of time together just the two of us. It took weeks, but he opened up by sharing his videos with me. Ultimately, I just wanted him to know I cared, and he appreciated the fact that I asked him questions about his characters and appeared invested in what he worked hard to create.
There was a lot to unpack with Elliot. His grandfather passing away caused him a lot of pain, and as a child who already struggled to emotionally regulate, he started using a lot of self-deprecating language. Once I was helping him with his homework, and, frustrated with a particular math problem, he shouted “I’m just the stupidest person ever and I don’t deserve anything!!”
He took some time to calm down in a structure we called the Cozy Cube, an area filled with cushions and fidget toys for when class became overstimulating. I allowed him the time and space to regulate before coming back over to me. Elliot came out and sat at a table sometime later as I was mopping the classroom and closing everything down for the evening.
“Do you hate me?” Elliot asked.
“Of course not, I could never hate you. You’re sweet and smart and kind and creative, and I care about you.” I can’t recall exactly the words I told him, but it was something to that effect.
“Everybody hates me. That’s why I don’t deserve to be happy.” He was absentmindedly putting together a Lego set with a blank expression on his face.
At this point, a lump forms in my throat. I set down the mop.
“It makes me so sad to hear you say that, because you are a wonderful little boy and you deserve the world, Elliot.” Voice trembling, some tears slip out. Despite me wearing a mask, Elliot notices my crying and seems stunned. He doesn’t know what to do.
Maybe ten minutes later, his mom arrives. Just as he finished gathering his things, he comes up to me, and gives me a hug. A hug in which his head nuzzled against me and I felt the appreciation in that hug. It was the first time I’d ever seen him willingly hug anybody. Once he left the room, I had a long, sappy, happy cry by myself while I cleaned my room in silence.
There’s seldom room for unsolicited advice in parenting discourse from non-parents. If parent A is discussing with parent B about meeting milestones and I chime in amidst group conversation, I feel immediately dismissed because, hey, I’m not the one with the kid. And I never will be.
I made the decision to seek tubal ligation when I was 20 years old after years of being pressured into saying yes to motherhood by an ex boyfriend of mine. Never in my life have I thought about the concept of pregnancy as something I’d like to go through. Every person who has given birth is immediately more badass than I am. I almost cried getting my kneecap tattooed. There’s people whose clitoris rips. THEIR CLIT. RIPS. When it comes to the integrity of my genitals, I tend to be quite risk averse.
Beyond just the body horror movie that nine months of pregnancy can be, I haven’t ever dreamed of raising kids of my own. It’s an interesting enough concept to toss around in a throwaway comment or a hypothetical, me having kids. An occasional “he and I would have cute babies” may escape my lips from time to time; even then, it’s more about the narcissism that underscores this kind of thinking and not at all about my desire to raise a human person from scratch. I think I’ve always known that it just isn’t in my path for this lifetime.
But being a teacher taught me how to talk to people that are going to rule the world. I have had the privilege of having shared so many beautiful moments with so many beautiful souls. I’ve played in infant classrooms and felt more bliss there than all my years of Mormon church attendance combined. I’ve been on playgrounds chasing kids around while they giggled and yelled back, I’ve had heartfelt conversations with kids who trusted me. That’s one of the better gifts that people can give you, is trust. It’s a great feeling to have such pure hearts that harbor no ill intent feel safe with you. Same with animals, too. To be a child’s “person”, the reason why they came to school that day. The phrase “look, it’s Ms. Sage!”, when used to entice a shy child into the classroom first thing in the morning made me beam with pride whenever I heard it. This child’s parent, the guardian of this brand new human, knows that I love their baby, and that their baby loves me. I use the word baby, but the same sentiment applies even up to the teenagers I worked with at a respite center. When any kid picks you, asks to see you, or missed you when you’re gone, it’s evidence that the work you put in to build that bond was worth it.
It’s becoming more obvious by the day that the current model for families in America is awful and unsustainable. Preschool and daycare is expensive if you’re over certain income limits, and taking days off work to watch sick kids drains paychecks. With many people feeling isolated from the outside world, parents neglect both their own emotional needs and those of their children. A parent who worked a ten hour shift then cooked a meal for her three kids by herself is more likely to snap at her family in frustration than a parent whose baseline emotional needs are being met consistently.
One of hundreds of reasons why parenthood isn’t for me: I can count the number of good fathers I’ve met on two hands, but I know more good mothers than I can count.
I know I would be a good parent. If you held a gun to the back of my head for 18 consecutive years, I’d sure raise a high quality person that’s kind hearted and contributes value to society as a whole. I would pull out my heart and wring it dry if my child needed me to. But then what of me? What of the woman that I would have to kill and leave behind in order to fulfill the role of Mother? Creating life is too massive of a responsibility for me to fathom without the added fear of becoming a side character to my own story.
Instead of making a child of my own and making myself a martyr for its every mortal need, I’m much better off as Auntie Sage. I have so much more free time to babysit when I don’t have kids running around! I save so much money not having to buy diapers and wipes and maternity clothing, I don’t need to charge for child care if I don’t want to. For all my closest friends, they know I’ll take care of their kids for free when they need me, because that’s what a village does. All I’d ask in return is companionship and an occasional night out together, because I believe a good friend ought to give in to my debaucherous nature from time to time, too.