Non-Breeder: Not On Board
My dream girlfriend denies me only one thing: fatherhood.
by John Freeman
January 18, 2007
Nine years ago, fresh out of college and six months into the worst job
I ever had, I fell in love with children. It was lunch time, and the
publicists at my company had gathered in the director's
office, on the nineteenth floor of a building that resembled a rocket ship.
For some reason, Clarissa had brought her son to work that day. Christopher was three, cute and nose-runny. A little man in a
woman's world — or so I felt back then, working for an editor who
threw things at me and turned blotchy when she screamed. I refused to go
and cry in the bathroom.
Instead I went outside and smoked, and I had just returned from a good
tarry sulk when I spied Christopher that first time. He was surrounded
by a crowd of women, cantered down to his level, crying his name.
Christopher! Christopher! Christopher! I entered the room in the middle
of this toddler pile-on, uncertain of what to do. But then, for some
reason, he looked up and met my eye. The circle parted and he stomped
over into my arms. I never felt comfortable holding children: they
seemed both breakable and squishy. But Christopher and I, we fit. His
head fell onto my shoulder and I stood up, patting his tiny bottom. I
was in love — and for a brief moment, so was every woman in that room.
I always assumed I wanted children, but they were an idea — not a
living, breathing presence. After Christopher, however, I felt some
sympathy with the so-called bodily clock that ticked inside women. Mine
rested just below my clavicle, and I could hear it hammering away each
time I saw a child. I'd rubberneck on the street whenever a baby cruised
by in a stroller or looked up at me from a shopping cart. I made faces Children became something I put off but assumed that time would faithfully deliver, like the morning newspaper.
and the love just poured out of me like water from a busted dam. These
kids, they seemed to know it, too. Hey, their eyes said, how are you
doing? You need one of us. Inside, I knew I was Superdad waiting for my
moment in the telephone booth.
Leslie, my girlfriend, found this fixation a bit strange, even
worrisome. Whenever we went out with other couples, I'd hear her saying,
"I don't think I ever want to have kids" — and I'd think to myself, Yeah,
yeah. Just give it time. Back at home, crawling into our bed, she would
put on her Serious Face to tell me the same thing: "You should know I'm
not kidding about this." I'd don my Listening Face and say, "Well, that's
okay. We don't need to worry about it right now, anyway." We were both too
busy with our jobs to think about anyone but ourselves.
Children became something I put off but assumed that time would faithfully deliver, like the morning newspaper. Just as I knew that Leslie and I
would get married, leave New York, move some
place quiet and leafy, develop winter sports habits, purchase an old
four-wheel drive, stumble upon a rough-and-tumble Labrador I'd name
Jack. I'd write something profound and overwhelming but utterly true;
she would start her own business. I'd become closer to my parents, make
hers proud, do something good for the world, and give up smoking.
Piece-by-piece, however, we lose our innocence, so gradually that at
the moment of its departure it is not some last fringe of purity, but
nostalgia. We tried living in New England, a stone's throw from Walden
Pond, but neither of us could stand the winters or traffic. In 1998, my
mother was diagnosed with a rare neurological disease, and
month by month I watched her personality being erased. I couldn't give
up my secret smoking, and 9/11 carved a hole in my life that only
learning about why it happened could fill. I got married to Leslie and then
separated before we'd even sent thank-you cards. Near the age of thirty, I
had given up on everything but writing and dogs.
Besides, it's hard to think about bringing kids in the world when death
seems to be all around you — which was how I was beginning to feel. One
of the last full private conversations I had with my mother before she
lost her ability to speak was just after Leslie and I split up. We were
in the guest bedroom in my parents' house in upstate New York around
Christmastime. It was cold, and the snow drifted halfway up the first
floor walls. I had promised to tape record conversations before her
voice was gone — but without a wife, I had a hard time imagining kids to
hand the tapes to. I told her this and she started to cry.
©2007 John Freeman and Nerve Media
About the Author
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John Freeman is a writer in New York. His essays and reviews have appeared in The American Scholar, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post Book World. |
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