By Mandi Maxwell
I’m unsure about a lot of things in life, but two things I am absolutely sure about: my bisexuality and not having kids.
When I was a kid, I played with Barbies and Sailor Moon dolls, but I never played with traditional baby dolls. I had no interest in them, and I never felt the desire to take care of any doll as though it were a baby. I was more interested in having them fall in love, kiss, scissor, right wrongs, and triumph over evil.
As I grew older, the systematic words started ringing in my malleable mind, regurgitated by expectations of society…
“When I have kids…”
My mouth mindlessly executed the given line, but deep down in the fiber of my heart, I knew I didn’t actually want to.
But I was someone who followed the rules, and the rules were that women got married (to a man) and had kids (with a man). If they had a successful career too!? Well, then they HAD IT ALL! Growing up in a westernized, middle-ish-class neighborhood at the time when MSN Messenger was the way to communicate with “ur peeps,” there wasn’t mind-expanding social media like there is now. At that time, for me, straight was the only sexual identity. Men and women were the only two genders. Monogamy was the only option for relationships, and marriage and having kids were “the goals.”
Those were the rules, and I was someone who followed the rules. That is, until I turned 23 and had the most life-changing realization. I don’t remember where I was or what I was doing, but I do remember the realization surging through the synapses of my dutiful mind, my world stopping, eyes wide like That’s So Raven’s Raven Baxter when she had a vision: I didn’t actually have to have kids.
Suddenly, the fibers of my heart eased and the perpetual pit in my stomach evaporated. I finally heard the message my mind, body, and heart had been trying to communicate to me for many years: you don’t actually want kids.
You never have.
And you never will.
It’s been 12 years since I had my life-changing realization, and not having kids was still the best decision I have ever made for myself.
I wasn’t made for motherhood. It’s just not in my nature. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not nurturing. There’s this stigma against childfree people (women especially) that if they don’t have or want kids, it means they’re not nurturing. It also means they have less value in society—less value as human beings. What many people don’t realize is, not having children has been the most nurturing thing I could have done for myself, and for my hypothetical children. I would have been a miserable mother. Having had a past struggle with PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder), and a current struggle with atypical depression, mixed with the regret and weight of not listening to my heart—not to mention needing a good sleep each night—I wouldn’t have been able to show up for my kid(s). I wouldn’t have been able to show up for myself. I wouldn’t have been able to show up for my life.
The decision to honor my 53 (and counting) reasons why I don’t want kids has been the catalyst to finding who I really am underneath all the societal “rules” and expectations: an unmarried, gender non-conforming, consensually non-monogamous bisexual who gives birth to art, projects, and initiatives designed to foster inclusivity and inspire meaningful connections.
So, for me, not having kids is the most nurturing thing I could have done for myself, my loved ones, and the world.
Mandi Maxwell (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, creative communications student, and the founder/co-director/co-facilitator of the Winnipeg Bi+ Network who splits her time between Winnipeg, Manitoba and Brooklyn, New York.