Babies. Munchkins. Whatever.

Sometimes I think too much.

I research shit when I’m writing. By “shit” I mean “normally useless bits of information and trivia that are somehow relevant to my story.” Today’s research topic is mitochondrial diseases. All of which are fatal.

Most of which affect children.

My Google searches are generally harmless – I figure out the seasonal gestation of pineapples or the name of a passenger ferry that sunk in the Puget Sound in 1937. I scour Thesaurus.com for the perfect word and settle for “incongruous” when I can’t find it. I Save As fifty pictures and drawings of sirens to give myself a visual reference for the creatures I’m dealing with.

But then sometimes things make me think too much. Like diseases that kill children quickly or slowly or painfully. Genetic mutations that rob them of speech or sight or strength.

Maybe it’s because it’s late at night and it’s dark and lonely. Maybe it’s because I’ve got so many gosh-darn-freaking nephews and nieces now. But the baby-killing diseases are just getting to me tonight.

I’ve never wanted kids. That’s not true. I was ambivalent about having kids until I hit high school. Then I became a nanny and my parents got divorced and the idea of squeezing infants out of my body and making sure they didn’t grow up to be insane or angry or lawyers just seemed like way too much trouble.

But what if I did have a kid? A chubby little cherub with perfect, big eyes and a slobbery little grin. What if I ended up loving that kid more than I’d ever loved anything? And then what if—after I’d gotten all attached and mothery—I found out it had Alexander’s Disease? Its myelin will be destroyed and clumps of Rosenthal fibers will form. It will be mentally retarded, physically handicapped. It will have digestive issues; it will look abnormal. There will be no cure, and it will most likely die by the age of six.

I cannot imagine living six years of my life with a child who taxed me mentally, physically, and emotionally, and whom I knew with absolute certainty would die.

That’s just one disease. There are thousands more. Some are “manageable,” but they still bring with them all the expenses and responsibilities of caring for a chronically sick kid.

I’m psyching myself out. But it makes me wonder how anyone can even contemplate having kids when there are so many variables, so many horrific possibilities, so many ways for the body to betray itself.

I feel angry. Why are we supposed to want something that is guaranteed to make us miserable? Genetic diseases aside, the “mere” raising of the healthiest kid is more than daunting—it’s inconceivable. From day one there are decisions that will affect the rest of the munchkin’s life: breast-milk or formula, do we let our daughter wear pink (do we let our boy wear pink?), private school or public, do we push them to learn five languages and play six instruments or do we let them play in the dirt and eat bugs, organic foods or hot dogs and mac ‘n’ cheese, can they watch TV and play video games or is technology on a lock-down so they can enjoy nature (and if the latter, will their lack of technological savvy prevent them from getting jobs down the road), are they allowed to date in high school (or ever), when can they get a cell phone, when can they truly think for themselves, when is it time to let them screw up, when is it time to let them go?

This is all made much simpler by not having them in the first place.

But we’re genetically predisposed to want to pop them out like Pez candies. They’re going to work the farm and support us in our old age and carry on the family name!

But what if we’re not genetically predisposed to want children? What if we have no burning desire to be pregnant or experience the wonderful, beautiful magic that is giving birth? What if we hate Cheerios and minivans? What if Mommy Jeans give us nightmares?

What if we actually are fulfilled by other things? What if we don’t give a shit if our name lives on? What if we feel really, really pissed off when people pretend to listen when we say we’re perfectly happy without babies, and then clap us on the shoulder, wink, and whisper conspiratorially, “You’ll come around.”

It seems absurd to me that in this day and age, having children is still considered to be an essential right of passage. That one is not complete without one’s progeny gathered around oneself for the annual Christmas card photograph that others will tack on their refrigerators to reassure themselves that their kids are, indeed, cuter than yours.

So yeah, I’m worked up. I’m irritated. And I have been for a long time now. And I will probably continue to be until I’m so old that people will finally give up and say, “Gee whiz, I can’t even hear her biological clock ticking anymore.”

A part of me wishes I wanted them. It’d be simpler. I’d be like “everyone” else. I’d feel like less of a freak for not wanting the things I’m expected—by the laws of nature, apparently—to want.

But the other part of me says hell no, I’m not sorry. I won’t apologize for this. And I don’t care if people can’t grasp my reasons or try to trip me up in my logic. The bottom line is I don’t want to be a mother. I don’t want to have children.

And that is okay.