[img]139|left|Jessica Gadsden||no_popup[/img]
[Editor’s Note: Jessica Gadsden has been controversial since the day she discovered her inner soapbox. She excoriated the cheerleaders on the editorial page of her high school paper, transferred from a co-educational university to a women's college to protest the gender biased curfew policy, published a newspaper in law school that raked the dean over the coals with (among other things) the headline, "Law School Supports Drug Use"—and that was before she got serious about speaking out. Progressive doesn't begin to define her political views. She's a reformed lawyer, and full time novelist who writes under a pseudonym, of course.This will mark the debut of our newest, and perhaps most charismatic, weekly essayist. A Brooklyn native, she divided her college years between Hampton University and Smith. Together those experiences created a dynamic young woman who is busily pondering subjects such as “Why can’t I buy an environmentally friendly luxury car,” “The selfishness of prayer,” and “Why I think Obama can’t win the Presidency.” Not to mention this morning’s theme.]
I'm getting up there in years, childbearing years, that is.
I breezed through my 20s comfortable in my conviction that I wasn’t going to have children. Most of my 30s have been much of the same, my focus on career and retiring substantial higher education debt.
When I met my husband 15 years ago, he told me he wanted two children. My response to him was to ask why. Oddly, he had no answer, and our childless marriage was born.
Often people ask me if I want children. Up until a year ago, the answer was an unequivocal “no” that invited no further discussion.
I could not begin to imagine altering my devil-may-care lifestyle with the addition of a person who required 24-hour a day, seven-day-a-week love, care, and attention. How could I jet off to San Francisco, or New York, or Paris at a moment’s notice?
Now that I can see 40 creeping over the horizon, my hormones are starting to catch up with me. I held a baby for the first time last month, and it didn't completely creep me out.
I’ve started noticing children outside, and I don’t run away from them fearful of being touched by their germ-infested, sticky hands. I’ve even given thought to converting my rarely used guest room into a nursery.
In spite of this huge emotional shift, I am still firmly rooted on the childless side of the equation. I cannot imagine raising an African American child in America today.
On a daily basis, I suffer the slights of living as an oppressed person in a country where people who look like me are in the minority. I loathe going to dinner parties and being complimented on how articulate I am.
It’s always a displeasure listening to cocktail conversations about real estate in L.A., the language encoded with “safe” neighborhoods, “good” school districts, and the “right” neighbors.
My Issues Are Invisible to Others
Oh, sure, I know the platitudes. “Look at Oprah. Look at Obama,” people say to me. “Look how far they’ve come.” I agree, things are going well for these single moniker black folks. But for the rest of us, not so good. People all around me believe things are getting better. They cannot imagine racism, say the journalists in newspaper articles.
They should live in my world, Los Angeles County, in which reports like the State of Black Los Angeles do not give much hope for the future. Our parity with whites suffers in almost all areas: economics, housing, health, education, and criminal justice.
I can’t imagine having to prepare my child to be followed around by the proprietors or security guards in L.A.’s trendy boutiques. I can’t stomach worrying about a son of mine being pulled over for driving while black, or harassed for just walking through my predominately white neighborhood.
I cannot fathom explaining that a good education is the key, but that they will have to continually defend themselves against accusations of unfair affirmative action. Would I have to coddle them as children for being called ugly, and having people make fun of their hair, comfort them as teenagers for social slights from their schoolmates, console them as adults when they are never interviewed for jobs by anyone who looks like them, and support them if they cannot find a job that meets their skills or desires?
What’s the Motivation?
In my family, the admonition was that I would have to “work twice as hard to get half as far as white folks.” Would I want to bring someone into the world who would have to work so hard to achieve so little, only to do it all over again with their children?
My 87-year-old grandmother started her life as a sharecropper in Mississippi, and lived most of her life as a member of the working poor, only to retire on Social Security. She’s the only member of my family who has never asked when I’m having children or why I don’t have any. Last time I sat down for a serious conversation with her, I asked her why she never broached this topic with me. She looked at me with the wisdom only old age can bring and said, “Every woman doesn’t need to have children.” I am one of those women.
