Choosing To Nurture in Unconventional Ways

I chose not to have children of my own. Growing up had been painful for me in so many ways. Among other things, from a very young age, I was keenly aware of the complex undercurrents that ran between social connections and groups of people. I frequently suffered open wounds when attempting to enter the arena of making friends and getting crushes on boys. Though I appeared to be wise and mature on the outside, I was deeply emotional and sensitive on the inside. I hungrily longed to be a part of something bigger but seemed to lack the skills of fitting in. When I was my whole self, it seemed to make people uncomfortable, and I was no good at pretending to be someone else.

Even as a young adult, I still felt baffled by social constructs and social norms. I was adept enough at looking “normal” that most people wouldn’t even be attuned to the storm I carried within me, but I still frequently felt like I watched a lot of the world from the outside and through a foggy and fractured lens. By this time, I also had made many years of observations of my mother and older sister who both found much of their joy and purpose in parenting. I knew well enough my own compelling desire to do things as well as I could. At the same time, I had always been driven to dive deep into my own psyche to explore and excavate a greater understanding of myself.

Had I chosen to become a parent, I believed, I would be ill-equipped to help my child navigate the intense emotions of adolescence and beyond and, so, fail at one of the most important parts of mothering. Forced to relive that time and to feel helpless to help my child, the empathy, I was certain, would torture me. I couldn’t figure out how I would have the energy to endure this while also doing the parts of mothering that I could do well and keeping up with my inner drive to evolve myself. I knew that there would be a great danger of losing myself before even really, truly uncovering my Self. The choice not to give birth was anything but selfish, as has been suggested to me directly and indirectly over the years. Rather, it was the result of deep reflection that made me aware of my capacity for taking care of my life and the life of another.

Here’s the kind of surprising thing, though. Not parenting your own children, opens you up to nurturing in different facets of life. In this way, you sometimes end up filling gaps that busy family people get stretched way too thin trying to cover. At age 11, I began babysitting and continued until the year I turned 30. I have been a teacher for 23 years and have had a lot of hours to choose to work on projects and creative ideas to serve my teaching and learning community outside of the school day, week and year. I have taken care of dying people, befriended lonely neighbors and brought family members in need of respite into my home. I’ve become Family Central for most of our holidays and visitors and typically plan big family events. None of this is more worthy than parenting—some people do parenting and these things as well. But it takes us all, as a symbiotic network, to try and ensure that everyone gets the care and compassion they deserve as human beings. It seems the Universe fills in our open spaces in an attempt to bridge the gaps of need among us.

My deep desire to make and maintain meaningful human connections remains, after preserving my sense of Self, of great importance to me. And, so, it gives me so much joy that I continue to be connected to the family of a boy (now man) that I babysat throughout my 20s. I met Tommy and his parents when he was just one and one-half years old, and I spent the better part of a decade at his house with him one evening on most weekends. He became a part of my family and we continued some of the rituals we created during that time even after I no longer babysat him. We had arguments and philosophical discussions and funny stories and lots of lessons during our time together. And, sorry Anne, but a lot of people talking to me probably wouldn’t have known he even had parents, because I always told stories about him as if he was my own. I grew tremendously from this experience, and it is an incredibly meaningful part of my story.

For these reasons, it gives me so much joy to share pictures of us then and now, all grown up. And to share that my new profile picture was taken by Tommy, himself a beautifully Unique Traveler who has become an exciting adventurer and the taker of lovely slice of life moments. Have a look at Tommy’s photography on his Instagram account tommychristiephotography.