I recently found myself the only person in a room who had not spent multiple weeks of the past year touring New Zealand. Everyone else had lazed about those spectacular vistas made internationally recognizable through Peter Jackson’s worthy cinematic interpretation of “Lord of the Rings.” My guests nonchalantly traded notes on paths of travel, nonplussed by the coincidental jaunts to the other side of the world.
You know what else these vacationers had in common? Childlessness.
People who advocate not having children and people who advocate having them both seem bothered by the fact that “the other side” spends so much time analyzing the alternative: People who choose not to have children obsess about the breeders, and people with children are fascinated by the “childfree.”
It’s tempting to think that the fixation is an indication of uncertainty. Maybe the childless cannot quite let go of the magic of children. As much as they rail against them, perhaps they are still inexorably attracted to them. On the other hand, maybe parents ridicule the intentionally childless because some part of them does long for the freedom and luxury of being without the worries and cares of child-rearing.
Another explanation is that it is merely the struggle to understand a worldview that is wholly incompatible with one’s own. To converse with someone for whom the center and soul of your life choices is unworthy of choosing—it’s maddeningly hard to understand.
Then there are moments, like the New Zealand vacation revelation, when the other side’s position seems obviously attractive. No wonder these bozos aren’t having kids! They are having way too much fun!
It so happened that the day of this sudden conviction was the same day every solitary pair of scissors in the house went missing and every child knew absolutely nothing about them. “It wasn’t me!” was the emphatic and incredulous response. Maybe the intentionally childless have chosen the better part. And, of course, from their perspective, they have!
If, however, we wish to live with a perspective of eternity always in view, we cannot say that a footloose and fancy-free vacation makes intentional childlessness worthwhile. Instead of skating across the Earth’s surface lapping up pleasures, we can aspire in ordinary, rooted life to go deeper. What is required to renew our sense of meaning conviction when all the scissors have mysteriously vanished?
We can train our thoughts to discern inner realities. Spiritual reading can be a great encouragement in this practice. Good spiritual meditations for mothers are often those that can be picked up and sampled at random. Like a nip from a concealed flask, a few lines of a good spiritual book break over our consciousness with a softening warmth that leaves us with a subtle glow (though, of course, without deleterious effects to our physical health. And the reading sharpens our perceptions rather than dulling them, making us, in the best cases, more inclined to the needs of those around us, not less.)
When motherhood seems like a lesser path, a terrible mistake, and a waste of your life, put that New Zealand romp into a broader view, the birds eye view from a place outside of time. A robust spiritual tome at hand for our daily trials—and an occasional afternoon without our beloved children—is sometimes all it takes.
For a mother’s spiritual reading starter pack, try: “Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart” by Father Jacques Phillippe; “The Reed of God” by Caryll Houselander; and “I Believe in Love: A Personal Retreat Based on the Teaching of St. Therese of Lisieux” by Father Jean C. J. d’Elbée. Happy reading!
