As a teacher, my summers are a sacred time when calories don’t count, I can read about 100 books, where I can be horizontal and eat dips. Normally I have a travel-y, relax-y summer, but this time, I spent the summer nannying for the most recent family addition – my niece Mazie. At five months, she was still very much in the newborn stage with a surprising amount of personality and opinions. And noise. We called her Squish. (Look at the thighs. You’ll get it.)

We got on like a house on fire, but it wasn’t very relaxing at all to be in charge of the entire LIFE of an infant, especially while her mom, my sister, was working from home in the house that we were all in. Every time Mazie cried I was like “hey! Dude! Just tell me what you want because your mom is like RIGHT there. Don’t get me in trouble!” 

It was also the closest I’d been to an infant in about twenty years and given my life circumstances – 41, single, dancing happily through life in general, I wondered if the contact would activate receptors in reproductive regions and nudge me towards dating apps or IVF clinics or a general re-evaluation of my life choices. I was actually kinda worried about it, like, would I pick up Mazie and be like, “oh snap. I was supposed to mom. And now maybe I cannot mom? Am late? How can I mom?” 

I was pretty nervous on the first day when it was just her and me.  Jenna went to her office and I took the baby and she looked at me and the romper I had specifically purchased because I figured it would easily hide baby spit-up. She gazed upon me unblinkingly, in that creepy, baby way with their gooey newborn eyes that don’t need a lot of blinks, judging me.

most of the summer . . . nap trapped by a baby and a puppy and never been better.

In an effort to appear confident, I had obviously orchestrated grand plans for our first day. But a five month old made me feel so inadequate as I gathered her stroller – basically an off-road Jeep – and her baby Bjorn thing and packed the backpack like we were moving houses and not just walking ten minutes to the nearest park. 

“So . . . you can come pick us up, right? If she doesn’t like it, right? OR like, what if it rains?!” I had asked my sister, who had already settled behind her computer. It was June. There was no chance of rain. There was, however, a high chance of me freaking out. So high, in fact, I was already freaking out. I had to take care of a baby! My niece! My sister’s kid! @#$^*(.

We went on the walk, and bebe cried, but she didn’t sh*t her pants, and neither did I. I did have to eyeroll some privileged old white guy on rollerblades who insisted I must move, NEWBORN and all, bottle out and all, because I had apparently sat upon the one bench out of five in the park that he absolutely needed to perform his breathy tricep dips on. (Oh, and later, when he tried to talk to us? The deep thrill I got in pretending I had headphones in and couldn’t possibly! Better than cheese, than wine, than both on an afternoon in Tuscany). 

bought this for myself because i got tired of looking like a bad mom when old ladies at the grocery store would ask how much she weighed at birth.

Squish and I had a great time – watched the other kids, squealed and squawked and told them how to play better. And then we (everything with a baby is a royal “we” isn’t it?) walked home and basked in the dogs’ attention and changed diapers and argued about tummy time. And then I washed, rinsed, repeated for like five weeks and that was my summer. 

I loved it. I loved being Super Auntie.

In all of that, and how much I loved it, how invested I became in her pooping and eating and sleeping schedules, how hard I worked for smiles and laughs and how many pictures I took, I never once felt a twinge of “oh, no, I messed up my whole life. I should have married ______ and been a mom.”

I never once thought “who will take care of me when I’m old and dying?” because I am working hard at making enough money that it’s gonna be a qualified professional in a really cool old people facility with daily karaoke.

two crazy peas in a pod.

But if not, my nieces and nephews are going to be going on awesome trips and making memories all our lives, becoming beneficiaries to some hot mess aunt accounts that will hopefully incentify them. 

Because I don’t want to and don’t feel like it (another thing I LOVE saying) I won’t get deep about the choices and circumstances that led me to where I am today. But if you are reading this as a young woman wondering if it’s okay to not want children – um, yeah, yeah, it freaking is. My life is GREAT. I don’t “miss” kids, I don’t “miss” a husband or partner, I don’t “miss” on anything because I just do what I want.

If I missed something, I’d go get it.

If you are someone reading this wondering how to support such a described person in your life . . . just give them a “yay!” and listen to their tales of online dating gone wrong and offer a chance to babysit every so often to reinforce decisions and life circumstances, and we will be grateful. 

you made me an auntie. :)

This other life, the one I had thought was going to happen to me, because that’s what’s expected right? Well, I could imagine it. There have been many times in my life I’ve had to consider “oh, and if a baby just got made?” And as every woman has since the dawn of time, I have been able to calculate how to make it work. I have capacity for endless love, I know I’m awesome with kids, I have a very supportive family, it’s just . . .

I spell all this out because I firmly believe you can’t be it if you can’t see it – it is SO OKAY to not have children! We need more women on earth to make that choice because we need less women trapped in terrible situations, less children raised in terrible situations, the Earth is in peril, etc. I’m not here to science you about it. I’ll just tell you that wow, it’s so nice to not have kids. I know it feels weird to say, to read, to hear, to feel. But I am so good with it. 

or get your name on the wall for drinking 100 beers, whatever.

If you want to tap in to that kid kind of life, you can easily babysit, nanny, foster, volunteer at schools or libraries, etc. There are surely many parents in your circle of friends who will happily take you up on that offer. Get your fix, remind yourself of life circumstances, catch a cold (probably, kids are petri dishes), spend $100 at Chuck E Cheese, whatever, and then – and then?

Back to your quiet, clean apartment. Sleep til whenever. Share nothing at all. Eat shredded cheese from the bag while sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of your open fridge for dinner. Create unhinged color-coded wardrobe inventories that serve almost no purpose. Get hit on by 25 year olds in foreign countries and let them chat you up on instagram. Unintentionally start an ant farm, who cares?

happy to do this forever . . . until they wake up cranky or smelly!

These are just ideas, my ideas, and they have very much worked for me. Am I also influenced by being a teacher? Of course. Daily, for the last 16 years, I’ve see the results of uninvested, absent parenting. Daily, I am exhausted by raising other people’s children. There’s no way I could teach and also parent. And that is needed, isn’t it? 100% we need teachers, but I’m not convinced we need more tiny bodies on this already stressed-out Earth with no Planet B.

not us singing our hearts out at a CCR cover band concert at the county fair

To wrap it up – the best job on Earth? Auntie. May I fulfil and even exceed all requirements. Personally, I think I’m killing it. If any of my nephews and nieces were old enough to read this, they would agree, I think. For now . . .

as the product of really cool aunts, I know that I am a cool aunt. So. Here’s to building the village that it takes. :)