Today, on MPR, Kari Miller was talking ta a writer who is from Canada (and was a dancer), but who moved to NYC and became a novelist. Keri Miller asked if she (the author) ever played the game with her friends of asking, “What was your hinge moment?” She went on to explain what a hinge moment was (I call them sliding door moments), and I burst into laughter. not because it was a silly question but because it, of course, immediately makes me think of my biggest hinge moment and what the alternate ending would have been.
We’ll get there in a second.
I’ve had other hinge moments, of course. When I was eighteen, I felt pressured to go to college. I didn’t want to, but my mother made it seem like I had no other option.
Side note: I have my issues with myfather. Many, many issues. But him being absent from my life means that most of the direct pressure was from my mother.
I had a boyfriend at that time. He was valedictorian of his class in his high school and got something like 1540 on his SATs. 800 on the math and 740 on the vocab/English. He applied to Stanford, Harvard, and a few other Ivies. Carleton College (which is local) was his safety school. I applied to schools next to wherever he applied because why not? I didn’t want to go, anyway, so why not pick it that way? He ended up choosing Stanford, which meant I was supposed to go to UC Santa Clara. He was firm that if we were going to stay together, I had to follow him.
Here’s the thing. I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay together. He was the first boy I had dated, and I bought into the whole ‘get married and have children’ bullshit that I was fed on a daily basis as an American girl (at the time). Both my cultures (American and Taiwanese) devalued girls and put them secondary to boys. Secondary? Sometimes it felt as if it was tertiary or worse. Like we weren’t supposed to take up any space at all.
And it’s not just men. Women can be and often are the worst pushers of sexist bullshit. They uphold the patriarchy with just as much zeal if not more than men. Because it gives them status in the world. They are one-up on those dastardly feminist, but it’s a silppery slope. Because the minute you step out of line, you’ll get smacked back into place. Or you’ll be put on the ‘bad girl’ list.
Anyway. I was indoctrinated with the belief that a girl needed to get married and have kids. It depressed me without me even realizing it because that was the last fucking thing I wanted. I don’t like kids en masse, and when I realized I did not have to have them, I was so relieved, happy, and positively giddy. The sliding door moment there was what if I hadn’t realized I didn’t have to have children and did it because of the intense pressure from my mother?
It’s funny. This is the hinge moment that haunts me from time to time–and it’s one based on a decision I made NOT to do something. Normally, it’s the choice of one thing or another, but this was the choice to opt out of having children. I still think it’s the best decision I’ve made in my life. More on that in a second.
I panicked when my boyfriend laid down the law–either I followed him or we broke up. I had my eye on someone who worked at a different store at the mall where I worked, and I decided to see if St. Olaf (my choice to pair with my ex’s safety school) had a spot left. This was perhaps a month before my boyfriend was leaving for California. They said they had one open slot, but I had to decide in half an hour whether I wanted to accept it or not. I did, and that was that.
I regret not going to California for several reasons. I don’t think I would have stayed with that boyfriend regardless of the situation, but I think it would have been better for me to get away from my parents. I was a hot mess during my college years,, but I think it would have turned out beter had I gotten the hell out of here. I might have eventually returned because I much prefer the weather here, but at least I would have had my formative years away from my family.
The decision not to have children–still the best conscious decision I’ve made. I’ve thought about the me that gave in to society, got married, and had children. That is a very grim scenario that I doubt I wolud have survived. This is not me being fatalistic or hyperbolic. The idea of having children was so distasteful to me. Like, a true horror show. I could not imagine anything worse for me personally. My glib answer to why I didn’t want children was that I did not want to have to pay thousands of dollars to my hypothetical kids’ therapists because I screamed, ‘Get the fuck away from me! Mommy hates you!’ at my children, but, ah, it wasn’t really a joke.
I knew that I had it in me to be abusive. I knew what it was like to have abusive parents. I did not want to keep that vicious cycle going. And I knew that I was not strong enough to protect my children from my parents. These were all secondary and tertiary reasons I did not have children. The main reason I did not have them was because I did not fucking want them. I have included above a video by Chelsea Handler about how much she loves not having children. I don’t think her humor is very funny, but I agree with several points she makes. Also, it’s not easy to find videos from women who are loudly and happily childfree. Still. In 2023. Sigh.
This is the best gift I’ve given myself. And the sliding door option here would have led to pain, grief, and possibly violence. It’s funny. I once said to a Taiji classmate of mine that I would have been a terrible mother (which I truly believe) , and he said in surprise, “I think you would have been a great mom.”
He is so wrong, but it’s unthinkable to say to a woman-shaped person, “Yeah, you would have sucked as a mother.” Even though objectively, not every woman can be a good mother. And there is evidence that plenty of women who have children are NOT good mothers.
I have plenty more to say on the topic of sliding doors/hinge moments, but I’m ending this for now. I’ll come back to it tomorrow. Probably.