Polly Vernon: ‘We Need To Stop Grilling Women About Whether They Have Children Or Not’ – Grazia

Forget those other new years resolutions the one thing we need to do, says Polly Vernon, is stop grilling each other about kids

I got a puppy. She is a dark apricot labradoodle, 14 weeks old at the time of writing; shes called Rita (as in: Heyworth, Ora, Fairclough, Sue And Bob, Too, yes), and to call her the best decision I ever made would be to undersell her butThis article is not really about her. This article is about all the people I meet because of her, people who never spoke to me before (because: London) who now stop and chat like weve been bezzie mates for years, because they need to go through me before they can drop to their knees and have my puppy fling herself joyfully into their outstretched arms, thereby making their day instantly, infinitely better than it would have been, you are welcome.

Do I mind? Hell, no! Its like living in this weird bubble of melty grinny goodwill, in which, everyone total strangers, people who knew you by reputation and thought you a bit of a twat, people you fell out with in 2017 is unbelievably delighted to see you (if only by association). But I have noticed a lot of them if only ever the female ones ask variations on a particular question, over and over, a question I think raises a point of busted etiquette. After the Obligatories (OH MY GOD, HES SO CUTE! Oh, sorry, sorry: shes a girl! Awwwwww! How old? What breed? Whats her name? OH MY GOD, SHES SO CUTE!) comes a speciously related, distinctly unnecessary follow-up: I bet your kids adore her, dont they? (or similar).

Those of you whove read my stuff before will possibly know I dont have kids. You might also know this is a I was going to say choice, but my childfree existence is much more than that. Its a joyous rejection of everything society really deep down still expects of me (of every woman, at the end of the day), and its based on an instinctive, absolute knowledge that motherhood wouldnt suit me (this came to me when I was a child), backed up by a few decades of experience, intellectual reasoning, and the fact that, even though everyone told me a biological clock would erupt at some point it did not. Unsurprisingly, given I know myself better than anyone who ever said: Oooh, bet youll regret it! to me, to the current moment, I can say with absolute confidence: I have never regretted anything less.

Give or take Rita.

But, then how to react to all the puppy interrogators? If I simply say: Uh, I actually havent got kids, they might pity me (ugh). If I add: Never wanted them, awful business, cant imagine why anyone does terrible for the planet that sounds prickly to the point of being unconvincing, and as for the other stuff I teeter on the verge of saying (I totally could have had them? Stable relationship, financially viable; oh, and like, super-fertile? Had an abortion or three, as it happens), thats venturing into the realm of just being poisonous.

And its not as if they mean anything bad by it. They look at me, all caring and maternal to Mistress Fluffington Fluffy Bottom of Archway (my dog has many names, also a few songs), and that triggers a not unreasonable assumption; they have kids (it is, Ive noticed, only ever mothers who ask), so are casting about for another point of connection, and also: society has conditioned us to exactly ask this of every woman older than 30. Have you got kids, have you got kids, have you got kids, have you got kids? As I already said feminism and decades of progress be damned! A womans first duty is still assumed to be procreation; anyone who, like me, has denied it will tell you that, as for those who want to have kids, but cant

Ah yes. Them. The ones struggling with fertility issues, with miscarriage, with the IVF rounds that wont take; those women who do have biological clocks, who want children as surely and desperately as I do not, who are getting to the point where they know they just have to give up, admit defeat, and so grieve, silently and endlessly, for people never born, never even conceived Whats it like for them to exist in a world where others ask, often, casually, about the thing that causes such extraordinary pain, more pain than anything else? If I find that question the kid question a little awkward, a little complicated, if I have to take a breath, moderate my emotional response, make a concerted effort to keep my tone light, to not be a total bitch in response: what on earth is it like for them? What sadness and confusion, what sense of shame, of failure, overwhelms them in response to those words?

Casual, everyday references to assumed children seem like such a mild thing, such a friendly thing, such a nothing, really. I have no doubt theyre intended that way. But given theyre potentially imposing deep pain on another person, reopening a barely-sealed wound, leaving them winded, gasping, incapable of answering you, it might be worth leaving them out of our repertoire of light chat with passing strangers. Denormalise a question as personal and private as wondering how another womans reproductive organs/life choices are shaping up; give her puppy a cuddle, move along.

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Polly Vernon: 'We Need To Stop Grilling Women About Whether They Have Children Or Not' - Grazia