Do I Look Like I Have Kids? Please Don't Say Yes...Or No.

“Oh…you have kids?” Matilda, eight months pregnant, looked at me with genuine confusion.

I was at my friend Naomi's apartment in Boston celebrating her 41st birthday. I’d met Naomi less than a year ago through an online group chat, something I never thought I’d be a part of as an adult– hell, I wasn’t even part of group chats in college. We became fast friends, both identifying as anything sparkly, colorful, and adventurous, attending numerous concerts together, with at least one of my kids in tow. Now, I was finally meeting her best friend, Matilda, who was eight months pregnant. I had just told her about my different pregnancy and birthing experiences with each of my three kids

That’s when she said it. “I didn’t think you had kids.” 

“Yea, you don’t look like you’d have kids,” my best friend Michelle added. I was taken aback, dumbfounded. What did that mean? Not only had Michelle met me as a mother of two nearly 8 years ago, she watched my belly grow until I gave birth to my third child, a girl, who happened to be her daughter’s best friend. I made her daughter’s best friend. And she’d made mine.

“You look like you’d be a fun aunt, but not a mom,” was all she replied. It made me uncomfortable for some reason. I didn’t know if it was a compliment, that I somehow looked youthful and unbothered, or if it was an insult, like I was a terrible, self-absorbed mom.

Or was it because they touched upon one of my biggest fears: that I’m selfish? As the youngest sibling growing up, I was accused of being spoiled, getting away with everything, and seeking attention whenever and wherever I could find it. That’s what the baby of the family does, right?

More than this, maybe it was that they’d somehow sniffed out my secret – I never wanted kids. I never wanted to be married. I was afraid to repeat the same mistakes as my parents. Married young, divorced young, remarried young, facing immense challenges because of us. Co-parenting – or attempting to even like each other for our sake – was out of the question. That wasn’t for me. I decided a long time ago that I didn’t want that. I thought I was too selfish for that life, but turns out I had tendencies of a martyr complex. 

And then I met my husband. Or rather, I saw a picture of him on his parent’s piano mantle three weeks before actually meeting him. And in that high school senior photo, hair coiffed and regally handsome like a Kennedy, I swear I saw my kids’ faces. Kids I didn’t yet have, and kids I thought I didn’t want. I got pregnant with our oldest son less than a year after our wedding. Suddenly, I couldn’t imagine a life without kids. My children are in every action I take, both consciously and subconsciously. They feel like little soulmates I’m lucky to know, let alone to have homegrown. I can’t imagine how I could look like I carry myself without them when they’re in my bones.

In 2015, after having our second child, I miscarried. In trying to fill the immeasurable void left in its wake, I’d gone from not wanting kids to willing pregnancy tests to pop two pink lines, sobbing hysterically in a puddle on the floor when they wouldn’t. Maybe it’s because so much of what we think we want, what we think we should be, is at the discretion of what society says we should be. The whole notion was dizzying. 

I had to know– what makes a woman “look like they don’t have kids”? I asked Naomi and Michelle when we were together a week later. 

“Do I not look haggard? Worn? Burdened?” I asked, with a laugh. “Is that what a mom looks like?” Is that what I thought a mom looked like?

Michelle responded first. “There’s more to you than just your kids. You lead with that.”

“It’s an aura you give off,” Naomi agreed. “You have a lot of interests. And you talk about more than just your kids.”

“But you talk about your kids, too,” Michelle reassured me, sensing my discomfort. Was I unknowingly erasing my children in conversations? Or was I just doing what I’d always done: shape-shifting to fit the room, a habit I picked up while living in two polar opposite households growing up. I knew just how to play my cards right so that when I was with my mom on a weekend, I could be a free– albeit reckless– bohemian child, and then come home to my dad’s house a straight-laced, award-winning machine most weekdays.

Where is the line between being just a mom, talking nonstop about your kids and making them your entire identity, and being a self-centered woman using her children for whatever needs she might have? Had I toed the line and crossed it at the same time? Had I cracked the code? If so, why did it feel so icky? 

I also wondered, did I like being seen that way? I’d been called a guy’s girl in the past, somewhat of a trophy title in mainstream society, and I’d have my older brother and love of sports to thank for that. But instead of it being a desirable trait to the opposite sex, I chalked it up to me being a chameleon, or blending seamlessly into any conversation. Was I just being a chameleon now, chatting with my single friends about their interests and likes, knowing that maybe they might be sensitive to the fact that they’re not mothers? Truthfully, that’s too generous– I’m not that generous. 

The thing is, in a way, I knew what they meant. I’d met so many women who either talked solely about their children or frantically asked questions nonstop, not having had an adult conversation in months. I was her; I’d been her when my kids were babies. When I had my own brow business before the pandemic, with three kids under six at the time, I’d ask my clients so many questions hoping to get a glimpse of real life again. A past life where I was single and independent, free to sleep in late or stay up binge-watching adult shows. Or a future life where my kids would be independent, and I would be free to sleep in late or stay up binge-watching shows. Anything but the present, drowning in dependence and chained to people who couldn’t survive without me.

And yet I also remember the urge to be with my kids when they were little. It was magnetic. I nearly had to unglue myself from them to go to work some days because I knew I had to– for me, but for them, too. If I dissolved into them and their wants and needs, what would happen to me when they grow up someday? And what would happen to them? Not only did I want us to have a healthy dependence on each other, but I also wanted them to know that they could be their own people, free to have their own interests and needs when they become parents one day, too. I needed to model that for them. 

When I quit my nine to five after having children to start my own business on my own terms, half of the people in my life assumed I was a stay-at-home mom. They said things like, “I never pictured you home with the kids.” Or, “I always thought you’d be the breadwinner and your husband would stay home.” While the other half couldn't understand why I was working so hard for myself. There’s no winning if we, as women, expect to please everyone. In her new book Let Them, Mel Robbins says, “Doing what makes you happy, being brave, taking risks, and following your own path will always be more important than other people’s opinions about it.” But still, when will we not have to endure other people’s opinions? 

When will we, as moms, as wives, as women…be enough? Boy do I hate how mothers are flattened into one dimensional, palatable characters– either fully devoted and thus faceless, or wildly independent and thus selfish? 

Mothers are women. Women are people. People are complex. No one is the same. No family is the same. There is no one size fits all. Our society labels people freely and immediately– girl, youngest sibling, tomboy, mom, selfish, martyr– perhaps to make sense of it all. What if we looked at someone as a person first and foremost, taking away any preconceived notions about who they are and who we think they should be? Is that even possible? I’m not sure. 

In the end I’ve come to realize that the only people’s opinions I truly care about are the ones I’m raising. And the one I chose to marry. Because they know me and accept me for everything– quirks, devotion, flaws, and all. Maybe being enough isn’t about proving anything– to society, to our friends, to our families, even to ourselves. Maybe it’s about showing up, whole and honest, in every role we choose. Isn’t that more than enough?