To Have Kids or Not? Childless By Choice and Celebrities (plus Teflon Brad)

Dolly makes a great CoverGirl because this photo is so her, and she makes
an excellent case for her selfless reasons to remain Childless by Choice.

One of the most fundamental decisions some of us make as adults is to decide if we want to become parents of children beyond our furry or befeathered ones. The answer changes the trajectory of our lives, informs us about what our older age might look like, and forces women to come to terms with life choices and our limited biological timeframe to produce babies. We have about 20-25 years of fertility in adulthood, and we have decisions to make that are more nuanced with each advancing year. What we decide at 19 certainly differs from what we choose at 40. When the door slams, our bodies make it a moot point; it has made that decision for us. For better or worse, we must live with our choices and forge lives living with the results. Men aren't faced with this reality; just look at Robert De Niro or Al Pacino, choosing to become parents in their late 70s and 80s. George Clooney, (the late)Anthony Quinn, and Tony Randall produced children very late in life. Was this fair to the children born to parents they will never know? Not at all. But the ego wants what the ego wants. 

Diane Keaton adopted kids in her 50s.

Jerry Hall decided 4 was the magic number.

Children are a forever commitment requiring enormous sacrifices and daily choices that can be daunting and relentlessly impossible and come without respite. It isn't for everybody. And that's okay, or at least it should be. Even in the 21st century, it takes bravery to tell people you don't want kids since many people in society think the decision not to procreate is against nature. They believe it is an unnatural choice, a failing of fortitude, and a defective ability to conform. They find it a personal affront that someone doesn't want to become a parent, as if it is their business. That someone would choose not to make babies seems unnatural to them and not part of the cycle of life, not what we are supposed to do, what we are built to do. Throw in religiosity, and you can guarantee you will be interrogated by a self-righteous cement-reinforced iron wall who feels it is their job to tell you how you will be old and alone or that you are the epitome of narcissistic decision-making. You are a freak! Something must be wrong with you. Sex is for having babies, you selfish slutty waste of humanity. 

Dolly Parton had reasonable reasons: ""I didn't have children because I believed that God didn't mean for me to have kids so everybody's kids could be mine, so I could do things like Imagination Library because if I hadn't had the freedom to work, I wouldn't have done all the things I've done. I wouldn't be in a position to do all of the things I'm doing now. 

Some of those people should be kidnapped and questioned under the threat of torture and asked if every sexual encounter they ever had was meant to produce a baby. They will squirm and come up with some nonsensical excuse with fake Biblical twisted logic that is nowhere in the Bible or any religious text known to man. Unless that shit is written in Sanskrit on the missing Holy Shroud or on misplaced planks from Noah's Ark, there are no verses that pertain to contemporary life. No scribe in the year 0 AD could have foreseen what life would be like or the many options people have now. Watch those closeted gay Republican cruising husbands (the loudest ones are the guiltiest, eh Mitchy McConnell) of those shaming female Right to Lifers bow out of that test question quickly and fold like the hypocrites they are. What? Nobody's business, you say? Thought so.

Rihanna seems happy with her choice after years of constantly answering
the question about motherhood. Maybe she met the right partner, or whatever.
Her reasons or timing is actually her business and no one else's. 

Then there are the family members who go to gross lengths to guilt people into having kids, sometimes even resorting to emotional blackmail and threats. If my friend E had not had kids, her mother would never have spoken to her again. Strict Catholics, her parents would overlook that she was a lesbian as long as she had babies, and they don't seem to find it incongruent at all. Babies wash away all "sins", or didn't you get the memo? They never mention her sexuality and act like it doesn't exist, but those children do, and that is all they care about. To be fair, they are bang-up grandparents, supportive and available when it comes to helping out, but hush your mouth, E and G are just roommates. 

Helen Mirren's answer is fantastic: "It was not my destiny. I kept thinking it would be, waiting for it to happen, but it never did, and I didn't care what people thought. It was only boring old men [who would ask me]. And whenever they went, 'What? No children? Well, you'd better get on with it, old girl,' I'd say, 'No! F*ck off!'"

Why this debate even exists is curious to me. Have them if you want them, and don't if you don't. No big deal. You don't need to come up with reasons; for real, it is nobody's business. The world isn't overpopulated, so you no longer need to say that to get people from breathing down your neck. That was a racist myth put forward by some white guy who visited the poverty-stricken neighborhoods of India and made that claim because it was overpopulated with the wrong hue of people. Western consumerism and capitalism are destroying the planet, not the average person beyond the first world, and their choices shouldn't be contingent on ours. It is a fallacy, anyway. Just say, "None yo business," in a sudden blaccent, or if the nosey nunu persists, just say, "Fuck off," they think you are miscreant anyway. 

Miley's parents didn't set the best examples, but maybe her reasons
are complicated or simple, but they are hers to keep, and if she ever
changes her mind, and then that's her business, too. 

However, if you are famous, then it is too bad for you because this becomes everyone's business. It is risky for a celebrity to tell the world that they don't want children, depending on the morality of their fan base and the image they have crafted for themselves. Miley Cyrus's not wanting children surprised me initially. While married to Liam Hemsworth, she behaved as a demure, traditional wife might, and she seemed less wild and tamer as if she were settling down to create a conventional family. From all accounts, she has put forth that her reason is based on the environment. She doesn't believe this is an excellent world to hand down to another human being. 

I am not saying that it isn't valid, but I often think what the person wants to say is I hate squalling babies, and little kids suck. Say, I hate the snotty little fuckers. I would laugh with a modicum of understanding because, as a mother who passionately loves her kids, they can suck, can be snotty, can squall, and you must be willing to sacrifice something you love to do it. For me, it meant sacrificing something I loved deep in my soul, and that was pursuing an entire career as an artist and musician and spending long periods discovering the world. I had to put aside my wanderlust. Whoever said you can't have it all wasn't lying. I gladly did it and wouldn't change my choice, even when I sometimes wonder what that would have looked like. 

Kim Cattrall was brutally honest and didn't dress it up: "I enjoy kids but not for long periods. I think they're adorable and funny and sweet, and then I have a headache."

Seth Rogan, John Cena, Mary J. Blige, and Sarah Paulson's answers were about being selfish or not wanting to change their lifestyles or make room for a little person. It isn't an urge for them. I have a friend, a staunch traditionalist, though she will deny it, who thinks people who don't want kids who have money, have partners, and have the ability to have help are simply self-absorbed and are probably selfish in every area of their lives. Okay, if she thinks that, why would she even want people like that to procreate? There is no room in parenting for selfishness and outsized self-interest, so good on them for recognizing this and knowing themselves enough to know it isn't for them. Spare yourself and a child a whole bunch of guilt, pain, hurt, and counseling. John Hamm said point blank that he would be a terrible father. Thank you for your honesty, Mr. Hamm. Fast Forward seems marrying a younger woman has changed Mr. Hamm's mind. And that's okay. I hope deep, consistent therapy has informed this decision. We will see. 

My ghey husband hates most kids because he finds them annoying, loud, sticky, needy, absurd, obnoxious, and ridiculous. He calls them all sorts of curse words under his breath, and if one ruins something in his apartment or ruins clothes with a chocolate-covered hand, he's beside himself. Little bastard. Except for my kids. They can do no wrong. I watch him with my children, and I admit it baffles me. My kids wouldn't recognize the pied piper misanthrope of children. They beg to talk to and play with him, get excited when he visits, and love him so much that they cling to him when he leaves. We made him honorary godfather to them all instead of one, like he had been. Ghey husband is spoiling, tender, patient, funny, and affectionate, and his face lights up around them. They get to see why I love him so much, the side he shares with few. 

NPH may be a nitwit, but his little family is lovely. 

Ricky Martin and his husband with their 4 kids. 

He carried on like damn Shirley McClain when I had some difficulties with our 3rd birth; you would have thought I was at death's door. The nurse on duty couldn't tell who my legal husband was and who wasn't. Ask him if he wants kids, and he will look at you as if you have lost all semblance of a mind and should be avoided at all costs. My kids are the only kids he will ever have; therefore, they are treated with care and even his benefactors. We don't complain when he wants to put his two cents in because we know how much it means to him to be a big part of their lives. I love him so much, and his happiness is everything to me. 

Thandie Newton and one of her three children. 

As I was writing this, I thought about when, once upon a time, I used to get annoyed when Jennifer Anniston seemed to play that parenting questioning game (will she won't she, or is she pregnant when her stomach was a wee bit poochy?) I didn't understand this narrative, and it irritated me when it was clear it wasn't happening. Since I believed the rumor the Brangelina team pushed that Brad left her because she was more focused on her career than wanting a family, it was doubly strange to me. It is a decision that makes relationships impossible to sustain because to do it or not is usually a dealbreaker. You can't compromise much on that question, so his leaving made him look like the victim. No wonder he left her! She's unnatural! Cold Bitch! This portrayal became a kind of truth. I never thought it was unnatural; I just thought it was the kind of thing that would cause the breakdown of America's Sweetheart Couple. 

That is until she came out years later and set the record straight. Jennifer had tried her best, IVF, Chinese teas, acupuncture, everything she could think of, and how devastating it had been when she couldn't carry a baby. She didn't want to share her struggle, so she told half-truths while allowing people to create their own narratives. It is humanizing and heartbreaking to think of someone yearning to do something so easy for some people yet eludes them no matter what they do. She wanted to be a mother. However, her body betrayed her time and time again. Even resulting in the miscarriage of a baby boy that she desperately wanted. It isn't lost on me that you have to be past a certain point in a pregnancy to determine the sex. She suffered in silence, privately, and it started to paint a very different picture of the Brangelina years. 

It exposes Teflon Brad Pitt's behavior, in hindsight, as being so much worse than it appeared at the time. Thinking of her lost baby boy made me remember that infamous W spread. Remember that? The storyline shows TBP and Angelina acting like a couple with sons, with photos of them looking cozy and in love. At that time, they were fucking, but it wasn't official. Aniston said in an interview once that he was missing a sensitivity chip, and I didn't fully understand it, but I do now. He and Jolina got pregnant fast and flaunted it to the world as soon as they could after his divorce. Even then, I was like, Geesh, people slow your roll. But they were passionately in love, you see. That was part of the Brangelina lore.

Fast Forward, and Brad has no children who want anything to do with him partially because he married a vengeful, drug-addicted, disordered woman who has been told to stop practicing Parental Alienation but has not and has dragged a divorce out beyond 8 years. If you believe in karmic justice, this is what it looks like. Don't cry for Teflon Brad Pitt, though; he has a younger woman with a fertile womb and probably some kids in his future, and no one will say anything. Evil Angelina made him replace his kids with new ones. Awww, the public will coo when he prances around with his new family. Angelina has not been so lucky. She barely has a career, so we will see about this Maria Callas movie and if it is any good and more than hype. Aniston seems okay, albeit with an unfortunate amount of plastic surgery. She has come to terms with it. Good for her, and how she didn't lob Molotov cocktails at them publicly is beyond me. I would have been like a silent ninja blowing their shit up every chance I got. 

Brad and his new younger incubator.

Conversely, Megan Mullally decided not to have kids after a year of trying and then deciding to stop and get off that train. Can't say I blame a couple for not wanting to jump through hoops to have a baby of their own or adopt. Ashley Judd noted having one seems wrong as long as there are needy children. Okay, it's your choice, but having kids differs from adopting a pet or choosing a breeder. That was the one answer that sounded entitled and obtuse. Procreating is usually a choice; nothing is unnatural about it or morally wrong. It is because, most of the time, some parents want to be parents; the natural urge is there, the natural yearning is biological, and it can be all-consuming. People will go to the ends of the earth and back to have children, and if they can't biologically, they fulfill the urge with surrogacy or adoption. Ashley seems to forget that those options aren't free, and they can come with their own heartbreak and hardships that not everyone is built for. Therefore, her self-righteous answer falls flat, but then again, Ashley is a problem all on her own, and I can't imagine a child thriving if the rumors about her being unhinged and filthy are true.  

Meghan M and her husband are happy together.

Another celebrity who didn't want to have them is Ina Garten, and if you read anything she said about her childhood, her reasoning makes perfect sense, too, though it is sad. Her parents were cold, unsupportive, distant, and emotionally abusive. The fear of becoming like your mother or father has got to be overwhelming, and there is something actually loving in stopping a cycle of abuse before it can possibly, maybe, begin. I have a close cousin who won't have kids for that reason. Her mother is an evil, disturbed woman who was emotionally and mentally abusive to her, a woman with an astonishing level of selfishness and self-absorption. I know she is unlike her mother, and she believes this too, but this irrational fear is one of the nasty gifts her mother has left her with to go along with the mental and emotional wounds that never completely healed. Ina and her husband are wonderfully profoundly in love, and for them, this is enough. 

Whatever choice or life's way of making the decision, I sincerely hope that most people can find meaning and contentment in their lives. We begin to see as a society that either way of forging our lives is natural. There is no moral reason to have or not have kids. It is about being true to yourself, living with the consequences either way and offering dignity to those whose desires went unfulfilled. As usual, the heavy lifting sits on women's shoulders because the opportunity to answer that question is finite, and either one we make paints a picture of what our lives will look like. There is heartache and heartbreak in our choices, children are hard, demanding, and maddening at times, but it is a happy choice for me, staying single, or deciding to pour love into animals or other areas can make someone equally as happy. So we should accept that in each other, famous or not, and stop judging someone else's choices and be content with our own. Maybe journalists will stop asking, I doubt it, but it would be fair, and it would be progress. 

At one time, Nicks had a major desire to settle down and have children, stating in 1989 that not doing so was one of her major regrets. "That was my ultimate sacrifice for Fleetwood Mac," she told You Magazine (per Fleetwood Mac UK). Like many women, Nicks felt she had to choose between having children and being successful in her career. While this was not a decision she was initially happy with, her perspective evolved over the years. "It's like, do you want to be an artist and a writer, or a wife and a lover?" she told InStyle in 2002. "With kids, your focus changes. I don't want to go to PTA meetings" (per Rock a Little).

Nicks maintains that she wouldn't have been able to manage both motherhood and Fleetwood Mac's success, especially given her fast and loose lifestyle. Now, though, she carries no regrets about the path she took. "Maybe I knew then that I had to be me, in Fleetwood Mac, a huge band that was on its way to being legendary," she told Rolling Stone, discussing her song "The Lighthouse." "Not only did [not having kids] allow me to follow my dream of being this rock & roll woman, but it allowed me to be this person that just wrote this song."

Sorry for the typos.

photos: Getty, Wire Image, Film Image, Instagram, Victor Demarchelie, some from blogs without credits.