Childfree and Adoptee by Noelle Gresham

Childfree and Adoptee
by Noelle Gresham

My reasons for not having children are diverse and complex. Two themes I consistently return to are the fact that I am adopted, and that I remember what it was like to be a child. On one hand, my upbringing was pleasant and loving, and on the other hand, I have no illusions about how cruel children can be to other children.

My parents adopted me in 1971, when I was one year old. From a very young age, I can remember them telling me that I was special and that I had been chosen. I understood the process of adoption before I knew where babies really came from.

I was taught by my parents that although I had come to be in their family in a different manner than either of my brothers (who were their biological children) they loved me just as much, and that there was nothing wrong with being adopted. I believed this, and because of this I developed no issues or anxieties over being adopted. It was one of the areas of my life where I never felt any doubt or lack of self-esteem. Although at times it bothered me a bit that I didn't look like my brothers (and there is a marked resemblance among the men in my family), I never felt bad about who I was or from where I had come. It was up to my peers to supply that part of my growing up.

Although I've been blessed with knowing some truly good friends in my life, most of my memories from childhood and adolescence among my peers have led me to believe that while some animals eat their own young, with humans the young eat each other, and get celebrated for it.

Granted, I seemed determined to make it difficult for myself from the beginning. I learned to read and write when I was about three and a half, so for me elementary school was a time of boredom, frustration, and desperate wishing that I could fit in somehow. I learned at a very early age that being myself meant being something other than what everyone else was. School, to me, felt like trying to run through mud with weights tied to me. Because of my reading level, I had a vocabulary that was beyond my age level, and it soon became clear to me that using that vocabulary would only earn the scorn of classmates. As an adult, I can understand that people will sometimes make fun of things they don't understand. As a child, it only meant to me that survival meant hiding my light under a bushel.

Meanwhile, I was receiving conflicting messages at home. I was smart, I was chosen, I was special. My parents did their best to arm me against the slings and arrows of my peers, but I had a double burden to bear: being adopted and being "special."

When I graduated from high school, I vowed that I would never again dumb myself down for anyone's comfort. People could either take me on my own terms, as I was, or if they couldn't deal with it, that was their problem, their weakness, not my own. I think that's part of what led me to decide that I didn't want children. It wouldn't matter what a good parent I was, or if I managed to raise a wise and sensitive child, because children can be cruel, and they grow up to raise cruel children in turn.

We live in a society that celebrates the mundane rather than the extraordinary, and it comes as no surprise to me that the torments and humiliations of students who don't quite fit the mold go unnoticed until those students snap, and then the mourning is misplaced.

I said earlier that being adopted had also possibly affected my feelings towards having children. I guess it's just hard for me to understand why, in a world where unwanted babies are being born in far greater numbers than will ever be adopted, why we have stories about so-called "miracle babies," multiple births, and such. It seems worse than wrong. It seems obscene. If people really want to become parents, why is it so very important that the baby have their genes? Who you are is so much more than your DNA. I have the utmost respect for both my biological and adoptive parents, and it's just very hard for me to understand why so many couples jump through the infertility hoop. If you really love and want children, wouldn't it be a good thing to do something to help the unwanted children already being born?

I believe that disasters like the school shootings at Columbine happen not because of violent video games, movies, or music. I believe they happen because too many people have children, and then don't have time to parent them properly. I see more and more people opting for "miracles" of their own, rather than choosing the route my parents did and adopting. I see those children growing into neglected, indulged, and amoral beings. If children are the future, it is a bleak future we have to look forward to, and some of us are opting entirely out of that heartache by not making little copies of ourselves.

I love my parents-both my biological parents and my adoptive parents-and owe them more than I can ever repay, for the life they gave me, for the life they shaped, for the person I am.

Noelle Gresham is a Texas college student, scheduled to graduate in December. She has been married eight years and has five cats. Noelle is childfree, vegetarian, and libertarian, and if she could do nothing else for the rest of her life, she would be happy to read and write. Born and adopted in Texas through Dallas County Child Welfare, Noelle has done some limited searching based on limited information available to her, and would like to do more.

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(This feature appeared in the Summer 2001 issue of the Bastard Quarterly.)