When I was a young girl, I had a fake bottle with fake milk to feed my fake babies.

I remember drawing a picture of a pink house with purple heart-shaped windows. A tiny, girly dream house for a tiny (mostly) girly girl and her babies.

I even had a name picked out for my daughter– Vendella. (I’ve always had a flair for the dramatic, and this name seemed properly dramatic and exotic for my daughter.)

Then I hit puberty. My plans to birth a tiny, dramatic Vendella vanished.

I didn’t want kids. Ever. I proceeded to tell people that. I continued to tell people that. I still tell people that.

My declaration has received varied responses. “Oh, you’ll change your mind” is fairly common. “You’ve still got plenty of time,” or “Who will take care of you when you’re older?” come up quite often as well.

The implication is always the same.

1. All women want kids.
2. You know more about what I want than I do.
3. I haven’t met the magical man that will make me want to birth babies.
4. If I don’t have kids, I will lead a sad, lonely life.

In the essay “The Mother of All Questions” Rebecca Solnit talks about being interviewed about one of her books, she writes,

“The British man interviewing me insisted that instead of talking about the products of my mind, we should talk about the fruit of my loins, or the lack thereof…The interviewer’s question was indecent, because it presumed that women should have children, and that a woman’s reproductive activities were naturally public business.”

The full essay is available: http://harpers.org/archive/2015/10/the-mother-of-all-questions/1/.

Why is having children a question regularly addressed to a woman? These questions aren’t often asked of men.

Solnit was a woman being interviewed about her writing. Her desire to give birth certainly doesn’t have anything to do with her ability to write a book about politics. These questions are almost never asked of male writers. Solnit just happens to be a woman and a writer. Since she is a woman, the interviewer decided it was fair game to bring up her lack of children, and then imply there was something wrong with her because she didn’t have or want kids.

Remember. Writer. Woman. Fair Game.

There are plenty of people that don’t want kids. Men and women. But a woman that doesn’t want children is treated much differently than a man. There must be some trauma in her past to make her feel this way. Or she just hasn’t met the right man. Or she will change her mind. It is absurd. And belittling.

“More fundamentally, the question assumed that there was only one proper way for a woman to live,” Solnit writes.

The question assumed a woman was incomplete, unless she was a mother with children. There are many ways to be a woman. Not having children doesn’t make you less of a woman. And not wanting kids doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you.

Solnit also points out that having children doesn’t ensure you’re going to have a great life.

“I’m all for marriage and children, when it and they are truly what people want from their lives” Solnit writes.

I feel the same way. If you want kids, a husband, a house, and a white picket fence, have at it. But there are many ways to find happiness.

There are also many ways to create a family. Your family could be you and your husband. Your family could be you and your child. Your family could be you and your dog. Your family could be your best friend and his husband.

The less time we spend trying to live how we are supposed to live, the more time we will have to live in ways that actually make us happy.

“I have done what I set out to do in my life, and what I set out to do was not what the interviewer presumed. I set out to write books, to be surrounded by generous, brilliant people, and to have great adventures,” Solnit writes.

Well said, sister.

This week’s video is “Independent Women, Pt. I” from Destiny’s Child. For you know, my independent ladies out there.