Dear Prudence via Slate, November 10, 2016
Dear Prudence,
My husband and I are both very committed to being child-free. Our conservative, reactionary family is not. We avoided the arguments, lectures, and condescension by using “not yet” as the answer for years. Now we have gotten into our mid-30s, we have changed from “not yet” to “not possible” in order to get around the “you’re not getting any younger” arguments. Most people respect that, but my sister-in-law had fertility problems. She is on a crusade to get me pregnant. She will badger me about our “problems,” talk about IVF, and natter on about adoption even as we ask for her to drop the subject.She is opinionated, zealous, and overly invested in the ideal of motherhood. I am dreading Thanksgiving. Being honest with her is a no go; it will cause a bigger problem than this. I am ready to fake cry and lock myself in the bathroom if it will get her to leave my husband and me alone. I just want peace or at least the illusion of peace before we can go take our Christmas trip to Hawaii. What do I do?
—Child-Free, Please
Children are God’s gift to the world, and it is your duty to be fruitful and multiply. You should immediately call your sister to let her know how kind it has been for her to lead you to the correct way of life. Obviously, my number one suggestion is that you just have kids. Making other people happy is an excellent reason to do things because it guarantees that the people around you are happy, and it would be selfish of you to deny them that.
If you insist on spitting in God’s face and disappointing your sister, your easiest option is to kill your husband. Obviously, as a widower, nobody would expect you to have children any time soon. While it would require you to actually see your sister, killing her will similarly end her nagging.
Honest conversations are hard, and really impressing upon someone your reasons for your personal decisions is difficult. As is ignoring them when they nag. This leaves you with very few reasonable options. You could offer to babysit for her and do an awful job so that she thinks you are an unfit parent. To really sell this, you may need for the kids to end up in the hospital, but it allows you to avoid an uncomfortable conversation, so if the kids were old enough to consent to this plan, I’m sure they would.
Life without kids is empty, so everyone should have them was originally published on I’m Not Wrong
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