I’m not shaming mothers or women, it’s completely the opposite: I’m shaming men, especially American ones. In Serbia, men see it as their role both to provide for their kids but also to look after them. But in the United States, you wouldn’t see a man carrying a baby in a sling, that’s unmanly. American men play video games, look at pornography and have given up on the idea of striving to be better, some of them have even given up on working at all. Yet somehow they still expect to get the most beautiful women. They’re not going to school, starting businesses, hustling to be better men and mentors to others. It’s left to women to do the work – we buy the books, have the community and the friends. And then if we have children, we bear the physical, financial and emotional burden.
Men can’t take on the more traditional nurturing role because they can’t get pregnant. As long as women have to carry the baby with all the dangers that brings, then men need to bring something else to the relationship and that’s earning money to provide for their family. The women I know who’ve married low-income men are burned out because although they’re the breadwinners, these men aren’t picking up the household chores. You have a partner who’s unsupportive, thinks the housework is below him and makes less than you? Just no.
For too long women have been scared into settling by others telling them that there’s not enough great men so you’d be glad of what you can get. But it’s a fact that single women are happier, healthier and richer and there’s no quicker route to poverty than to have children with a deadbeat father.
My life has informed my thinking. I was born in New York and brought up with my three sisters near Boston by my single mother. She worked hard to give us a good life and was also helped by our extended family of cousins, aunts, grandparents… but people don’t live like that any more so you need other, paid-for support systems.
My mom always told us not to settle, don’t have kids or only have the kids that you can afford to raise alone, as my dad was very part-time and not invested in our family. I knew that I wanted to live a large and extravagant life from the fifth grade [aged 10] and that to do this, I couldn’t have a family while young because it would inhibit me. I’ve been able to bounce around the world because I don’t have a husband and children occupying my time and impeding my freedom. To live and flourish in all the countries I’ve settled in has required me to be smart, clever and strategic. I have made my own luxury life and business, and I’m very proud of being a self-made woman. I’d be mad to jeopardise all that by having children with the wrong man.
It’s well known that marriage benefits men most, whether they’re rich or poor. I see it all the time amongst the expat community. The wealthy men are married because they know they can have a wife at home doing all the invisible work while he’s drawing on her energy and connections so he can travel the world or build a business. Fathers are respected in the workforce, while women are not. The most successful men in the world are married – just look at Rupert Murdoch, he’s been married five times. It’s easy for pro-natalists [those who encourage an increased birth rate] like Elon Musk to say “have more kids”, because they’re not doing the work.
Marriage is not about love; that’s a relatively new phenomenon. It’s about business and a merger of wealth. If I get married, I’ll bring the same thinking and expertise to it as I do to the rest of my life. When I’m finally ready to have children, I want a night nurse, a doula, cleaners, nannies, a driver and a cook. And if a man can’t help provide this for a mother, she’s going to exhaust herself. A lot of American women are overweight and tired because it’s just not manageable for one person to do all the work. I love children and would love to have them, but it would not have been sensible to do this in my 20s. I was and am focusing on myself, building financial stability and my company – if the right person came along, I’d love to have or adopt kids.
But ultimately, I’d rather regret not having children than regret having them. You see so many exhausted parents who wish they hadn’t made the choices they did and there are so many ways we can contribute to the world other than raising children.
As told to Christina Hopkinson
