Quotes from Meghan Daum

But to me, the lack of desire to have a child is innate. It exists outside of my control. It is simply who I am and I can take neither credit nor blame for all that it may or may not signify. But the decision to honor that desire, to find a way to be whole on my own terms even if it means facing the judgment, scorn, and even pity of mainstream society, is a victory. It's a victory I celebrate every day.

Children exhaust us, even the ones we love most. Our solitude is the most valuable thing we have, and we cherish it above most other things and work hard to maintain it.

As a woman who chooses to be childless, I generally have just one problem: other adults. Living in a culture where women are assumed to prioritize motherhood above all else and where a woman's personal choices are often considered matters of public discussion means everyone thinks they have the right to discuss my body and my choices, so anyone who is curious about my lack of spawn feels the right to march right on over and ask me about it.

What if I have become sure that personal freedom is the thing I hold most dear?

In the five years it took me to come to my conclusion, I endured intense anxiety, self-doubt, sorrow, and a great deal of ambivalence about my future.

I don't really want to have a baby; I want to want to have a baby." I longed to feel like everybody else, but I had to face the fact that I did not.

It's amazing what the living expect of the dying.

If the ultimate purpose of your life is your children, what's the purpose of your children's lives? To have your grandchildren? Isn't anyone's life ultimately meaningful in itself? If not, what's the point of propagating it ad infinitum?

But a dog confers status on a man. It shows he is responsible and capable of love. It will probably even help him get laid.

I'll venture to suggest that we childless ones, whether through bravery or cowardice, constitute a kind of existential vanguard, forced by our own choices to face the naked question of existence with fewer illusions, or at least fewer consolations, than the rest of humanity, forced to prove to ourselves anew every day that extinction does not negate meaning.

the time I watched a knife fight outside the window of the studio in Greenwich Village, the time I got an HIV test at a Department of Health free clinic in order to prove some kind of point to myself (other than that I didn't have HIV, which I already knew).

The only thing I could do now for which my youth would be a truly notable feature would be to die. If I died now, I'd die young. Everything else, I'm doing middle-aged.

Given the correlation between aging and death, declaring that you can't stand today's music might actually mark the first stage of the dying process.

Having decided there was little point in denying my status as a gentrifier, I joined the neighborhood security association, a network of mostly middle- and upper-middle-class homeowners that employed a small stable of private patrol officers to cruise the neighborhood and scare any potential marauders, most of which amounted to kids loitering near the park.

If you were a girl who loved above all to read and write and who could not imagine an adulthood in which these activities did not hold a central place, you probably knew even before puberty that you were headed for conflict.

Meghan's a columnist at the L.A. Times," the friend said. "I'm sure you've read her.

Oh, yes!" said Arianna. "You're really good! One of the best.

Oh my," I said. "Thank you.