The “Steal My Joy” Argument

I’ve heard this one a dozen times. But what’s at the root of it?

I’m a dude that can’t impregnate his wife, which is sad to live through, but over time you come to grips with it. I also happen to have spent a chunk of my professional existence as a writer for myself and other people. In the context of “write what you know,” sometimes I write about infertility, fertility, parenting, motherhood, etc. You can obviously argue I don’t know motherhood, as I’m not a woman or a mother, and you’d be right. In those cases, it’s a mix of observational + what people tell me about the experience.

About five years, as some of my wife’s friends got pregnant, periodically I’d hear from them that I “stole their joy” around pregnancy because I wrote something that insinuated maybe not everyone really wants to be a mom and they largely do it for societal pressures and/or to keep up with their friends.

First of all, that argument is insane to me. If some fat fuck kid who writes on Medium can “steal your joy” around creating new life, well, there’s a much deeper pathology there that I cannot possibly delve into without going to Med School at 43 and becoming a psychiatrist.

By now, I think 12 women have told me some variation of how I “stole their joy.” I generally ignore it as a little bit off or maybe a version of hormonal that I wouldn’t understand, but if you want to unpack it more, I kinda think you would land here:

In the 1950s, which was admittedly a very different time and the U.S. was arguably the only superpower in the world and globalization and tech hadn’t come for decent jobs, I think — or I’ve read — the percentage of childless women was about 6–10%. Now it’s 22–25%. So why is that happening? Well, economic realities is a huge one. The generalized decline of men, maybe — less good partners. Later marriages mean harder conception periods. More infertility. Worse diets. All that plays in.

One thing we don’t discuss, because it’s very taboo, is that some women have kids early, and it kinda decimates their body and the kid runs around smashing stuff in the living room, and their husband is like “Hey babe, I was gonna play golf with Greg this weekend. I think maybe he’s struggling?” and after two kids of that, the woman…