Meghan Daum is the author of one new(ish) essay collection, The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion, and the editor of another, Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids, which she’ll be discussing with the writer Jac Jemc at the Chicago Humanities Festival on November 7. Recently she took some time to chat on the phone about Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed from New York, where she’s a professor in the MFA creative writing program at Columbia University’s School of the Arts.
The experience varies. One reason isn’t everybody’s reason. The stories are very different. The essays aren’t designed to have readers agree with all of them. They’re all so different, but they all really do avoid the brats-and-breeders derisiveness. I can’t stand that, and it’s not useful. It’s a difficult and important job being a parent. In a way the book is a tribute to parenting. There’s a whole discussion of parents versus nonparents and how parents feel that childfree—I hate that word—people are judging them. The book reframes that. It’s the ultimate way of doing that.
You only contributed an introduction, although you’ve written elsewhere about your own decision not to have kids.
I’ve had several women tell me that they want to get the book for their grown daughters who don’t want kids as a gesture of solidarity. I’ve gotten very little criticism. That’s shocking to me because, as a writer and opinion columnist, I’ve gotten a lot of blowback and elicited strong reactions. I didn’t want the essays steeped in divisive rhetoric. There are so many different views, and the book is so respectful of parents, it’s very difficult to have a vehemently negative reaction. Maybe to a few of the pieces, but there are so many perspectives, it’s hard to get exercised over the whole thing. Most people say thank you for opening up the topic. Especially women who felt really alone in the decision. Now they feel less alone in the world. It’s not a manifesto. I have no interest in talking people out of having kids. That’s absurd, as absurd as trying to change someone’s sexuality. I just want to reframe the discussion so people don’t resort to jokes.
I’m glad there are both straight and gay men.
