Babies or Money?

Almost from the very day that we got married our refugee friends (particularly our friends from Africa) have been asking us when we would have babies. It started as light teasing and prodding in the beginning. Rick would always say, "In five years." He never changed the answer even though years were passing by. Many African women clicked their tongues at him and scolded him as they laughed. I think they just regarded us as "those odd" Americans who do things differently. But I'm starting to think that the laughing has stopped. I feel like we may be teetering on the edge of "odd Americans" into the pit of "down right wrong" in their eyes.

The other day my Somali Bantu friend, Jahora, asked me yet again when we were going to have babies. And I explained for the millionth time that Rick is a full time law student and that I have to work to pay our bills, so we can't have any babies until he finishes school, which won't be until the spring of 2009. She said to me, quite seriously, "You don't love babies. You love money." She wasn't teasing me. She wasn't laughing or clicking her tongue. She was just looking at me. She was making a cultural observation about me as an American. And she was as bothered about my decisions as I sometimes am about hers. In her culture babies and family are the most important thing, so she could not imagine waiting to have a baby for any reason. (Which is why she is 23 and has five kids.) After all these years of asking me when I was going to have a baby and getting no where, she had finally come to a conclusion about me and the conclusion was that I love money more than I love babies.

Now, I don't think that's a fair characterization of me, but on some level she's right. Probably not about money exactly, but more about freedom and accomplishments. So far we have put our freedom to travel, to pursue education, and to accomplish our goals over and above having our own babies. And looking through her cultural lense there is something terribly wrong about that.

Right now it seems like everyone I know has just had or is having a baby. Here is my list of refugee women in that category: Jahora, Halima, Rukia, Didacienne. I'm trying hard to get my young friend, Lulay, to graduate from high school before she gets married and has a baby. I have offered her my wedding dress for her wedding if she waits. We will see if the lure of the dress will be enough to help her resist all the cultural forces shoving her towards early marriage and early motherhood. Culture is a funny thing. It impacts how we see and experience everything. It is deep, deep inside us in ways we don't even realize.

I have often told refugees when they asked me why I didn't have babies, "If I had babies of my own right now I wouldn't have anytime to be with you and your babies." I do want to be a mother one day. And I'm starting to feel my age and the ticking of the clock. But I don't think I regret the life that I have had without babies so far. The places I've seen. The things I've studied. The refugee babies that I've held and loved and watched come into the world. Still, I think the time is coming for us to answer the question differently. But before that happens I wish that Jahora could understand that we do already love babies more than money. It's just that the babies we've loved haven't been our own. And in some ways I think that love has required something even deeper in us than just the regular race to the coveted suburban life with a two car garage and 2.5 kids. As the saying goes, "It takes a village to raise a child." As many of our refugee friends have lost their villages, we've tried to build a new ones with them. And I am so grateful to all of them for letting me love their babies so, so much more than money.