Growing up in a family of five kids, Catholic no less, having children of my own was something that was sort of assumed.  Heck, my Mom and her seven sisters had 45 children between them.  (Doing the math, yep, that means 45 first cousins on my Mom’s side – and 45 of the kindest and friendliest people you will ever meet.)

So while I assumed I would have kids, I never spent days imagining kids.  For that matter, I never really imagined getting married, no dreams of walking down the aisle in an over-priced wedding gown.  Those thoughts didn’t surface until I met the right one.  (As my sister-in law says, “You can’t screw up the right one or make the wrong one work.”)  And by the time I met the right one, it was becoming a tad too late for me and babies.  

I spent my 20s in a relationship that definitely provided me with a kind of community, but in hindsight, I knew he wasn’t the forever-after kind of guy.  I was the type of person who wanted someone with more stability and who had a similar faith – not just in spiritual things, but someone who lived from a place of hope and not cynicism.

I’ve often wondered if my own parents had stayed married, how would life be different.  Would I still have had the desire to move to L.A. and pursue an acting career?  Maybe not.  Perhaps I would have stayed in the Midwest, married with children.

My choice of career probably had a lot to do with getting married later in life.  When I started out in L.A. as a struggling actress, I was working a full-time job during the day and usually rehearsing a play at night.  Or taking an acting class.  Or working late to make up for the lost time when I had to leave work for an audition.  Not much room for anything else, at least not in terms of raising kids.  

Some will say, well, that was your choice to focus on your career and not have kids.  And that may be true.  Would things have been different if someone had sat me down and said, “Really think about this — is this what you want?”  I don’t know the answer to that.  And while we all do a certain amount of looking back, I think gleaning wisdom from missteps with an eye toward the future is a better way of looking at mistakes or things we wished turned out differently. My friend Steve reminds, “Sliding doors.”

As a woman of faith, I believe God had someone in mind for me that was going through his own stuff in his 20s and into his 30s.  And we just weren’t supposed to meet until we were both a little older. Because then, we would be the right fit.  

Any way you look at it, the end result in terms of children is the same.  A little too late.  And while we could have gone to extreme measures, we just didn’t.  

I remember getting to a certain age when people would assume you had kids.  And they would ask the question, “Do you have kids?”  And I would get pink in the face, and stammer, “Nope, no kids.”  Sometimes, I felt like answering them with a straight face, “My womb is barren.” or “No, I’m a loser.” or “I know what you’re thinking: who is going to take care of us when we’re old?”

I finally came up with the response, “No kids, but we have a dog.”  Somehow that appeased whoever asked the question.  And it made all of us feel a little less uncomfortable.  

When we first got married, we asked a mentor about life with kids and life without kids. He very wisely replied that either way, life will be good.  It will just be different.  

We tried.  It just didn’t happen for us. 

And so we are the couple with no kids.  But.  That doesn’t mean I don’t have a stake in the future of this country.  It doesn’t mean that I’m miserable. And while I’ve never owned a cat, I would proudly call myself a “dog lady” any day of the week.  

So for those of you who don’t have children, remember that you are no less valued, your contribution to this world can be just as great without children and you have as much of a voice in the world as anyone else.  

To say otherwise is ludicrous.  

I’d like to think I have a chunk of life ahead of me. I know I have a lot of things I still want to get done, things that I hope will make a (perhaps small) contribution: more theatre (whether directing or acting), producing a screenplay I co-wrote, co-hosting a podcast that gives me so much joy, and of course, spending time with the family and friends that I value. 

And one other thing I need to get done that won’t take a lot of time, but it’s maybe the most important thing I’ll do all year.  

Vote.