Henriette Mantel - No Kidding: Women Writers on Bypassing Parenthood

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Book:
No Kidding: Women Writers on Bypassing Parenthood
Author:
Henriette Mantel
Publisher:
Basic Books
Genre:
Books / Detective and thriller
Year:
2013
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In No Kidding, comedy writer Henriette Mantel tackles the topic of actually not having kids. This fascinating collection features a star-studded group of contributors-including Margaret Cho, Wendy Liebman, Laurie Graff, and other accomplished, funny womenwriting about why they opted out of motherhood. Whether their reasons have to do with courage, apathy, monetary considerations, health issues, or something else entirely, the essays featured in the pages of No Kidding honestly (and humorously) delve into the minds of women who have chosen what they would call a more sane path.

Hilarious, compelling, and inspiring, No Kidding reveals a perspective that has too long been hidden, shamed, and silenced-and celebrates an entire population of women who have decided that kids are just not right for them.

Additional contributors include Janette Barber, Cheryl Bricker, Valri Bromfield, Cindy Caponera, Bonnie Datt, Jeanne Dorsey, Nora Dunn, Jane Gennaro, Julie Halston, Debbie Kasper, Sue Kolinsky, Maureen Langan, Beth Lapides, Bernadette Luckett, Merrill Markoe, Andrea Carla Michaels, Vanda Mikoloski, Judy Morgan, Judy Nielsen, Susan Norfleet, Suzanne ONeil, Jennifer Prediger, Kathryn Rossetter, Betsy Salkind, Patricia Scanlon, Jeanette Schwaba Vigne, Nancy Shayne, Carol Siskind, Ann Slichter, Tracy Smith, Suzy Soro, Amy Stiller, and Nancy Van Iderstine.

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Table of Contents

To Sarah, Holly, Daniel, Paige, Grace, Julianna, Kaleena, and Jaydon:
Thanks for being the kids I didnt have.

Henriette Mantel

Foreword

Jennifer Coolidge

I met Henriette Mantel in 1994, when we were both cast in a short-lived sketch show for ABC called She TV. She was the first person I met in Los Angeles who was a true nonconformista breath of fresh air and a fellow New Englander who didnt edit herself. I fell hard for Henriette when she did this hilarious stand-up bit called, Pretty, Pretty, Pretty, in which she laments the lack of substance in Hollywood and that talent is no longer a necessity. Way ahead of her time, she unconsciously predicted this whole Kardashian debacle. Its not about anything anymore, its just about being pretty.

We have always managed to stay loosely connected. At one point she generously cast me in a brilliant play she wrote called The Beaver Play (yes, my character fell in love with a beaver in Vermont), and I can always count on an invitation to join her for midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

Im so touched that Henriette asked me to write the foreword to this book. Im not sure I deserve the honor, and I dont think she is completely informed as to how I have made some of my major life decisions. Maybe Ill be the perfect contrast to the highly respected writers whose stories appear within the pages of No Kidding.

I knew my limitations at a young age. I was very aware of my inability to multitask by age five. I admitted this to my mother when I came in from playing, spit out my chewing gum, handed it to her, and said, Mom please hold my gum, Im going to the bathroom right now, and I cant handle both. The big decisions in my life have always been made in small, significant moments that I cant recover from. These moments are visual, and I play them on a loop in my head.

The profound decision not to have children came out of a thirty-second image I saw on one hot summer day in the early 80s. We were at Jaycees Dairy in Hanover, Massachusetts. I was home from my sophomore year in college, and my parents couldnt think of anything to do with me except get ice cream. So there I sat, in the backseat of their Volvo eating my usual soft-serve vanilla cone with chocolate jimmies.

Next to us a steaming, overheating, station wagon brimming with young childrenfour to be exactpulled up. The oldest one couldnt have been more than five-years-old with his beet-red, sobbing face pressed against the window. They all looked like they had been bathing in Orange Fanta and crying for days. I dont think I would have paid any attention to the driver, except that I recognized her hair. No one had shiny platinum hair like thatexcept Lila Beck.

Lila Beck was three grades above me in school. I was obsessed with her. She was unlike anybody else in my tiny town. There was nothing about her that was obedient or people-pleasing. She was unflappable. She didnt even seem to mind when somebody called her a slut. She slept with whomever she wanted to sleep withwithout any shame. She slept with two best friends. And both guys still liked her. Do you know how hard that is to pull off in a small town?

On the treacherous, bumpy, forty-five minute bus ride to school, while we were supposed to stay seated, Lila would stand at the back of the bus in the aisle wearing her turquoise shorts, defying gravity. She somehow managed to write notes to boys on hot pink paper, apply makeup, and do walk the dog with a light-up yoyo, all without holding on. She was a multitasker before the phrase was coined. To someone like me who couldnt crap and chew gum at the same timeshe was a white angel.

I was always trying to convince myself that life in New England suburbia wasnt depressing. The houses were pretty, and I had a horse. But Lila Beck had a huge advantage. Lila Beck had Lila Beck. She seemed complete at fourteen, which to me seemed like such an impossible feat. Lila wasnt a cheerleader, or even a good student. In fact, I read a letter she wrote to my brother that sounded as if it was written by Lenny from Of Mice and Men.

I remember the day I knocked on Lilas front door selling Girl Scout cookies. She answered and said she was on the phone. She led me to the kitchen, climbed up onto the counter, sat cross-legged in her bare feet, painted her toe nails white, and blatantly ignored me while she chatted with a friend. I stood there in her kitchen, holding onto my cookie order form, mesmerized. I didnt know what she was, except that she was a different animal, and I couldnt get enough. She could have been President of the United States or the Queen of Monaco. No matter who she was, her life was better than mine. Better than anybodys. I hated the fact that she knew I played the clarinet.

The Girl Scout cookie visit took place when I was eleven or twelve. Eight years later, Im in the back seat of that Volvo, and Im seeing Lila Beck for the first time since high school. She didnt look any less pretty. She just looked different. I cant tell you all the thoughts that entered my mind, but I know what the feeling was. The beautiful Lila Beck, the free-spirited rebel that did whatever she wanted whenever she felt like it, was gone. Now she was trapped in a cage of responsibility.

At that moment, my fascination with Lila Beck ended. I didnt want the car or the kids. I didnt want the responsibility or the vulnerability of it all. My only wish in that moment was to be barren.

Im aware that I could just as easily have been sitting in my parents car on a different summer day. On a day that was less hot, Lila could have driven up in her shiny car with her handsome husband and her four non-sticky, angelic kids. Then maybe I would have made the decision to have as many kids as my ovaries would allow, but thats not the way it happened. In retrospect, this probably was my most honest moment of knowing my limitationsknowing that I didnt want the selflessness of motherhood.

I dont know whatever happened to Lila Beck. I have no idea how her life turned out, but Lila, if you are reading this now, Remember me? Youve inspired me in ways you cant imagine. You truly did. You made me who I am. Thanks for taking one for the team. I hope it was easier than it looked.

In No Kidding, Henriette has cherry-picked some of the best women writers around who have consciously or unconsciously made the decision to not have children. This collection of stories couldnt be more interesting or diverse, and you certainly dont have to be childless, or child-free to be moved by them. Some made me laugh out loud, while others made me sob uncontrollably. Whether lighthearted or heartbreaking, they are all unique perspectives on a sometimes delicate topic.

Its clear to me that kids are not in my future. My childbearing years are gone, and to some this fact would be disconcerting. Instead, I take comfort in the camaraderie I share with these cool women who face the same reality.

Jennifer Coolidge
January 2013

Introduction

HENRIETTE MANTEL: I went to a psychic today, and she told me Im never going to have children but that Ill have a lifelong companion.

LAURA KIGHTLINGER: Did she tell you that your companion is going to eat out of a bowl on the floor?

Years ago, I remember watching The Tonight Show

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