Comedian Joanne McNally on being labelled a baby hater

Comedian Joanne McNally  has made a new TV show ‘Baby Hater’ to meet other women who’ve decided not to have children.

Comedian Joanne McNally  has made a new TV show ‘Baby Hater’ to meet other women who’ve decided not to have children.

Just to clarify, I don’t hate babies, I like babies, I’m quite drawn to babies, I’m the one wanting to hold your baby and examine its tiny toes and lips and marvelling at its little limp fingers. I’m quite maternal actually. I’m embarrassingly parental towards my boyfriend, sometimes I’ll run a bath and try to put him in it. He’ll roll his eyes and remind me that he’s actually a grown man and I’m left disappointedly pulling the plug on the whole thing and going back downstairs to secretly mash his potatoes.

I’m not a baby hater. It is, however, the title of my new documentary. The idea was born (there was no way around that) from my own suspicions around parenting. Does it live up to the hype? And other people’s reactions to women who choose to be child-free (It’s not positive, hence the title of the doc). I’m 34 now and veering towards a decision to not have kids but I’m not 100% sure. If I was to put a figure on it I would say I’m 80% certain, 20% on the fence.

I never imagined having children, I’m not suggesting I was a tiny Nostradamus with a curious gift for predictions, I just never saw myself as a mother. It’s not like I’m a wildly alternative daredevil with a thirst for non-stop adventure who doesn’t want children because I’m too busy wading through the Congo and chilling with pygmies. I’m quite traditional really, no tattoos, drinks a lot of pinot, just back from an all inclusive in Lanzarote. I don’t think I’m mother material. Dipping my boyfriend in a bath occasionally is one thing but the relentless responsibility of parenting feels like an impossible task for me personally.

However, a wise woman once said to me “go ahead and have a child, you could regret not having one, but you’ll never regret having one”. This stayed with me, is that true? Is it impossible to regret having a child? So I did some research and no, it’s not impossible at all. I dove down into the internet and there they were, all number of anonymous threads and groups full of parents admitting they’d made a terrible mistake.

OK fine, but the people who wish they’d never had their children are all sociopathic monsters with horns for eyes, right? Nope, hundreds and hundreds of ‘normal people’, horn and fang-free people, making anonymous confessions online, riddled with guilt over how they feel and also grief for their lost sense of self. Brutal in their honesty, the messages read like desperate cries for help, typed out hurriedly, in dark sitting rooms while their children sleep. They make for gloomy reading.

I was fascinated, the idea that something packaged as beautifully as motherhood is, this purpose-giving, life-affirming experience, peel away the smiling women on the box, and underneath it are these dark, dejected shadows, too terrified to identify themselves for fear of a public shaming, like a virtual Salem Witch Trials.

I wanted to speak to one of these people, and I did. A Canadian woman named Victoria Elder, In her interview she tells me how she originally wanted a baby, she planned it and celebrated the pregnancy. Yet the moment the nurse placed her newborn baby in her arms, “I knew then I’d made the biggest mistake of my life, and that feeling never went away”.

You can’t admit you loathe motherhood, that you wish you’d never done it, you will be seen as cruel, an ego maniac. The assumption will be that you hate your child. For the record, she doesn’t hate her child. Although that can happen too of course, our emotions are not an exact science. Her regret was based on things like, resenting the time parenting took from her own pursuits.

That was a re-occurring theme, time. Is the time you put into parenting worth it? For some it is and for some, it isn’t.

The name for the show came from Holly Brockwell, she doesn’t hate babies either. She’s a young English journalist I spoke to who knew from day one that she didn’t want to have children. At 26 she wanted to get sterilised but was refused because of her age, so she went public, appearing on This Morning on ITV.

The backlash was vicious. She was called all sorts but ‘Baby Hater’ was the insult she remembers the most. She got her wish eventually and now lives child happily child free with several cats and a very sweet man named Zach.

I speak with women who have always wanted a family and women who’ve never wanted a family. I pick their brains as best I can, what’s it like? How were you so sure?

I interview my friend Brigid who is brand new to motherhood and nearly fell off the gurney when the doctor told her she was having not one, not two, but three babies all at once.

I also spoke to my own mother who’s 34 years in the job and tells me she wouldn’t change a thing. Nothing? I ask her, not even the time I stole your credit card and ran away to Colchester? Even that, she tells me through gritted teeth while the camera crew zoom in for a close-up.

I spent a day in Holles street and watched women at their strongest and men at their most vulnerable, helpless as their partner performs a mini miracle in front of their eyes.

If I’ll ever become a mother myself I don’t know, probably not, but one thing is for sure, the women who do take the plunge into motherhood, they’re bigger and braver than I am.

- Joanne McNally Baby Hater: True Lives airs on TV3 on Wednesday at 9pm