What Kamala Harris’ blended family means for women who don’t have children by choice

A week ago, when Kamala Harris was sworn in as the first female vice president of the United States, she did so surrounded by young family members. There were his stepchildren, Cole, 26, and Ella, 21; his niece, Meena; and her young great-nieces, Amara and Leila, adorably dressed in fur coats as a tribute to a famous photo of Harris when she was a young woman in the 1970s.

The whole thing made me cry. I didn’t expect to be so deeply moved. But then, until very recently, never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that someone who looked like me, with whom I share so many characteristics and life experiences, could occupy the second highest position in the country.

Like Harris’ parents, I’m an immigrant. Harris was born in Oakland, where I live. She grew up visiting South Asia; she wears saris and speaks a little South Asian language, just like me. She was 50 when she married her husband, while I was 42, ages considered well past the due date. All of these facts make me feel deeply represented by her.

However, there is another extraordinary way in which your choices reflect mine. Like Harris, I chose not to have biological children. I am 47 years old now, and since I was a teenager, I knew that I did not want to have children.

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I am part of a growing group of women – American women are having fewer children later in life – but still face the stigma of being inconsistent in this regard. But it is particularly unusual to see a woman in politics who has no biological children. In general, in America, unlike many other parts of the world, we are not yet used to seeing women achieve high political positions. The few who are successful in this arena often follow a sacred script in their personal lives: husband, two children and a golden retriever. Often, their careers take off after husbands reach their peak. Harris’ personal choices have been very different from this traditional and idealized script.

In addition to all this, I know intimately the pressure to have children in a South Asian context. As a South Asian American myself, choosing not to have children was a great starting point for my community, which assumed that all women wanted marriage and children – and, in fact, that a woman who did not give birth would have a child. unsatisfactory life.

Recently, while examining a Marie Kondo, I found a letter written to me by an older relative. He exalted me for starting to think about marriage and, more specifically, about having children. “Don’t wait until you’re older,” she warned. “Then you will be too dry to get pregnant.” I was 25 when I received that letter. I think it’s a convenient replacement for the long procession of aunts and uncles who told me that my life would be a failure if I didn’t give birth to children.

Despite all this noise, I never wavered in my conviction. In 2008, I met the man who would become my husband. We were roommates on a Victorian high in San Francisco. I was recovering from a complicated divorce. At first we were friends, then we were more.

At first, I was very clear. If we developed into something meaningful, I would have no interest in being a mother. If he wanted children in the future, I shouldn’t be his choice. He considered it deeply and stayed close. We were married in 2015 and six months later he had a vasectomy. At the time, he posted on social media hoping that our choice of not being parents would be as celebrated as other people’s pregnancy announcements. After all, our choice was made after both examination of conscience and theirs.

Our reasons for not wanting to be biological parents are many. We are simply not the type of person who can give the selfless dedication that parenting requires. We love to have the freedom to travel, to be quiet when we want to, to have financial freedom and to have time to dedicate ourselves to the calls of our lives. Perhaps it is more true to say that we simply do not have the energy that people who want to be parents have.

But there are also general reasons. There is an environmental cost: as a friend pointed out, bringing another American into the world is extremely different from bringing a human to other places. Another American’s devastating environmental footprint is simply not something we are willing to add to the mix. For all these reasons, we made it clear that we did not want children.

I don’t know the specific reasons why Harris doesn’t have biological children. But to me, seeing the vice president’s choices adopted seems liberating.

What is also very clear is that not being a birth mother did not detract from Harris’s life in any way. She spoke and wrote warmly about her choices and the importance of her role as a stepmother or – as her stepchildren call her – Momala, calling her the title “which will always be the one that means the most to me”.

In an essay for Elle, she wrote about her close friendship with Cole and Ella’s mother, Kerstin, writing that “Sometimes we joke that our modern family is almost too functional”. We were all witnesses on Induction Day for the beautiful family she created in her specific way. Each of us does not have to make his choices, but his life illustrates the fact that women can and should live unconventional lives that do not follow traditional scripts.

Olivier Douliery / AFP via Getty Images

In the same vein, the older relatives and acquaintances who felt the need to tell me that I would regret not being a birth mother were completely wrong. As I had no children, I had the time, money and energy to be present as an aunt to so many young people, including my sister’s two daughters, children of friends and many generations of students. This is a state that I saw reflected in the Harris crew at the inauguration. My decision not to be a mother created a lot more family in my life, as much as the vice president’s choices.

My tears at seeing Kamala Harris open are a response to finally feeling validated in my own choices. It’s the party I didn’t know I expected. A celebration of the fact that the family can also be chosen; the family can also be raised in ways that deeply and happily exceed the biological.

Nayomi Munaweera is the award-winning author of the novels Island of a Thousand Mirrors and What’s between us.