So you must not want children...

I am a very suggestible person. I blame moving around so much at a young age, but I take on the characteristics (including accents) of the people around me at warp speed. My first move to New Zealand at age 13 resulted in me replacing my accent in about 2 months after some kids laughed at me saying 'can't' (or 'cawn't') when we were reading aloud in class. The moment I realised it was a problem however, was when I worked in a prison and started thinking selling methamphetamine was a viable (and lucrative) career choice. But since then (and after promptly leaving that job) it hasn't been too much of a problem, mostly because I've associated with people who are like me or tolerant of difference. Unfortunately my move to Australia has brought me back into the danger zone.

But unlike being influenced by people with criminal records, these suggestions are a bit more benign. And these suggestions seem to be that a proper life for a woman is to marry young, change your surname, either stop working or do a few part time hours and have children as soon as possible after marriage. 

Now I'm aiming for neutrality in this discussion, and I hope that my anger at being judged doesn't manifest itself as judgment of the judgers (phew!). But I genuinely do not hold any judgment for these lifestyle choices. They are just not mine. And the objection I have is not that people make these choices, it is at the insistence that these are the only viable choices.

It's probably a combination of factors that had led me back here. The first is likely that I'm a new immigrant to a place where I don't know very many people, so my social circle is limited to people I or my husband works with and their friends (along with people we knew from New Zealand). The second is that I've never worked for an NGO before, and this world seems to attract a certain kind of person - one that doesn't mind the low pay and loves the flexible hours - perhaps because they are raising children or are married to someone who's income is enough that the pay is not that important. I don't know how justified the third one is, but I wonder if it is in part because the traditional paradigm is much stronger here than in New Zealand.

We all know Australia is the lucky country. Blessed with abundant natural resources (and a willingness to exploit the shit out of them), the wage gap between Australia and New Zealand is constantly on the Kiwi political agenda. But I wonder whether New Zealand's low wages and high cost of living has been both a blessing and a curse for the country. Beyond the obvious cheap exports and cheap labour stuff, from a sociological perspective, many New Zealanders would never be able to support a family long-term with one income. And maybe that financial pressure has led New Zealanders to be more open to non-traditional family situations. And maybe that has led us to be more open to women having a greater role outside the family.

I've spoken before about the much more extroverted nature of the Australian personality, so perhaps this is part of it. Perhaps my Kiwi compatriots also thought I was some kind of sexless unfeminine feminazi and were just too polite and reserved to mention it. But I don't think so. I think in general, that people in New Zealand are freer to lead the lives they want to without as much judgment. It's no utopia, but even looking at foreign policies (nuclear-free-NZ versus we'll-send-our-troops-to-a-war-we-have-nothing-to-do-with-to-please-you-Australia) New Zealanders seem a bit more OK with difference.

If anything, the recent Julia Gillard-Kevin Rudd debacle has illustrated to me the strong hold the traditional paradigm has here. Sure people were nasty to Helen Clark, but this vitriol has been unrelenting and shameless. An Age opinion piece questioned Australians' distrust of Gillard and whether it was due to their inability to reconcile political power and the role of a woman. There is so much not to trust about her. She is career-driven, atheist, childless and unmarried.

And unfortunately most of those terms can describe me. In my New Zealand life, most of these decisions never really warranted an eyebrow raise. But when asked how long I've been married, the most common follow up question is 'And no children yet! [horrified face!] So you must not want children!' When I corrected someone who assumed my surname was my husband's, I was met with more shock - 'But why? You're married!' 'Working and studying - why bother? It's a waste of time!' 

But in what I hope is a marker of me growing up, this time I've been a lot firmer in my beliefs. I know that working and studying is important to me, I know that keeping our surnames was a mutual decision that my husband and I made together and has nothing to do with the quality of our marriage, and I know that we're not quite ready for children until we complete our studies and I have my chronic health condition a little better managed.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to comfortably fit in the dominant paradigm and that it would be nice to not have to explain my choices all the time. But society doesn't change by people making themselves fit where they don't. And who would run my methamphetamine business if I had a gaggle of kids to raise?