What the mixed family of Kamala Harris means for women who are child-free by choice

When Kamala Harris was sworn in as the first female vice president of the United States a week ago, she was surrounded by young family members. There were her stepchildren, Cole, 26, and Ella, 21; her niece, Meena; and her young grandchildren, Amara and Leila, beautifully dressed in fur coats as a tribute to a famous picture of Harris as a young girl in the 70s.

The whole thing made me cry. I did not expect to be so deeply and physically affected. But then, until very recently, never in my wildest dreams, I imagined that someone like me, with whom I share so many qualities and life experiences, could hold the second highest office in the country.

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

There’s another extraordinary way her choices reflect mine. Like Harris, I chose not to have biological children. I am now 47 years old and have known since my teens the question that I do not want children.

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I’m part of a growing group of women – American women are having fewer children later in life – but I’m still being formed because they’re outgoing in this regard. But it is particularly unusual to see a woman in politics who does not have biological children. In general, unlike in many other parts of the world, we in America are not yet accustomed to women reaching high political office. The few who do succeed in this arena usually followed a sacred scripture in their personal lives: husband, two children and a golden retriever. Often their careers began when their husbands reached their peak. Harris’ personal choices are very different from this traditional and idealized text.

On top of that, I know the pressure of having children within a South Asian context. “Because I myself was a South Asian American, the choice to be child-free was a tenet of my community, which assumed that all women want marriage and children – and that a woman who does not have children, ‘ will have an unfulfilled life.

Recently as I was going through a Marie Kondo, I found a letter that an older family member had written to me. It prompted me to start thinking about marriage and, more specifically, having children. “Do not wait until you are older,” she warns. “Then you will be too dry to get pregnant.” I was 25 years old when I got that letter. I find it a convenient walk-in for the long march of aunts and uncles who told me that my life would be a failure if I did not 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 in a long Victorian in San Francisco. I have recovered from a sloppy divorce. Initially we were friends and then more.

Early on I was very clear. If we were to develop into something meaningful, I would not be interested in being a mother. If he wanted children in the future, I would not have to be his choice. He thinks deeply, and he gets stuck. We got married in 2015, and six months later he had a vasectomy. At the time, he posted on social media wishing that our choice not to be parents would be celebrated as the announcement of others’ pregnancies. After all, our choice was made after as much psychological examination as theirs.

Our reasons why we do not want to be biological parents are many. We are simply not the kind of people who can give the selfless dedication that parenting requires. We like to have the freedom to travel, to be quiet when we want, the financial freedom and the time to devote to our life calling. Maybe it’s true to say that we simply do not have the energy that people who parents want.

But there are also bigger reasons. There is the environmental cost: as a friend remarked, it is different to bring another American into the world than to bring one into other places. The devastating environmental footprint of another American is simply not one we are willing to add. For all these reasons, we were clear that we did not want children.

I do not know the specific reasons why Harris did not have biological children. But to me, it feels liberating to accept the vice president’s choices.

What is also very clear is that the fact that he is not a biological mother has reduced Harris’ life in any way. She spoke warmly and wrote about her choices and the importance of her role as stepmother or – as her stepchildren call her – Momala, calling it the title that “will always be the one that means the most to me.”

In an essay for Elle, she wrote about her close friendship with Kerstin van Cole and Ella, Kerstin, and wrote: “We sometimes joke that our modern family is almost too functional.” We were all witnesses on the Inauguration Day of the beautiful family she created in her own specific way. We do not each have to make her own choices, but her life illustrates the fact that women can and should lead unconventional lives that do not follow traditional texts.

Olivier Douliery / AFP via Getty Images

In the same vein, the older family members and acquaintances who had the need to tell me that I would regret not being a biological mother were completely wrong. Because I did not have children, I had the time, the finances, and the energy to be present for so many little ones, including my sister’s two daughters, the children of friends, and many generations of students. This is a condition I saw in Harris’ crew during the inauguration. My decision not to be a mother created so much more family in my life, just like the vice president had a choice.

My tears when I see Kamala Harris being inaugurated are a reaction to my own choice to finally feel empowered. This is the celebration I did not know what I was waiting for. A celebration of the fact that family can also be chosen; family can also be created in ways that surpass the biological deeply and joyfully.

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