Disclaimer: this isn’t an article bashing women who want to have kids. Everyone is entitled to their choices, I just don't want to be judged for mine.
Women, since the beginning of time, have always been expected to become a mother. No matter what their goals in life were, it was always assumed that, at one point in their life, they’d give birth to a bouncing baby girl or boy. These expectations have caused women who don't want kids to be seen as selfish, naive, and apathetic. What’s crazy is that the people who say these harsh words to women who choose to not have children are other women; women who think that there isn’t a choice to make. That in order to be a true woman, we can’t go against human nature.
Consequently, women who do not want children have to constantly prove that they’re “woman” enough. That this misogynistic culture we live in forces women to judge other women based on this idea that you can’t be a woman without having a child to define you. Many women are also seen as not feminine for not having children because we are supposed to be nurturing and have the “mother gene” engrained in us.
Through the constant judgments of their friends and families, these women have to always explain why: why they made these choices, why are they so defensive, why, why, why! It’s always a fight to be respected for our choices. Hounded by questions, I always say the same thing: It’s my reproductive right to choose not to reproduce. People always seem to forget that with reproductive rights, it includes the right to choose to make informed decisions when it comes to my own reproductive health. And that is one of those choices.
But if it’s a choice that is up to us to make, why is it so hard to accept it?
It’s hard to accept it since we’ve been groomed to be mother’s all of our lives. As children, we’re given baby dolls that we were supposed to take care of. We would feed them fake milk from a fake bottle and rock them to sleep. Nowadays, these dolls are so technologically accurate that they even pee so you have to change their diapers. We give these young girls these baby dolls and what does that say to them? It says that we’re preparing them for a life that they may or may not want. That when they grow up, they’ll feel guilty if they do not want to have kids because of these aspects of their childhood. Let's call it “motherhood guilt.”
With this “motherhood guilt” always being used to try to sway our decisions, it can be exhausting trying to have an open conversation about this topic. I know because I’ve been there. Choosing not to have kids is such a taboo topic in this society and that’s why we need to keep talking about it. Start the conversation so that this society can start to be more accepting of these women and not try to outcast them. A choice is a choice.
I’ll start: I choose to not have children. And that’s okay. It is my choice. And if you choose to have kids, that is your choice. It’s time to stop tearing women down for their choices but start accepting them and building them up.
