It’s a conversation that comes up more and more frequently as myself and those around me inch our way into our mid-twenties, something that in a good two years’ time will undoubtedly be brought up at family gatherings: “So, are you thinking about having children someday?”
I’m usually in the stark minority when I deliver the answer, “Oh, yeah, two would be nice.” It’s something I’ve always thought about, being a mother. Along with becoming a writer, it’s one of my most important goals for the future. And yet, the conversation inevitably takes a wildly accusatory turn seconds later, when those around me either outright state or subtly imply that I can’t, or shouldn’t, have both.
“But I thought you wanted to write.”
“I guess that’s nice, I just know I want to focus on my career instead.”
“I’d rather have money than kids, am I right ladies?”
“But don’t you want to travel? Publish that novel? Get your dream job?”
Yes, yes I do, and I never thought that I had to choose between the two. In fact, one of the major factors I considered when looking into my future career options was flexibility, the ability to effectively do my work and spend time raising my children. Which yes, Carol, I really do want to have.
Sometimes I get the much harsher replies: “Well, I personally don’t want to be a housewife. I don’t want a man or kids dictating my life.”
Well now.
Somewhere along the line of the new wave of feminism encouraging women to become the powerful, independent, working women we never had the opportunity to be in the past, someone very radical decided that being a wife and mother could never be a choice, something a woman would want. It's even given rise to a super toxic demographic of women who discard the label "feminist" entirely - who say they "don't need feminism" - because the dialogue surrounding motherhood has become so polarized. And when women don't want to be feminists anymore, we need to step up and change the language we're using.
Basically, the bottom line is that motherhood is not the issue, and feminists are not the issue - it's the way we radicalize feminism in daily conversation so that mothers can't be a part of it, and feminists can't take part in motherhood.
Historically, yes, it’s been a role we were forced into, and we’re still at a tremendous disadvantage in the working world. The wage gap is real, y'all. But challenging a patriarchal, oppressive system doesn’t mean telling other women what they should or shouldn’t do with their lives. We need to challenge the idea that wanting to be a mother, wanting to be someone’s wife, means we’re rejecting that fight for equal rights and retreating back to our subservient roles.
I can absolutely be a writer, an editor, a wife, and a mom. I don’t need to have a sudden change of heart and pursue a 60-hour-a-week career in nuclear physics or travel childless across Europe for my adult years or refuse to marry someone I love and want to be with just to prove my metal as a feminist. And that’s really where the problem lies.
The whole point of feminism is giving women a choice, making the playing field equal so that we can each decide, individually, what works best for our lives, our wants and needs. I want to be a mother, and I’m not a bad feminist for saying so. I’ve had my feminism challenged in debates about motherhood. They always bring it back to the same tired point: “But you’re essentially saying you want to live your life dependent on some man, that you want to limit your opportunities to do what women have been forced to do since the dawn of time.”
No, I don’t – I want to work, I want to write, I want to be a mom. I’m not sacrificing anything that I don’t wholeheartedly want to sacrifice to have kids. I know how it’s going to change my life and I’m okay with it. There are plenty of people who just genuinely don't want to have kids, and that's okay too. What’s not okay is being told that this is unacceptable or makes me less of a feminist because it “harkens back to ye olden days” when I wouldn’t have had that choice to make in the first place.
I want to do what I want to do with my future, and I want other women, all women, to have that freedom without being criticized. Whether they want to be surgeons or mothers or both, I want them to be able to choose that life without fear or judgment by their fellow women. The social stigma surrounding motherhood as it relates to the modern feminism is something that needs to change; we’re in this together, and it’s time we started supporting one another, no matter our goals.
It’s the 21st century, you guys. Support aspiring moms.
