Growing up in the world that we do, girls are conditioned from a very early age to believe that they are destined to be mothers, that they have to have children at some point. Toddler girls are given baby dolls and little pink strollers to play with. Girls in middle school going through their rebellious phase and getting yelled at are told by their parents that they will, "Understand when they're a mom one day.”

Women in their twenties and thirties who are single are bombarded with, "Your biological clock is ticking," and, "When are you going to find a man to settle down and have a family with?" Women in their twenties and thirties who are in a committed relationship are constantly asked, "So when are you going to have some little ones running around?" or parents asking, "When are we going to get our grandchildren?"

Stop.

My job as a woman is not to give the world children if that's not what I want to do. There is nothing wrong with a woman who doesn't want to be a mother it doesn't make her defective. I wasn't put on this earth to give my parents grandchildren. But with the way that people are constantly promoting baby culture, you'd think that there was no alternative.

Before we get too far into this, let me make a statement: I do not believe there is anything wrong with wanting to be a mother. I think that being a mother can be one of the greatest things in life for some women. My problem is the fact that it's not that way for every woman and the world is determined to make her feel like it's her duty to have children.

When a woman says that she doesn't want to have kids people look at her like she's insane. It's often met with laughter and eye rolls, and people saying you'll change your mind as time goes on, as though getting older will change the fact that motherhood doesn't excite them.

Being a woman and not wanting to be a mother, not wanting children of your own, is so often equated with: she must hate kids. That's ridiculous. That's like saying someone who doesn't want to have a pet puppy must hate all dogs. One thing doesn't necessarily have to do with the other. But becoming a parent isn't something that anyone should do just because they feel like they have to. Unfortunately though I think that the choice of not becoming a mother isn't presented and discussed with women who were conditioned from day one that they need to have children to lead a fulfilling life.

Becoming a parent isn't something that someone should do if they aren't totally in love with the idea of it. It's not something that either partner should feel like they owe to the other. As a woman, I'm focusing on all the women out there who think that they should become a mother just because that's what their partner wants, and often times even the families of both people in the relationship want them to do. If someone thinks about becoming a mother, and the idea doesn't fill them with joy, if it's not something that excites them to the core, then it's not something that they should be forced into doing. Being a parent is a life-long job and if that's not something you want to sign up for, you shouldn't feel bad for that. There's nothing wrong with not wanting to be a mother. It doesn't make you a terrible woman if you have no interest in becoming a mother.

There's no contract that women sign upon birth that binds them to the promise of having children of their own at some point in the future. The majority of women out there become mothers, and the majority of those women want to be mothers. That's great and has my total support. But I worry about the women who walk through life with the world constantly telling them that motherhood is just part of what it means to be a woman, and by extension that if they don't want to be a mother that they inherently hate children or something is wrong with them.

Baby culture is so rampant in our society. And perhaps I'm seeing it a bit more because a lot of my friends are a few years older than me and at the age where they want to start having a family, or they're getting to the age and/or stage in their relationship when people start wondering when they're going to have a family. And it upsets me when I see friends and families trying to rush the whole process or talk people into it. I'm 100% here for women who want to become mothers, but I'm also 100% here for women who don't want to become mothers and are constantly told that they'll change their minds.

I love babies, but I hate baby culture. The pressure out there to have children, and the stigma that surrounds not wanting to have them needs to be talked about and changed, because under nearly any other circumstance, no one would be so pressured into making a decision of that caliber if it wasn't something that they wanted to do. I think that motherhood is great but it isn't something that women should feel they have to partake in if they aren't passionate about it.