"No mothers were harmed in the making of this documentary because this documentary is an anti-mother. Or anti-kids for that matter. Some women choose to have kids, some women don't, and some are not given the choice at all."
The provocative yet powerful statement comes from "Not Kidding," a new documentary challenging the societal expectation for women to have children.
Through online posts, the directors, Bettina Hanna and Trish Pavlecich, found the stars of their film. They interviewed women from as young as 11 years old to as old as 70 years old living in Pacific Beach and Encinitas. Opening up about their personal experiences, these women shared the ups and downs of not being a mother. Hanna and Pavlecich hope to expose and educate people about the controversial topic.
In an interview with La Jolla Light, Hanna said: "'I feel the need to show everyone that women don't need to follow society's standards. No woman without children should feel isolated because one never knows the reason behind that fact.'"
Women have various reasons as to why they abstain from motherhood.
For instance, 1 in 5,000 females suffers from Müllerian agenesis, a condition that impacts the reproductive system. When a woman is affected, her vagina and uterus may be underdeveloped or absent even though the outside appearance is normal. The condition prevents women from becoming pregnant.
Other women may find themselves infertile after trying for an entire year to conceive. 6.1 million of them are affected by infertility in the United States. Individuals that do carry a pregnancy but have problems staying pregnant fall into the category as well.
Financial and emotional factors also come into consideration, focusing on the increasing cost and high-demanding responsibility of having children.
Giving birth comes with a huge price tag. Vaginal delivery can go from $3,300 to as high as $37,200 while C-section goes from $8,300 to $71,000.
From 2000 to 2010, there was a 40 percent rise in the cost of having kids. According to a research by USDA in 2015, American parent spent an average of $233,610 to raise a child from birth to the age of 17.
Taking care of a child takes a lot of work and effort, so a mother should be emotionally prepared for whatever she may encounter along the way especially for someone who also wants to have a career. Working moms will endure high-level stress as they balance their job and family.
"Generations of girls have been told they can achieve anything they aspire to, including having both a career and children—and many women have done so," Claire Cain Miller stated in her piece for New York Times. "But at the same time, both work and parenting have become more demanding."
Women should not be judged for the decision not to have children because of aspects concerning physical and mental health and money influence it. It is not a matter of being selfish to refuse to live up to society's standards for them. They are free not to bring another life into this world if they are not prepared to take that kind of responsibility.
As Vivian Blackstone, a 90-year-old who watched "Not Kidding," expressed: "There is a stigma...Women are still boxed into a category and we want them to fit into a pigeonhole."
