My Choices Are Mine. (Heated Post About Womanhood Not Hinging On Motherhood)

I was going to start this with a quote by Sylvia Plath, my spirit animal, because she mentions in "The Bell Jar" her unsocietal lack of wanting to have children (something for which she consistently felt out-of-place in the 1950s, who would've thought).

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Anyway, I can't find the quote online and my cramps are too bad to keep me from getting up to go get the book, so just pretend I quoted something profound and you're now in the mood.

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My husband and I have been married almost a year, together for almost ten, and come from a southern, religious, and family-oriented family. In the past year, a new stage of our relationship has evolved called "how disgracefully can we avoid this subject and question so we don't have to awkwardly chuckle until someone brings up Ole Miss".

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It was a fun game until it became more persistent. We get asked all the time some variation of "so, when are the little ones coming?".

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All. The. Time.

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Firstly, can we just reiterate how overwhelmingly personal and inappropriate of a question that is? When I *try* to put it in perspective for people and compare it to overtly asking if we're having sex or if he's ejaculating inside me, I get laughed at for being overly sensitive or eyeball saucers and agape mouths.

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Now, I understand the notions of society say I'm supposed to have a child or children (*eye-roll*, no one even asks if I WANT them, just when am I having them). I understand social standards will inevitably initiate and perpetuate rumors about marital troubles, fertility issues, or something else to explain away the "why we don't have any yet".

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Ungraceful pivot because I'm too tired to blend a nice transition–those wanting and without, I feel deep pain for you and your wants should never hinge on my wants. They are our own. I empathize deeply for those who want so badly to be a mother and haven't had the opportunity. I feel pain for the women who are so often comforted with "well, there's always adoption!". I hope my lack of want doesn't hurt you and that if it does, we can talk together and learn from each other.

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I feel badly for you also because I feel so similarly attacked and forced to hide my own wants and plans because I am so overwhelmingly exhausted of being told "you'll change your mind", "that's selfish", "is it money?", or "the time's just not right yet".

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I don't want a child. Not now, not in five years when I change out my IUD for a new one, and not in ten years when people start referencing the "biological clock". Could that change? Duh. Just like I used to believe in Santa Claus, I one day discovered there was beauty in parent-given gifts and my beliefs changed.

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Can we please, for once in our slowly, slowly socially progressing society, stop equating a woman's ability to be woman to motherhood? I've been guilty of the same head-cocked stare when a woman in her 50s says she has no children, but as I've mentioned before, beliefs change.

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Without writing an article, I wanted to do a few things with this post:

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1. Be brave and loud (I'm pretty damn loud) for the woman who feels so confined by her wants, whatever they are, that she hides away her decisions and hopes people don't bring up the subject,

2. Encourage the woman braver than myself to boldly and unapologetically exclaim her wants from the rooftops (and to her traditionalistic family) and maybe inspire me,

3. Start a conversation that may lead the woman, who's never once challenged the beliefs she inherited, to challenge herself,

4. Stop, or at least slow down, the perpetuating of antiquated ideals–ideals that tie back to monetized virginity and purchasing women through marriage–that have been engrained in our beautiful society and lead to generation after generation of the woman innately feeling "less than" or "compelled to".

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Consider the tune many women, men, and children know:

. * First comes love,

. * Then comes marriage,

. * Then comes the baby in the baby carriage

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You were taught what to do before you even knew how babies were made.

. * My choices are mine.

. * They will not be defined by a nursery rhyme.

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Well, shit, maybe I will have a kid so I can pass that little jingle down.