Hey, guys – welcome back to TNTH.
So, I’m now a 25-year-old woman. That’s crazy. I’m in my mid-20’s, which means that people my age are not that young anymore. I mean, sure, we’re still considered young to a person who’s middle-aged, but being in this body of 25 years, we know just how scary it is that we’re halfway to 30. At this age, we pretty much know that it’s about time we start planning what it is that we want and need out of life, and for everyone that answer is different. Some women may want to start a family before 30, some may want to get engaged by 30, some may want to start an empire by the time they are 30. Honestly, the choices are endless.
But referring back to the “women wanting to have children” aspiration, I’ve made a couple of my own decisions about where I see myself in the rest of my 20’s and going into my 30’s:
I do not want to have children.
Now before all of you “traditional society gender role” people get on my back about this decision: lemme explain. Personally, in my life, I am very career-driven I want to build up a career that I started from the bottom and to continue building it up to my desire. I see my future self being quite confident and independent when it comes to my career and my work life, and I see it making me the person that I’d become. Of course, I would love to settle down one day and get married to the man of my goddamn dreams, and maybe this feeling of “not wanting any children” will change once I do. Maybe I would want to have my husband’s kid someday. But maybe that’s just not going to change, and I hope that whatever and whenever I am at that stage in my life, my spouse will understand my reasoning of not wanting any kids.
To be quite honest, I just don’t feel like I have that maternal nature in me. I can’t see myself carrying a child for nine months, holding one, feeding one, nurturing one, and honestly loving one. I don’t see myself being the right fit for motherhood, and I’m completely okay with that decision of mine.
Now, here’s what we are not going to do…
Many women, such as myself, make the decision not to want to have children, and that is completely okay! While many women are blessed to get pregnant and have children, some women don’t feel that same happiness and joy about the topic of motherhood or just the idea of motherhood. Whatever path these type of women are on, it is not up to anyone to determine and judge those who do not want to use their “God-given purpose” and have children.
Stop guilting women into thinking that not wanting to have children is some type of sin. Stop telling young girls that their sole purpose in life is to take care of a man and have their children. Stop forcing women into believing that just because they don’t seem to fit the role of being a mother that their existence as a woman is invalid. Stop asking us in serious relationships “when are you two having babies?” as if having children defines what a serious relationship is. Most importantly, stop calling these women selfish. Stop telling them that there are thousands of women who would die to carry their own children can’t and that when we chose to not have children we are being ungrateful to what we are capable of doing. Every woman’s reasoning is different, and we are allowed to make these type of decisions. It’s our bodies.
So yeah. I don’t want kids. There are women who don’t want them either. So stop pressuring women into something that they may not be cut out for. The number of children women have doesn’t calculate their value as a woman, nor their purpose. We are all different, so let women be as well.
I will rather be the cool aunt instead.
-Liz. (:
Letters From Liz. 