Mother’s day or not Mother’s Day. The day doesn’t have more meaning simply because of the name.
What does once a year mean in contrast to the ways we treat mothers every other day of the year. I’d rather see a world where we work to create a daily practice of gratitude for moms.
And the absence of pressure to have children for anyone who doesn’t have them. Why you don’t have them doesn’t matter either. Let’s stop asking people about their plans for motherhood altogether.
People who can get pregnant will at some point feel pressure to have children?
What’s the matter with you, you don’t like children?
You’re selfish.
It’s the most important job in the world.
I heard them all before I had kids.
Those of us who already have children will be asked when we’re having the next one. Or if you’re over a certain age, you’ll be told you’re too old to have more.
Each time your fertility is questioned, you have the choice to so-called be the better person or set some serious boundaries by telling people to stop.
My mom had the same questions. When I told her how much I hated being asked, she told me to break down in tears whenever someone asks why I don’t have children yet.
“Sob and tell them how much you want a child but can’t have one. Make them feel as bad as you possibly can,” she told me. “They deserve it.”
Mother or Not Mother: What’s your motherhood story?
What’s your motherhood story? How did you decide to try to become a parent? Or specifically decide not to become a mother? Or maybe you tried and it didn’t work out as you’d hoped.
Mother or not-mother, we all have stories to tell.
When my partner and I first started dating, he told me he wanted kids. Thing is, I didn’t. At least, I hadn’t ever felt the desire to have them. I wasn’t one of those kids who always wanted kids. Instead, I dreamed about writing books and traveling the world. I spent many years going back and forth between feeling like I should have children because that’s what people do. I worried I’d regret it if I didn’t have children and then it was too late.
My cousin told me how he never wanted kids either, until one day, he turned 24, and BAM. He wanted kids and a family.
I turned twenty and still, no mother desire appeared. I hit the magical age of 24 when my cousin wanted children, but there was no change in me.
Mother or not mother. Still not.
It wasn’t until after 9/11 that something shifted. Seeing the world stop when the World Trade Center fell led me to question the nature of all lives shoulds. Why do we have to get a stable job and work hard? Why is it necessary to settle down after a certain age? Who decided that settling down means having a house, owning property, and taking x-number of vacations a year?
Those were all the norms of the world I lived in the day the towers fell. The day after, I saw everything differently.
When I looked at my life and what I wanted without the pressure of those norms, I realized I did want kids. I just didn’t want the life that seemed to go with it. I still wanted to travel. I wanted to write. I didn’t know how I was going to do either one of those things, and having a child on top of that overwhelmed me.
At the age of thirty, I wanted a child. Suddenly I wanted to be a mother more than not be a mom.
Why is it selfish to choose Not Mother?
Obviously, it’s not selfish to choose not to have children. We don’t actually need more people on the planet. Those of us who have children do so because it’s a choice. At least that’s how it should be. Pregnancy needs to be a choice.
Guilt is a terrible reason to choose to be a mom. Forcing a pregnant person to have a child they don’t want is even worse.
How presumptuous of other people to call us out to say we’re not giving enough or whole on our own, and thus need children to round out our human purpose? How invasive for them to dictate what I or you or anyone should be doing with our vaginas.
Does all the good and important work you do become nothing if you don’t have children
What word reflects what you want?
When I first launched Creative Revolution Retreats, the international writing retreats I run for women, I published a survey asking potential retreat participants for one word to reflect on what they most wanted to experience at the retreats.
The top three responses?
PEACE!
FOCUS.
SPACE.
Peace. Focus, and space.
We desire time alone to refresh the self and a peaceful space to focus on what we want, where we want to go, and who we want to be.
This message echoed through each of the surveys returned to us, not just from mothers, but from every woman who responded.
I know why, too.
This world consistently tells women not to be alone. Alone is big, scary, and leaves you vulnerable. But it’s a trick. You need to be alone in order to create and grow. Time alone allows you to put your needs first. Instead, more likely you are told that your needs are secondary. If you put yourself first, you’re selfish. If you speak your needs, you’re aggressive.
Whatever you choose, someone will have a problem with it. You may as well do what works best for you.
How will you give yourself space today?
Where will you find peace?
Answer both of these questions successfully, and you’ll find the focus to create the kind of life, writing or otherwise, that you most want to create.
