I had posted this blog elsewhere on the Net and like it so much, I thought I'd post it here.
All of a sudden, there are babies everywhere. Perhaps they were there all along and I failed to notice. All I know is that suddenly, it seems every woman I know has become a walking incubator. I find it rather frightening. Don't get me wrong, babies are cute. Blah, blah, blah--insert your own pro-baby phrase here. I don't want one. I don't think I have the right things to base motherhood on. That same spark of "maternal love" thing I get? I get that when I look at one of my cats. Or a squirrel in the tree outside. Or the cute dog down the street that I really, really, really want but can't have because that would be stealing and I'm too cute for prison. The point is I can't be a mom if the feeling I get that's supposed to be strictly for kids is the feeling I get when I see an animal. Or the absolutely gorgeous teal leather handbag my boyfriend got me for my birthday next Friday that I swear I never peeked at.
It really pisses me off how, just because I'm female and thus, have those essential female parts, I'm expected to breed. Does any woman ever actually just step back for a minute and really try to seek out WHY she wants a child? I'm not saying don't have kids. I'm just saying, QUESTION why! Are you popping them out because you're "supposed to" or because you really want to? I don't think enough women do that. I think they refuse to let their minds really dissect that question and focus instead on the child that they focus all their love and secret legacies to. I don't really know of any woman who actually took the time to ask herself if she wanted the child because she wanted to bring a unique and special soul into the world or if she did it because she was a woman and that's what women do.
I'm not even sure women will even be honest with themselves about that. Not in this day and age of being feminist. They don't want to admit that they are doing what their "oppressed foremothers" have done.
I honestly feel this is a tragedy. I think the fear is that if women step back to really examine WHY they want kids, that maybe population rates will actually reduce. That could be agood thing. We have quite enough as it is. And there's always adoption.
I love kids, don't get me wrong. There are a lot of times when I imagine having one of my own. Especially now, in this time of baby showers and baptisms that I've become a part of. But the thought of the labor scares the fuck out of me. An experience that's supposed to be so painful and traumatic that the body will kill itself to forget does not sound like something I can wear a party hat to. And I like a good party hat. I also think of the way the world is going and I really would not want a child of mine brought into it.
Most people are pretty cool when I tell them I don't plan on having kids. I get the occasional "You're young, blah blah blah". People, I'm going to be 31 in 6 days. Yes, that's young. But the biological clock? It's winding down! And for all the kids I don't have, that's all the more cats and dogs and ferrets and hamsters that I can have.
If I ever get the Mommy urge and it won't go away, there's always fostering or even adoption. I've been there so I would make an excellent fosterer.
For the record, I would make a fantastic mother. I know this. But I think the fact that I can step back and say that one of the main reasons I don't want a kid is because I'm lazy and selfish and I like being lazy and selfish is an indicator at how good a mom I would be.
Maybe I'm a woman but I'm also a citizen of the planet, not a breeder. Not a hen popping out eggs. I am a daughter, a sister, a friend, a coworker, a neice, a cousin, a girlfriend, a neighbor. I'm a writer, a cashier, a reader, an artist, an animal lover, a scholar. I can be everything and I can be nothing.
That makes me a little more complicated than just a set of genitals.
