Yesterday I posted about outside pressure placed on women to have children and the difficulties encountered when deciding whether to have them or not. Today I will explain why I’m writing about women choosing not to have children while I’m currently pregnant.
Why am I writing this after I chose in favor of babies? For two simple reasons: to deal with my feminist guilt and to tell the I-told-you-soers to put a cork in it. It was a hard decision and I know that I led many people to believe that I was against it, but I mainly just wanted to be left alone. I don’t mean to say that one shouldn’t ask a couple if they plan to have kids, but if they say “no” or “we’re not sure”, just leave it at that. Condescendingly lecturing them that they definitely will want kids one day “when they’re all growed up” is rude.
You know what? I don’t like kids much. There, I said it. I’m not comfortable nor incredibly talented with other people’s children, but who cares? I’ll absolutely love my own and I have no doubts that I’m going to be an incredible parent, but I’m just not going to be opening up a day care center anytime soon. I’m also fully aware that Dave and I are going to give up a lot to be parents, but now we’re ok with that because the two of us decided together after ignoring outside pressure.
So to all those out there thinking to themselves, “I told you so”. You’re right, you did say we’d want kids one day (something we were pretty sure of ourselves, but not sure enough to share with anyone) and now we do. Go pat yourselves on the back. You’re, like, psychic or something. You should open one of those shops with crystal balls in the windows. But next time someone tells you they don’t or might not want kids, take my advice and believe them or you might be in for a shock when you realize decades have passed without baby prospects. Especially if your own kids tell you this. You might want to get a puppy or something.
In addressing the other reason I wrote this, I’d like to apologize to all my female friends who definitely don’t want children. I’m sorry! I may have muddled the track record and become one more woman who appeared to be sure she didn’t want children only to change her mind. I confused those people who actually believe that all women love all babies and children because their ovaries tell them to. All because I was too cowardly to admit that maybe I could handle a stinky little attention-grabber and even give it a name or to simply tell people that I’d rather not talk about my choice regarding children.
I’m writing this for you because I believe you when you say you don’t want kids and if you change your mind, that’s ok too. You’re allowed to change your mind and it doesn’t mean you’re wishy-washy, fickle or flaky or too weak to resist hormones. It just makes you a normal person, making decisions based on what you want and what’s best for you, not based on what is expected from your gender.
A little bit of wisdom 
LIKE!
Thanks so much for these posts. I literally just Googled “women might not want babies” and here came your two posts. I just had a huge fight with my boyfriend – of 7 months. And like all our arguments it always ends back at the fact that i don’t know if i want to have babies. I might, I might not. But I’m pretty sure I tell people I have no idea because it irritates me that its assumed 99% of the time that if you are packing ovaries you must want babies. I hate that its assume. I feel you on the being stubborn out of spite for assumed wanting of the parenthood.
I’m only 26, I don’t want to make this decision now. And for a lot of women it seems like an automatic. They just know. Which is awesome. I’d kind prefer knowing so I could end this argument. For some reason girls get this baby alarm thing that starts going off around college – people tell me its supposed to go of at 35 but I’m pretty sure all these chicken hormones we eat have jump started it. And if you miss the alarm you are fucked.
My boss is pregnant and when people see her they turn to me and suggest I’m next. Pretty sure this pressure isn’t applied to men. And its also not acceptable to ask men about their reproductive organs in public. Just us ladies. Maybe when they get married, other baby totting parents ask, in-laws ask. But do men get hounded about having babies at work? At the deli? On the frickin bus? At the banks? Pretty sure not.
Sorry for the rant & thanks for the posts. My tears have dried. I’m not going to give in until I know what I want.
I’m 25 and haven’t really started feeling the pressure for this yet, I recently have had a lot of people asking me about marriage but there have been a few comments about children (like when I was shown maternity leave forms on the first day of my current job or when a very intense middle aged lady from work took me aside and told me not to leave it too late or I’ll be sorry!). I see my slightly older friends are really feeling the pressure especially when they haven’t met someone that treats them well and it doesn’t help that their younger sisters are having babies. I’m very sure don’t want to have children yet if ever but the article shows that it will be completely ok for me to change my mind either way and I shouldn’t have to answer to anyone. I will ignore these extremely rude people by being quite firm but polite that it’s a very personal decision 🙂
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR THIS POST!!!! I get pressured all the time to have kids from my boyfriends mother, even though I outright told her I don’t want them. It drives me crazy how everyone assumes that because you are a woman you automatically want kids. It just really makes me feel better to see women who feel the same way as me. Sometimes all the comments can be a little too much.