On Baby Pressure: Tick tock?! Just shut up!
The baby pressure is killing me. Not because I want to have a baby, but because others assume I do and when I say “uhh….I don’t know….not neccessarily, I mean, what would I do with a baby?!” they tilt their heads and you can actually see them thinking (and reproaching me for my standpoint) “What is wrong with her? What went wrong? How can she not want a baby - I mean, she was given this great advantage of actually being able to give birth to a human being, and she wants to throw that away?!?!? There are so many women out there who want a baby but can’t have one and she just doesn’t want one?!?!”
It’s not like I haven’t thought about it. I’m sure, at some point in her life every woman does, because it is a topic and - let’s be honest - because it’s societies expectation of the purpose of being a real woman. It’s just that I don’t feel the neccessity of becoming a mother in order to have lived life to the fullest. I feel like there is so much more out there than devoting your life to a child - so much more that I feel could make me happy.
I would love my child more than anything and I actually believe I would make a great mother, but let’s face it: despite the immense love you experience for your child, nothing will be the same. Ever again. And everybody who tries to tell me different or wants to make the point that you “get so much more in return” is in denial. I know that, because I get first hand information from mothers in my social circle. Every single one of them says they love their child, but there is always a “but” - a downside.
If you’re willing to give it up and want to have a baby, go ahead, but don’t try to make me feel guilty or rush me into a decision that just might not be my choice.
The biggest problem though is not even the choice itself, it’s the limited timeframe we’re given to make it. You hit 30 and baby talk is on. Seriously ON! And it’s everywhere. It’s like an epidemic.
Once you turn 30, conversation is not even about if you want to have kids, but when you will start producing. And this exactly what become for women over 30: a project. The difficulty of conceiving the old fashioned way “woman + man = sex = baby” when you’re in your thirties, has shifted the conversation you will later on have with you child about when Daddy begat Mommy from “Oh, it was on our anniversary. You’re Dad took me to this nice restaurant where he proposed and it was just a wonderful romantic evening - and an even more romantic night! *wink wink*” to “Well, it was during our lunch break. My temperature was just right and the concentration of my vaginal mucus was on peak! We only had 15 minutes, but it was enough”. I understand the biological difficulties a woman has to deal with the older she gets, but honestly, who wants that?!
Now, if I compare myself to these women and, say, I wanted a child sometime in the near future, these women (or most of them) still have an advantage and are one giant leap ahead: they are not single. Which gives me even less time and, obviously, increases the pressure immensly.
I will be 33 in April and I’m far from finding a man I can actually see myself having kids with. So, technically I have about 5 to 7 years to not only accoomplish the impossible task of finding a good enough man for such a big step in my life, but also to actually become pregnant. (And I say “impossible task”, because I know my love life and my history with men. I actually believe that if I ever become a mother, I’ll be a single mother. The “happy family”-construct just doesn’t seem to be in the cards for me.)
But the pressure doesn’t just come from parents, other relatives or friends. Two years ago I sat at my gynocologists office and we were talking about the tumor in my breast I had to have removed and as we were talking about the surgery, this is what happpened:
Gyno: “So, how are the chances of you being pregnant at the moment?”
Me (more or less jokingly): “Chances? What chances? hahaha”
Gyno: “Don’t you want to have children?”
Me: “I don’t know. Haven’t really thought about it. And, I’m single, so it’s just not a topic for me…”
Gyno: “Hmm…………….Well, you’re almost 31…..”
Me: “…………….yes….?????”
Gyno: “It’s not gonna get easier with age. You know…tick tock!”
And I tought “what the hell is happening here? Ten minutes ago I didn’t know if I have breast cancer, and now you’re whipping out the time-is-ticking-baby-card?!?!?”
I guess, it was part of her responsibility to point it out from a medical perspective, but then again, she should also know that there are more options. The I have more time. That I still have time.
And if I don’t have a baby - and this is important - I will be fine. my life will still have meaning and I will be just as much woman as women who become mothers. I don’t get the logic behind peoples reasoning that if I don’t chose to have a baby, I’ll end up being a “cat lady”. What does that even mean?! Every woman who does not become a mother is a frustrated spinster? Umm, no. I won’t be a cat lady. I don’t even like cats.
I’ll be the lady that gets to sleep in on weekends, enjoys relaxed vacations at fancy ass wellness resorts or splurges her money on expensive designer bags if she wants. I’ll be the lady who enjoys life to the max, because I can do whatever the fuck I want to do. I’ll be totally fine with giving all my love to myself - and maybe some fine man who deserves it, thank you very much. And now mothers, it’s time for another diaper change. Bit disgusting, I know, but remeber: When it smiles at you, it’s all worth it!
