Writing In A World That Values A Mother’s Story.

I’m a female-passing non-binary person who writes personal essays. I expose my life, my experiences, my outward femininity through my words, hoping that they may bring comfort and solidarity to those who share my experiences. I give all of myself in pieces: my marriage, my infidelities, my mental illness, my job, my family, my sexuality, my politics, my fears.

I’ve even shared my uterus in all it’s near-emptiness. Inside, there is a Mirena IUD, protecting me from pregnancy. This is my second, neither the first nor the last. Until I hit menopause, I’ll replace each expired one with a new, flexible T, ensuring that I’ll never become a mother.

“Being a mom has changed my whole life.” — A commercial, in between segments of Law and Order: SVU.

“But it wasn’t until I had visions of smothering my five-month-old daughter that I knew I needed help, even if that help came in a capsule.” — Antidepressants Make Me A Better Mom by Kimberly Zapata

“Motherhood works for you. You know it, and everyone around you knows it.” — A Letter To Myself Before, Becoming A Mom by Allison Cooper

“Nursing is now one of the many awesome aspects of my life…” — Why I’m So Scared To Wean My Baby Off Breastfeeding by Katherine DM Clover

“I have been the mother who cannot take her eyes off her precious, beautiful children, feeling like I am the luckiest woman in the world.” — All Of The Mothers I Have Been by Katie Smith

I will never write any of these words, or ones like them.

A few weeks after I returned from my honeymoon in Costa Rica, one of my coworkers asked me when we’d start trying to have a family. I told her that we weren’t interested in having children, and she looked at me like a particularly tricky crossword puzzle clue.

Being a female-passing person with a uterus who doesn’t want to have a child is enigmatic. There aren’t many of us, and we don’t like to talk about it because there are so many accompanying interrogatory responses:

But you’d make such a good mother!

You’ll change your mind when you get older.

Or simply — oh… As if the idea of remaining a family of two is bewildering, unfulfilling, abnormal.

I’m used to those conversations. I’ve been having them since I was in high school. I’ve learned how to say “I don’t want to have children” in such a way that doesn’t lend to further questioning.

That’s not the problem. Instead, it’s writing, my career, my joy.

When you’re a AFAB non-binary person who writes personal essays, certain subject matter is expected of you. Self-image. Dating. Feminism. Marriage. Eventually — children.

As you age, motherhood is a space you’re meant to fill, in lieu of “younger,” more “frivolous” subject matter. I’ve already passed through my dating stage. I’m married, happily so, and the struggles of the separation from my husband are soon to be over. I’ve written about mental illness, my unfortunate parentage, and writing itself.

But motherhood is a market. Websites like Romper and Scary Mommy cater specifically to personal essayists with children, while others, like Ravishly, She Does The City, The Purple Fig, and xoJane frequently feature pieces specifically about parenting and motherhood.

Those are just the paying websites that I know about. I haven’t bothered to look further, because I know I can’t fill those shoes. I’ll never be a stay-at-home mother who writes. I’ll never fit seamlessly into that spot, even though it’s being held open for me.

Mothers want to read about other mothers, about the difficulties of raising children, about the little troubles and snags that come with parenting. Writers with children are more than happy to oblige.

And why not? The demand is there — profit from something you can easily supply!

The Rompers, Scary Mommys, and their brethren — they know that each of these pieces are guaranteed to get clicks. Clicks make money. Money guarantees the future of the website in question. Pieces about motherhood live on.

How many times can you write about not being a mother, though? Perhaps once per publication. Perhaps once total. Make your empty uterus count. Stand strong in your unripened cervix while you can. You’ll be lucky to get a second shot.

Writing personal essays requires a willingness to capitalize on your life. Every snippet of beauty, prick of pain, or swell of sadness can be a potential piece, so I’ve learned to pay attention, to get personal, to delve deep into my every experience, mining them for material.

Every writer knows how to turn passionate living into words.

But the world values a mother’s story. The strength and femaleness and vulnerability of mothers is validated in a way that childless women will never be. Something is denied me by choosing not to bear children.

I am less valuable, then, as a writer. Or so I fear.

More women of my generation, of any generation, will become mothers than not, and more men, fathers. Raising children will always be the joyous norm. Those of us outside the sphere of parenthood, round and fecund like a belly swollen to term, will be allowed our moments of glorious “rebellion,” our place to stand and say “I don’t want children” before someone comes and ushers us along.

My story is novel, but not repeatable.

Don’t forget me or my value, I say with all the childless writers. We are worthy…

I almost add “too” — likening us to mother-writers, but I resist. The unspoken word echoes around my vacant uterus, bouncing against my IUD, and it feels like thankfulness.

We are worthy.