But, what if I don’t want kids?
“I want a little boy and then two years later I want to have a girl so that they can be close. Oh and I want another boy after,” said my friend.
“OH! Me too! I want to have three cute little boys and I’m going to dress them up like cute little models.” said my other friend.
If only my eyes could do anymore rolling than they already had as I was already fed up with how these statements sounded so cliche. One, you can not pick which gender you have and two, stop talking about these kids like they are robots you can control and that your future family will be so damn perfect. In reality, it is never perfect.
But, let alone all these thoughts going through my head the attention in the room suddenly directed to me.
“What about you Money?”
“None.” I said.
This should not have been such a shocker to them as they already knew I’m not interested in marriage or a family. However, other girls in the room felt the need to force their standards on me that there is something wrong with me because I don’t want to get married and because I don’t want to have kids when in fact there is not. I got referred to by one of the girls as a feminist and I couldn’t comprehend why.
Is it because I don’t want kids that I’m suddenly thrown into this group of stereotypical feminists?
If so bell hooks shows this when she said they know from mass media that women’s liberation focuses on the freedom to have abortions, to be lesbians, to challenge rape and domestic violence. Just because women decide to work for a future that doesn’t include anything but them and their career does not make them up for immediate concern or “emotionally unattached” as the other girls called it.
Also me not wanting to have kids could put me in the pro-abortion group, which is why they threw me into the pool of feminists. I’ve always had a different mentality from my friends, but this one just didn’t seem to be respected for whatever reason. I’m told many times that this is just a phase and that I will want kids and a marriage in the future, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is that if women don’t get married and don’t have kids it’s for a list of stereotypical reasons that are rarely true, including that she’s a feminist. Once a woman has a child she has a list of things she has to think of such as how much time should I take off work? and Should I continue to work? If a woman decides to work after the birth of her child she’s considered a terrible mother because she’s not always going to be there. And how can you have kids if you’re not 100 percent committed?
Many childfree adults are looked at as selfish, to understand this line of thinking I looked more in depth into the of this unfair judgment and came across a similar statement for men. “I am never getting married,” if only I had a dollar for each time I heard that one I wouldn’t have to worry about paying off my college tuition (another reason I’d rather work than have kids).
This is where my anger started to build a little. It seems more acceptable for men typically the one’s who “aren’t ready for commitment” to make statements about not wanting a marriage ever, than it is for a woman to make a statement about not wanting a child. Both involve some type of commitment whether it is for the child or for your spouse, but why are they so differentiated? I pray for the better days when men get the same evil eye glare women do when they make such statements. A man can have a stable career and kids, but for a woman it’s suddenly the case of how can I do this? Most selfish people believe that as far as it being selfish, we are way too busy running around praising, hugging, and giving time-outs to gloat at your prodigy. That’s something only the childless have time to think about. I don’t think that is the reason people don’t want to have kids, I just don’t even want to go into detail how ridiculous that sounds. But going more into these arguments they turned silly like things that education for your child won’t even be that expensive, public schools are free (totally why I’m crying to my mom about eating ramen noodles).
My main argument here is why am I being forced into doing something I clearly don’t want to do. That is what these people who call us selfish or make us think we’re doing something wrong are implying. We’re forced into the topics and thoughts of family and children, but if we look the other direction we’re automatically stereotyped as people who care too much about their jobs or don’t care about doing our parts as human beings. Well, I didn’t sign up to push a baby out of my vagina and if I don’t want to don’t call me a feminist.
