Is It Really Their Business?
Currently, I find myself in a position that I’m sure most women at my stage of life find themselves. Age 33, a little over a year into my marriage, career starting, and the question on everyone’s minds: when are you going to have kids? It has only occurred to me in the last year or so just how invasive this question is. I understand that it is asked with nothing but good intentions, but it goes along the lines of touching a pregnant woman’s belly without permission or reaching to hold a baby or asking for a hug when it isn’t warranted.
As a society, we have just accepted that all women want to be mothers and that it is just natural at this point in life to assume that they either have kids or are planning to soon. I am quickly realizing from my own personal encounters that this isn’t always the case. Most of the time, I am asked by various family members. It is expected from parents and is an open conversation to discuss how they planned their family and to get some advice from those closest to you. What do we do about those who are more distant family or even people who are barely acquaintances?
We as a society are putting a lot of pressure on women to continue this antiquated notion of family planning and that our day-to-day life is anyone’s business but our own. Why must everything about women be open to the scrutiny of everyone? From our pay, career choices, family planning, health care, hygiene products, fashion, and even our opinions; each are being decided by people who really have no say in how we decide our life path. We are no longer in an age where “Stepford” is a way of life. We don’t all want to follow the same path and honestly, since the invention of birth control pills, women have come a really long way. We are focusing more on careers, taking control of our lives, and deciding if, how, or when to have a family.
I have been trying to explain to certain people close to me that while I want to have a family, I don’t want to be pregnant. This has been received with some seriously confused faces. You can tell that they are trying to figure out how one could possibly start a family without actually getting pregnant! The answer is easy, the same way they did it in the book of Exodus, adoption. The interesting part about this point of the conversation is that both my brother and I are adopted. Both of our adoptions were finalized before we were born and we knew no parents or home other than that of our wonderful family. We were given every opportunity in the world and welcomed with open arms by all members of our extended family and friends. So it is a mystery to me why these same people who welcomed us are perplexed by the notion of someone who is able to bear children simply not wanting to.
Trying to explain this to my maternal grandmother was the hardest. She had four children, the youngest born when my grandmother was in her early 40’s. She goes on to tell me that there is no experience like being pregnant and giving birth. I’m sure that it was magical for her, as this was her dream. She comes from a large family and wanted to continue that joy in her own family. My husband has the same dreams, he too wants a large family. His sister has four girls and he is the youngest of three. Me personally, I enjoy my small family unit of 4. We are very close and very supportive of each other.
My father is a surgeon and my mother is a scientist. I look at things very differently than most people. I see things for what they are clinically and not what the fantasy of it could be. I see child birth and pregnancy as things that are painful, stressful, and generally uncomfortable for extended periods of time. While I know that the science of growing a human being is nothing short of a miracle and that a child is a miracle in and of itself, I struggle to find excitement in 9 months of discomfort, restrictions, delicate states, just to struggle through the real pain that is child birth. While science has come a long way in the last 50 years and the mortality rate of childbirth is significantly lower, there are still lots of long and short term risks to pregnancy and child birth. Diabetes, blood clots, weight gain, preeclampsia, just to name a few. If everything goes perfectly, there are little risks. Just as with anything that we do in life. But how often do things go just perfectly?
One of my friends often tells me about how she almost killed her mother when she was born, another describes how miserable she was for 9 months, and one more explains that pregnancy brain is real because without it you would remember the first time and swear you would never have a second. Then comes the fun part, after the child is born! Breast feed or bottle feed? Breast milk or formula? Go back to work, or stay home? Child care, school, or Nanny? Home school, pubic school, or private school?
Lord, men have it easy. They wake up, go to work, come home, spend some quality time with family, then go to bed and do it all again tomorrow. Few men know the joy/struggle of raising a family. And don’t get me started on single parent families. Family is something that is extremely important to both of me and my husband, but I’m loving where our lives are currently and am in no rush to change things. I don’t see either of us being able or willing to quit our jobs to raise kids; which opens a whole new can of worms. It is unthinkable that a woman doesn’t want to quit her job to raise a family, but hardly anyone bats an eye at the idea of a man not wanting to quit his job to raise a family. The woman is selfish and the man is simply trying to provide for his family.
I’d like to think that we are in a different time where these aren’t the truths but when I engage in these conversations, these are the honest and true reactions that I am getting. I am often left dumbfounded. We live in a very invasive society that feels entitled to everyone’s business. We thrive on transparency and are caught off guard when people try and keep things private. With information at our fingertips and social media, it is rare that people want to keep things to themselves. It just goes to remind us that nothing is exactly as it seems.
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