'What's The Plan; Mum?'

For Uk Buzz Fellowship.

As a woman I, like most of us have at some point been asked ‘Do you plan to have children in the future?’ I always laugh this off and riposte with a nonchalant ‘maybe’, disregarding the question and avoiding the risqué topic. As I am still young, people are compliant of this answer, assuring me that when I’m older babies and motherhood will be all I’ll talk about, and this does seem to be the case; as far as the public eye is capable of seeing. On every Facebook page belonging to a woman of thirty there is a new pregnancy announcement welcoming their fresh faced and bright blue eyed bundle of joy into the world. Stories in magazines about pregnancy and motherhood adorn their glossy front pages. While women are forced to wade through oceans of Mamas and Papas magazines and scale stratospheric altitudes of pregnancy books, is the same scenario evident in the expectation for men to become fathers? Apparently not. As well as putting woman under pressure this expectation side-lines women into archaic social roles mirroring those of the mid-20th century.

When men say they don’t wish to have children in the future, society is very understanding. Kids are a big responsibility, they burn a hefty hole in your pocket and take away time you may want to spend focusing on your partner, hobbies or career. It appears that these are not ample drives for women, however. Perhaps this is due to a view expressed in a recent U.S census report suggesting that women are the ‘designated’ parents. This leaves us with a ‘chicken or egg’ scenario: do men resent fatherhood because they desire to be the designated parent or are they perhaps not the designated parent because they resent parenting itself? To be fair to men, it is possible that the problem is found in the sheer lack of information getting through to them. Books on fatherhood are few and far between. There simply are not enough male alternatives. ‘Annie’s Baby’ but no ‘Jerry’s Baby’. We can buy ‘The Rise and fall of the Yummy Mummy’ yet we are without a copy of ‘The Reign of the Daring Dad’. It is this lack of male parenting information that leaves the paternal regiment in rapid decline, thus leaving parenthood to women.

But what happens when those who do not truly desire to embark upon parenthood do so anyway? The assumption that parenthood is an experience they ‘must’ have cannot be ignored. The Guardian recently published an article entitled ‘Love and Regret: Mothers who wish they’d never had children’ written by Jedidajah Otte. This encapsulates the stories of women who have not found motherhood to fill them with the wondrous sense of accomplishment they had been promised. They are instead left with tear-stained pillows, an exhausted heart and an unremitting sense of frustration. Many women stated that they felt as though they had ‘lost the part of themselves they loved most’ and that they no longer ‘were themselves’. These are poignantly distressing statements to hear from new mothers who have given their lives for a child they did not truly yearn for. Furthermore it is impossible to say with certainty this child will thrive in life for although this mother loves her child, while she feels such strong aversion towards the concept of motherhood she simply cannot play mother: an ongoing war between the incalculable strength of a mother’s love and a deep abhorrence fueled by regret. This situation not only detracts from the mother’s quality of life, but her child’s also. These young women may face a lifetime filled with guilt of which they cannot identify the source, perhaps resulting in behavioral issues or defective mental health later in life. This kind of anguish for both a mother and her child alike should be considered a violation of human rights, yet still society perseveres, destroying lives in its pursuit.

Women have been fighting since the 1800’s for respect and equality; we’ve won our right to vote, our right to education and a purposeful life. But when will our society recognize that it cannot play god in our lives? This issue can only truly be rooted to in the societal expectations of woman that still echo through time from the 1930’s. We are expected to be maternal and wish for nothing other than to cook, clean and care for our children. This is enforced upon us from an early age, through playing ‘house’ and caring for ‘baby Annabelle’ whose little plastic face had a smile fixed forever, beaming up at whichever girl was playing ‘mummy’ that day. This suits the patriarchy. Everything stays the same, society can wash its hands of the issue. A.H Halsey says in his book ‘Change in British Society, from 1900 to present day’ that ‘the expansion of higher education has propelled many more women into new opportunities but with a skewed distribution towards the less prestigious courses and institutions’. This is conceivably because women do and always will want to be mothers. When a women rebels against this and opts to hold a diploma in her hand as well as a baby bottle, even this slight disturbance in ‘the way things are’, causes controversy to arise and the whole subject becomes a vehement game of taboo.

However views are changing, and, gradual though the pace may be, women are finally beginning to receive the respect they deserve. As with all issues in our world, I believe that the pressures put upon women to make use of the maternal instinct within them or try and create one from nothing can simply be alleviated by talking about the issue. Why should those who struggle, struggle in silence? The truth of the matter is that despite our divisions and our differences, if we are truly kind in our intentions we will one day be accepting of each individual’s decisions. Being a mother is one of the most rewarding and gratifying adventures a women could experience, but that’s not to say that is her only option: she could find fulfillment in creating beautiful art or healing others as a doctor. A woman is not limited in her options to only being a mother, just as a man is not only a father, and I believe society is well on its way to realizing this with such powerful woman such as Angela Merkel, J.K Rowling and Malala Yousafzai leading the way to greater female empowerment.

Sarah Fischer- Die Mutterglück-Lüge (The Mother-Bliss Lie)

Laura Scott- Two is enough- A Couple’s Guide to Living Childless by Choice