Two posts ago, I wrote about how I knew I would be a terrible mother. It’s funny how people freak out when you say that out loud as a female-shaped person. It’s the same when I matter-of-factly state that I’m fat–that really makes some people uncomfortable. The latter is because ‘fat’ has become such a pejorative word. It’s a clinical one to me, stripped of any judgment. I have pockets of adipose on my body. That’s it. That’s all. It should not be a moral statement, but in our country, it most definitely is.
Similarly, when I say that I would have been a terrible mother, that’s not a moral judgmement. That is a shrewd self-assessment that prevented me from making the biggest mistake of my life. I cannot tell you how much horror I have in my heart at the idea of having children. Like, butt-clenching, gut-churning fear. I was once arguing about abortion with a so-called liberal Catholic man who insisted that women had to be punished for having sex outside the marriage by being forced to carry a pregnancy to fruition.
Of course he did not phrase it that way, but that was what he meant. He talked about consequences of your actions, but he meant punishment. Because it boiled down to how dare those slutty McSluttersons have all that slutty, slutty sex and not feel ashamed of it at all? He likened it to breaking your leg while skiing and that while you may not have meant for it to happen, you had to deal with it, anyway. Which, I mean, yes. Because your leg is fucking broken. You can’t do anything about that except have it taken care of. Put in a cast and whatnot. You can’t pretend it didn’t happen or magically make it not happen. But, when you get pregnant, you CAN take care of it by having an abortion. That’s a consequence in and of itself! An abortion from what I’ve read and heard is not an easy thing. Emotionally or physically. It’s not, as I’ve written before, just like deciding to drive through the McDonald’s and get yourself an abortion to go.
Even if it was, by the way, it would still be the pregnant person’s decision to make. That’s something I dislike from the Democrats. Emphasizing that it’s the last resort. It doesn’t have to be! If I ever got pregnant, it would have been my first resort. Without a second thought. I would book it as fast as I could and feel nothing but relief at getting it taken care of.
I pressed the ‘liberal’ Catholic on his desire to punish women for having sexy sex. He was uncomfortable with my argument, but I didn’t care. His religion was not mine, so I did not appreciate him using it to strip me of my rights, especially as he was a dude. He would never have to deal with the consequences himself so it was easy for him to say that pregnant people should not be able to have abortions.
Side note: I once had a boyfriend who stated that he wanted me to have the child if I got pregnant. He had an ex who had an abortion and became severely depressed afterwards. It caused them to break up, which was sad, yes, but I did not see what that had to do with me. He was convinced that it was her getting an abortion that caused the relationship to break up.
I asked him point-blank if he would be willing to raise the child himself if I had the baby. I wasn’t going to acquiesce no matter what, but I was curious as to what his answer was. He said no, so I told him that his opinion didn’t matter. He was not happy with my answer, but who the fuck was he to think that he could tell me to raise a child when he wasn’t willing to do it himself?
The number of women who told me that I would feel differently when it was my own children made me shake my head. There are millions of women who abuse their children or were terrible mothers. It was clearly not true that being a mother magically made you some kind of angelic madonna, so why were women saying that shit to me? I knew it was wishful thinking and societal blinders, but it just underscored how much we need to talk about these issues in a frank way.
I didn’t want kids. I never wanted kids. I still don’t want kids. My dental hygienist asked me if I had children. My impulse was to blurt out, “Oh hell, no!” and recoil in horror. I know it’s a common question and not meant to bother me. I know my reaction was over the top, but I could not help it. At least I was able to swallow it and just say, “Nope!” in a pleasant tone. At least I hope it was pleasant and not a ‘what the fuck did you just say to me?!?’ tone.
I can’t help but think if people had just accepted that I didn’t want children back when I was in my twenties, I would have just gotten on with my life. But because the reactions were so exaggerated, it scarred me. Most of that was my mother. The most ridiculous when she ‘jokingly’ suggested that I adopt a black baby to match my cats. Seriously. She was that desperate. Normally, she buys intot the stereotypes about black people (sadly, but immigrants are susceptible to the societal messages, too), but she was willing to try anything to make me a mother.
She pushed me for fifteen years to have children. Fifteen years. I still have a hard time believing that because wouldn’t you think after five years or so, she would have given up? I was blunt about my lack of desire for children, but that did not deter her one whit. What I should have done was refused to talk about it after the first time I said I did not want them. I should have said, “Mom. I don’t want children. If I ever do, I will let you know. I am not talking about this again.”
I was a hot mess back then, though, and I did not believe that I had the right to stand up for myself. Both my parents are narcissists in their own way, and one of the ways my mother’s narcissism manifested was that what she wanted mattered more than what I wanted–even if it was my life. She actually said to me that it did not matter that I did not want children because it was my duty as a woman to have them.
To what end, she could not say. She just kept repeating that it was tradition and something, something, something Taiwanese culture. You know that a person has nothing when they fall back on culture. She could not give me a single reason why I, Minna, as a person, should have children when I did not want them. It was a bitter reminder of how littel my mother actually cared about me as a person.
I am thrilled that I never gave in to her pressure or societal pressure to spawn. There was one time my mother was nagging me for the umpteenth time to have children when I thought for a nano-second, “I should just have one to shut her the fuck up.” Fortunately, I realized what a terrible reason that was to have children and snapped out of it, but it showed how exhausted I was by that particular conversation.
Now, thirty years after I decided not to have children, it’s still the best decision I ever made. Hands down.