Read the full episode here https://journeyfrommeh.com/childfree-perspective-mothers-day/

Today is mother's day in South Africa and other parts of the world.

I, myself, have chosen the childfree option. Not a perfect term but one that is growing in society’s vocabulary.

My choice means that my personal narrative is not reflected back to me in the Hallmark cards or popular cultural narrative.

The first time I had sex, I used 3 different types of contraception. Perhaps part of me was grateful for all the options available to me that weren’t available to millennia of women before me. 

There’s that calculation that someone sat down and did about how many people had to exist for you to be here. That may be true, but let’s not romanticise it too much. Many, many, many of those people had no other option than to be mothers. 

I believe it was during my final year of high school, in English class, that we were required to do an oral. I attended an all girls school and wanted to speak about something relevant to my audience. I chose to speak about the history of contraception and how the oral contraceptive pill works.

My brother was studying pharmacy and provided me with the pharmacological info and the physiological impacts. I included little known factoids like it can result in additional ear wax being produced.

My English teacher stood at the back of the class. Taking questions afterwards was an interesting experience.

In my early twenties, I saw a t-shirt that had a pop art cartoon character on it. She had her head in her hands and the thought bubble said. “OMG! I forgot to have children!” 

This delighted me. To me, it was an acknowledgement that there’s so much to do and be in the world and this t-shirt encapsulated those options for me.

Later in my twenties, a friend’s mother, who had four children, told me that each child was the result of a different contraceptive method that failed her. She loved her children but felt she didn’t have the choice of a different life option for herself.

My maternal grandmother was a midwife and had 10 children. My mother loved telling the story of how she was being wheeled into the delivery room and told her doctor that her mother thought she wasn’t ready to give birth. 

The doctor asked, “and how many children does your mother have?”  When my mother told him 10, the doctor started removing his gloves and sent her home with the comment “your mother has more experience than I’ll ever have!” Turned out my grandmother was right.

My mother felt that being a mother was the most important thing any woman could do. I feel differently.

There are many reasons why I chose not to have children. I will not share them here. Not for any other reason than I expect you to respect my decision. I will not participate in justifying it so that it may, or may not, make it a more digestible decision for you.

It frustrates me how people will insensitively barge into asking women why they don’t have children. When I witness this happening I wish my family and friends (who have walked a path with infertility) would just let the asker stew in their blunder. Instead, they often rescue them by providing more information like: I have many children in my life.

And infertility is just one of many obstacles and complexities that may be encountered in deciding whether children are an option or a possibility.

Just as I am more concerned about your capacity to love, rather than who you choose to love, I am more interested in your ability to respect and accept my choice than I am in fulfilling your need to know why.