Motherhood (or not)

I finally caught Sex and the City 2 on the telly the other week. I'd heard about the bad reviews, and I have to admit that the movie was hard to finish. However, the moment that lingers occurred at the wedding in the beginning of the film, when Big and Carrie meet another couple and the conversation moves to having children. The other couple expects Big and Carrie to accept their casual offer of a reference for a surrogate as if it was no big deal to have someone else pop out your kid for you, yet as soon as Carrie states that they will not be having children, the other couple starts to behave as if something dirty has happened and lose any interest in talking to Big and Carrie.

I’ve often wondered about Jane Austen’s attitude about mothers. In Persuasion, the mother was the sensible one, but died before the book began. Same with Emma, in which the mother died when Emma was very young. In Pride and Prejudice, the mother is, frankly, silly, though it could be argued that in her own way she tries to have her daughter’s best interests at heart (i.e. get them married). In Northanger Abbey, the mother is hardly seen but Mrs. Allen, who takes Catherine to Bath, is also pretty clueless. The mother situation is similar in Mansfield Park, where the mother sends Fanny to live with the Bertrams, where Lady Bertram sits around talking about and to her pug all day.  Only in Sense and Sensibility is the mother present and involved in the story.

Ms. Austen herself lived with her mother and her sister Cassandra for most of her life, yet the mother figure is not a very respected (if she’s even present) figure in her novels. It may have been her way of commenting on the expectations and attitudes toward women. She herself never married or had children, though that might not have been by choice. I myself, perhaps selfishly, am grateful for that, as she might have found it difficult to produce the works I love so much if she had the responsibilities of both a family and a household, which during that time period would have limited her ability to write.

 
I made the decision to be childfree when I was sixteen.


I made this decision based on factors such as overpopulation (yes, even way back when I was sixteen), my general suitability to be a mother, and my ability to take care of the child financially as long as needed. Some women are unable to have children. I also know women who already have children who are continually asked when they are having more. If anything is taken away from this post, it is to not ask women about their plans for having children. I've even been guilty of this a couple of times, though I do try to be accepting of whatever answer is given.

I have kept to that decision, through comments by people that "when I meet the right guy, I'll change my mind", through episodes of Rizzoli and Isles where a psychologist who writes about the same decision automatically hates children, through a TV character who was for many seasons a rare role model for being childfree, successful and single, but now has a child (Bones), and through the general societal habit of expecting motherhood from women.

 ***Here is where I will put my usual caveat that I have to trot out when I tell people I have made this decision: no, I do not hate children, and yes, I have nothing against women who truly want to be mothers. I even babysat once for a friend. I still know the (now) young woman, and remind her about the time when I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. Her answer: Barbie. My response: Well, you know how Barbie is usually something else too, like a doctor? Is there anything else you want to be while you’re Barbie? Her: No. Just Barbie. She thinks it's pretty funny now.***

A recent commercial involving either a cell phone or a cell phone company includes a young woman stating that being a mother was "what she was born to do". (She is also white, young, attractive, perfectly groomed, and the children are somewhere off camera). Born to be a mother: the concept that can cause guilt if you don't want children or find yourself struggling as a mother, can lead to young teenagers wanting a baby before they are ready (or at any age for that matter), can lead to abandoned or abused children. All because women are expected to feel as if they are born to be mothers.
 
We put motherhood on a pedestal, while at the same time martyring mothers or vilifying them if they cannot handle motherhood (as soon as a mother kills a child, there's extra level of shock that she could do it simply because she's a mother). Woe to the woman who falls off that pedestal or decides not to climb on it. Women should be mothers, and mothers should be perfect.

A woman who does not have children is still very much a woman. I can vouch for that.




http://www.nokidding.net/
http://www.childfree.net/websites.html
http://thechildfreelife.com/