Mothers Don’t Make Me Want to Become One

As a deep observer I dissect the changes motherhood brings among women around me.

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I have never skipped baby content on Instagram faster than I do these days. And yet the algorithm of a 35-year-old married woman keeps pushing fertility tips and IVF ads my way. My body has already decided what my mind refuses to.

I turn 35 this year and I am honestly so glad to get past the ages where becoming a mother is supposedly easy, natural, expected. In my early 20s I first knew this was not for me. I have carried that knowing strongly into my thirties, watching the women around me, observing what motherhood actually does to a person.

Every mother wants her child to be perfect. She wants to give her/him the best. Our mothers would have been same. But in this obsession with their children and their every little thing makes me cringe.

What sight at 19 made me so firm on being childfree? I don’t know, I haven’t started therapy on this yet to dig deep down. But when I introspect, I think its got to do with being a single child, growing up away from immediate family, in general. I met my cousins only during the holidays. And I only had one younger sibling. I didn’t particularly grow fond of babies to go all oh-so-cute! on them.

But now it’s definitely watching the mothers in my vicinity that make it easy for me to declare ‘not for me.’

Motherhood Births a New Woman

Photo by Alex Pasarelu on Unsplash

Motherhood is like a new birth for every woman. A statement that has been said around me so often, including my partner. People think its motivating, heck, why would I want another birth in this same lifetime? As women we keep overhauling our lives enough.

First, it’s the teens-tweens when you deal with hormones, then it’s growing through professionally and all the new life after marriage and you’re telling me to go through all that change and more after giving birth?

Women bodies and minds go through a lot. Brave are those who choose this path and kudos to all of them. I’ll let this pass.

Where Did the Woman Go?

Photo by The Prototype on Unsplash

The biggest and most obvious changes I’ve seen in my best-friends who turned mothers are in the smallest things. They forget they existed as individuals before the baby popped.

The changing birthday wishes are funniest. Earlier it would be ‘Happy Birthday Mum/Dad/Brother/Sister. Now it’s always ‘Happy Birthday Grandma/Grandpa/Uncle/Aunt’ with a photo of the baby with them.

The baby hasn’t even learnt the relations nor knows what are birthdays. There’s an audience that may find this cute. I find it hilarious and uncalled for.

The social media stories reflect postpartum moods, sleepless nights, sharing memes with red eyes while calling the baby ‘prince/princess’. She doesn’t care about what she liked and disliked before. Now its all baby content.

Where did this woman with her individuality go? Oh, she took a new birth, did you forget?

I know she will be back, I root for her to be back.

Complains and Gratefulness Walk Together

The moment I hang up the call after congratulating my friends on becoming moms, I mentally prepare that I won’t be speaking to them soon again. While you’re ready to judge me, read this slow: a new mother needs time. She needs more than 24 hours a day.

I cannot be calling them up every week and checking in, while she is still learning the sleep schedules and burp techniques. Her phone’s probably going to be silent because the newborns rarely sleep like babies. A notification ping wakes them up apparently. I could drop her a message, we could make plans to meet or call and it would be months before it finally happens.

And when I finally meet, the complains outpour. The child does this. The father of the child does this. The MIL said this. My mother said this. And then comes a sentence, “Sometimes I think, my life was so much better before all this. I miss it. I love my child but I wish I had more time.” 8 out of 10 friends who have turned mothers have said this.

And on their stories, they put up pictures of their children, covering their face with an emoji, expressing gratefulness for this role every day. I mean, I wouldn’t even say I get it. But I will say, I don’t wish to.

Another reason, why I mute them atleast for a few months. Well, atleast I am honest about this here.

Saint Mother, Please Sit Down!

Photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash

We have glorified motherhood and its sacrifices for eons. The performance however now is new. The detailed, breathless announcement of every compromise, every pause, every surrender, as though it has never been done before. Not by our mothers or grandmothers.

You extended your maternity leave. You quit your job. You stopped traveling. You put yourself last. These are real hard decisions you had to make. Your child is your world and all that. But somewhere between the sacrifice and your captions, they became an identity. Like the sacrificial crown to wear in public, a suffering to display and not to forget the gratefulness to balance it with.

Madam, when listed plainly, it sounds less like devotion and more like a slow disappearance. And we are expected to appreciate it.

For me, who looked at this and felt something closer to dread than admiration this entire glorification is barely inspiring. It screams a warning.

It’s Just Not For Me…

Maybe the glorification of these little things is how mother survive the change and grow into the new life, along with their new life.

But while I say this, I cannot leave out two of my friends, who I genuinely adore and respect and those two make me even consider the option of becoming a mother if at all. These two make motherhood a part of their personality, not their entire identity.

I am not asking mothers to stop. I am simply hoping the same permission to know my own mind, to make my own choice, without it being treated as something to fix or explain. They chose this. I am choosing something else. Neither of us needs the other’s applause. Let’s root for each other, children in picture, or not.