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Sep. 22nd, 2009 12:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quiregrrlIn my teens and twenties I was fairly adamant that I would never have children. Didn't want them, didn't like them, couldn't stand being around them, and certainly couldn't understand my friends for whom "having babies" was an integral part of their life plan. My mother, and other older women, would listen to my anti-baby rants and nod sagely and tell me that I would change my mind. This unfailingly caused further ranting on the abhorrence of children, the selfishness and irresponsibility of people bringing children into an already over-populated and unstable world, the misogynistic assumption that women are biologically compelled to breed and the presumption that there is something wrong, unnatural even, about women who do not coo with delight at the little squirmy things that eat and poop and shriek and vomit.
No thank you. Not me.
Much to my surprise, and a little dismay, it turns out that, for me at least, those older women were right. I have changed my mind. I do still strongly believe that it is perfectly natural for women to not want to have babies, and there is nothing wrong with those women at all. I do still believe that there is a large element of selfishness in bringing more children into this world. But since turning thirty I have been aware of a quiet ticking gradually increasing in volume, of vague longings steadily coalescing into a desire for that thing I thought I'd never want. A baby.
I have trouble admitting it, even to myself. And spending time near screaming feral 2 foot tall monsters in shopping centers does wonders in reasserting some reality in my rosy imaginings, sufficiently so at times to return me to my previous sense of horror at the prospect of motherhood. But then days like Saturday happen and I find myself understanding that feeling other women have described, that longing to be a mother.
My dad had a BBQ for his birthday on Saturday, and his sister-in-law Leanne was there with her two children which she adopted after fostering them both long term (one is now 10, the other 9), and two very small babies she is fostering currently. Delaney is 4.5 months old, and was removed from her mother two weeks ago due to severe neglect. She is baby number 7 for her mum, all seven children have been removed, four previously, and two others at the same time as Delaney. She has severe eczema, which at the time she was removed was so bad that she was covered in great big scabs, due to being fed solely with cows milk from birth. At four and a half months old, she has barely more neck control thn a new born baby, due most likely to being left lying in her crib almost constantly. And she doesn't cry. She barely grizzles. It's as though she knows there is no point. In the two weeks that Leanne has had her, her eczema has improved dramatically, there are obvious red and dry patches all over her, but they are healing. And she is the sweetest little thing, she responds with smiles when you play with her, and she was just adorable. George is four weeks old, he was removed from his mother two days after his birth, there was a notification and removal order prior to his birth so once he was born she was not even allowed to be alone with him. He is her 6th child, all of whom have been removed. George is almost as big as Delaney, who is three and a half months older than him. George was lucky. I spent several solid hours on Saturday holding one or the other of these little bundles, mostly George. I changed his nappy, fed him, played with him, changed him into his pj's, and rocked him to sleep. And I ached with wanting.
A huge part of it is of course just wanting to rescue these babies, and the countless ones like them, who are removed from parents who are unable or unwilling to look after them, yet keep on having them. It angers me beyond belief that these women just keep having babies. I find myself thinking that enforced chemical sterilisation might not be such a bad thing. If courts can order mental health patients to attend for their weekly medication injection, why can they not order compulsive breeders who have had multiple children removed to attend for their three monthly contraceptive injection?
I admire people who foster children so very much. I'm not sure I could do it. I get too easily attached and I think my heart would break, particularly if the baby or child I had cared for from an abusive or neglectful home was then sent back to that parent. That aside, I am a single woman, who has never had kids, and who works full time. I'm not a foster candidate.
But following that time with the babies, the ticking of my biological clock is loud and relentless. And I find myself calculating the odds. The odds that I will find someone to be in a long-term, secure, stable relationship with. Ever. The odds that they will want children. The odds that it would be possible to get pregnant. The odds that we would be able to afford it. The odds that all of those things will happen before I am past the age where I would consider it reasonable to have a baby. The odds aren't in my favour. So I find myself having only quite recently admitting to myself that this is something I want, already resigning myself to the idea that I probably won't ever have it.
If it doesn't happen, I know that I will regret not having had a child. But even knowing that, I also know that I will not embark on motherhood selfishly and recklessly, in a situation where I cannot give that child a reasonable life. Getting pregnant is possible now, raising a child isn't.
There is still hope, but it's small, and I am doing my best not to nurture it too greatly. But sometimes, I ache for motherhood.
No thank you. Not me.
Much to my surprise, and a little dismay, it turns out that, for me at least, those older women were right. I have changed my mind. I do still strongly believe that it is perfectly natural for women to not want to have babies, and there is nothing wrong with those women at all. I do still believe that there is a large element of selfishness in bringing more children into this world. But since turning thirty I have been aware of a quiet ticking gradually increasing in volume, of vague longings steadily coalescing into a desire for that thing I thought I'd never want. A baby.
I have trouble admitting it, even to myself. And spending time near screaming feral 2 foot tall monsters in shopping centers does wonders in reasserting some reality in my rosy imaginings, sufficiently so at times to return me to my previous sense of horror at the prospect of motherhood. But then days like Saturday happen and I find myself understanding that feeling other women have described, that longing to be a mother.
My dad had a BBQ for his birthday on Saturday, and his sister-in-law Leanne was there with her two children which she adopted after fostering them both long term (one is now 10, the other 9), and two very small babies she is fostering currently. Delaney is 4.5 months old, and was removed from her mother two weeks ago due to severe neglect. She is baby number 7 for her mum, all seven children have been removed, four previously, and two others at the same time as Delaney. She has severe eczema, which at the time she was removed was so bad that she was covered in great big scabs, due to being fed solely with cows milk from birth. At four and a half months old, she has barely more neck control thn a new born baby, due most likely to being left lying in her crib almost constantly. And she doesn't cry. She barely grizzles. It's as though she knows there is no point. In the two weeks that Leanne has had her, her eczema has improved dramatically, there are obvious red and dry patches all over her, but they are healing. And she is the sweetest little thing, she responds with smiles when you play with her, and she was just adorable. George is four weeks old, he was removed from his mother two days after his birth, there was a notification and removal order prior to his birth so once he was born she was not even allowed to be alone with him. He is her 6th child, all of whom have been removed. George is almost as big as Delaney, who is three and a half months older than him. George was lucky. I spent several solid hours on Saturday holding one or the other of these little bundles, mostly George. I changed his nappy, fed him, played with him, changed him into his pj's, and rocked him to sleep. And I ached with wanting.
A huge part of it is of course just wanting to rescue these babies, and the countless ones like them, who are removed from parents who are unable or unwilling to look after them, yet keep on having them. It angers me beyond belief that these women just keep having babies. I find myself thinking that enforced chemical sterilisation might not be such a bad thing. If courts can order mental health patients to attend for their weekly medication injection, why can they not order compulsive breeders who have had multiple children removed to attend for their three monthly contraceptive injection?
I admire people who foster children so very much. I'm not sure I could do it. I get too easily attached and I think my heart would break, particularly if the baby or child I had cared for from an abusive or neglectful home was then sent back to that parent. That aside, I am a single woman, who has never had kids, and who works full time. I'm not a foster candidate.
But following that time with the babies, the ticking of my biological clock is loud and relentless. And I find myself calculating the odds. The odds that I will find someone to be in a long-term, secure, stable relationship with. Ever. The odds that they will want children. The odds that it would be possible to get pregnant. The odds that we would be able to afford it. The odds that all of those things will happen before I am past the age where I would consider it reasonable to have a baby. The odds aren't in my favour. So I find myself having only quite recently admitting to myself that this is something I want, already resigning myself to the idea that I probably won't ever have it.
If it doesn't happen, I know that I will regret not having had a child. But even knowing that, I also know that I will not embark on motherhood selfishly and recklessly, in a situation where I cannot give that child a reasonable life. Getting pregnant is possible now, raising a child isn't.
There is still hope, but it's small, and I am doing my best not to nurture it too greatly. But sometimes, I ache for motherhood.
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Date: 2009-09-23 12:52 pm (UTC)I think wait a bit, but then if you're still sure, go for it. I know a woman with a housing commission unit, four kids, no support from the dads. She's a lovely woman.
Considering how my career is so pear-shaped, I regret not taking the single-mum sperm donor route now. I work nights, minimal social life and get migraines and what for? A wage that breaks even, no holidays. Not worth it.
Also, former Health Minister Reba Meagher - a preggers single woman on her $130,000/yr pension. (She should be on single mum's pension.) No stigma for single mums.