Afra tells us of her choice not to have children and of how she relates to this topic as a woman and as a doctor. She reflects on maternal instinct and on how becoming a mother can change a woman’s life and personality.
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AFRA: «Unfortunately, it is a very neglected topic, up until now at least, people seldom talked about the condition of childfree women.
Childfree women who, moreover, due to their biological clock, can no longer have children.
I am not sure why, and it would be worth understanding why this topic is so neglected. Lately, I happened to talk about it within my feminist collective, where this topic of childfree women came up, and about the alternative ways they experience motherhood. But I believe that without a commitment and a personal resolution coming from those involved, most likely, this topic won’t be further explored.
Possibly this topic is taboo because it is perceived as peculiar, people probably find it hard to understand that a woman decides not to have children, because it is taken for granted that a woman feels fulfilled only if she has children, so a childfree woman somehow is a woman who failed, not accomplished. So, most likely, people don’t feel at ease to talk about this matter, both the others, the external world, but also the women themselves.
Often some of friends, feeling very passionate about being novice mothers, asked me how come I was not interested in experiencing motherhood. And moreover, something which I find quite odd, I have been under quite a lot of psychological pressure from my mother, who is a very independent and clever woman, who went so far as to tell me, “Don’t miss out on motherhood, if you don’t want a husband, have a baby and I will look after him or her”. She went as far as to volunteer as a babysitter, in order to make sure I would not miss out on this motherhood experience, but I have been deaf to these calls too. Is there a true and only reason for that? What I know is that I felt, I understood and basically not decided but rather acknowledged this kind of karmic decision, as if being childfree is something born with me.
When I was a teenager, around sixteen, following some tests I had to do, including hormonal assays, when the gynecologist checked the results, he told me I had some issues, and that most likely, with that condition, I couldn’t carry a pregnancy to full term. I was given a therapy. Well, I never took that therapy. I told my mother, who went to buy my therapy, that I was taking my drugs, which I never did. I took it as a good news, not being able to have children, as if somehow nature spared me. Afterwards, I did some more hormonal tests, and my condition had resolved spontaneously, hence, after this phase I could have had children, but I did not all the same, therefore then it became a choice, and not simply accepting a situation. An crucial experience for me, or that at least it contributed to reinforce this decision, I am a doctor and before graduating, when I was around 23, as it was customary for medicine students back then, I did my pre-doctoral internship in the maternity ward. For me each admittance in the delivery room was a trauma. Each delivery was for me… such a gory, violent scene, that truly every time I thought, “this experience does not belong to me, this is not my thing, far from my life.” Then again, I don’t know, most probably I have always felt very close to women’s issues and women’s hardships. And I always regarded… It always touched me to look at these women so busy, with many children, stressed-out, knackered, ravaged by stress, overworked. I always thought in fact that although motherhood was a privilege, it was also unfair on women.
My relationship with women with children? Clearly I am surrounded by women with children, but there is something I want to say: by the time my closest friends, those with whom we shared the years of my youth, university and so on… as each of them became a mother. Seeing how they changed could only reinforce my decision not to have children. I must say that it bothered me a lot, when I went to visit some friends with whom in the past we used to have very long conversations, seeing that they had to get up every five minutes because the child started crying, or the baby needed to be changed… It seemed to me they were no longer themselves, as if motherhood had somehow changed their identity. As if biology had stripped them out all their cultural background, the way they used to be within society, in the outside world. At that point you could only see their biological aspect, their need to look after this life they felt responsible for. A possible beautiful experience, but that deprived themand selfishly so, also myself, as their friend, of a long series of things which I had enjoyed before.
From time to time, I also felt a small pang of envy towards mothers, towards women with children. At times, what I felt a bit jealous of is that being a mother allows you to use your potential. Women can potentially give life, those who do, will use this potential, but if you don’t, this potential remains just a potential. And anyway, motherhood somehow justifies all the choices about your private life. A mother feels entitled not to commit on other matters, or at least to put boundaries. A childfree woman must take full responsibility about her will to participate or not. “I don’t do this, because I don’t want to, or I am not interested!” A mother can say, “I don’t do it, because I really can’t, my obligations as a mother won’t let me”. And this sometimes bothered me, coming from the mothers. Sometimes I took it as an alibi, a way to hide, to disguise your own willingness to withdraw in your private life.
What is maternal instinct? I’m not sure if it really exists, because, most likely, most likely, it is something totally irrational, which comes from your biology, your hormones. It is the desire to use this potential, the potential of your body to create, to give birth to a new life. I think here as well there may be mystifications. I happened to talk to friends of mine whose period was simply late, but who were already over the moon, with dreamy eyes, entering straight away the motherhood status, while in the end they were not pregnant. Therefore I wonder whether the maternal instinct is a real thing, or rather a cultural and a superstructural production. But it is also true that later on, examining my own behaviors towards others, I realized that maybe the maternal instinct is indeed that irrational drive to look after who is weaker, who is more fragile, that childfree women have too, and so do I.
Most likely, and this is the negative aspect of being childfree, as I could not channel it through the natural channels, of this so-called instinct, let’s keep saying “so-called”, therefore towards my own children, I often ended up directing it towards others, for instance in my work as a doctor with my patients, maybe investing too much on an emotional level, as well as feeling too committed, investing my loving drive on alternative targets rather than the natural ones. Which is also a beautiful thing, because after all you can be a mother in many ways, you must not necessarily have your own biological children, but… you must be able to evaluate this kind of… this personal drive to give. Maybe not experiencing biological motherhood makes it harder to evaluate this, rather calibrate this drive.
This documentary may be called “dead branches”, well… it is a quite common to refer to childfree women as “dead branches”. I remember one of my aunts used this expression “dead branch”, “a woman with no children is a dead branch”. A very sad image.
No, I don’t like this definition, because once again it is an expression that underlies a concept of a woman as a mere brood mare. While there are many ways to give life, you can create, and even give life meaning exactly supporting other people’s lives. You can still leave something behind, even if not a child. I must say… clearly, when I turned 50, I had to come to terms with this being a childfree woman, and had to take stock of my life, to assess what was the outcome of my choice. I realized that… the most beautiful things of my personal journey most likely would not have happened, if I had had children. So it is a positive assessment, I don’t regret making this choice. What it is important though, is not being a dead branch, meaning the desire to give something. Thinking of this need to… give birth to something anyway. I must say that regarding this I have been helped a lot by my buddhist practice, learning the concept of compassion. Compassion is the ability to empathize with the sufferings of others, and it is something very close to motherhood, so we could say that for me it was a way, a tool which made me feel I was not a dead branch. I must say that this urge to daily look after other people, even just by feeding, or caring for a living creature…
I have three dogs, the thought makes me smile, because a good friend of mine says that three dogs are the trademark of a single woman. And maybe it’s true. It’s true that I find it pleasant, I enjoy having someone to look after, someone for instance you worry about at times, just slightly so. Honestly, seeing how anxious I get for example if I fear that one of my dogs is sick, I realize that if I had had children, I would have been an anxious, over protective mother, totally awful, so, much better this way. It is not a sad thing, nor sorrowful, these are lives that accompany me and liven up my home, which otherwise would be too silent.
I believe that childfree women are generally quite easy to spot. For instance, in a group of women, where some have children and others don’t, I think childfree women often stand out because they tend to be more protective, taking care of their friends’ problem and pains.
In my experience, if I meet friends and tell them I am not too well, if anyone may wish to delve deeper, and understand my problems this is most likely a childfree woman. Something else associated to childfree women is that their life is less organized, even those who work, and have a more organized life, have room for some chaos and improvisation in their lives. They lead a more creative life, while naturally women with children have a super planned life. If these mothers work as well, they must have a scientifically planned life, which childfree women don’t need to have, so it is easier for example that they can turn around their planned day, doing something unplanned; they can easily follow a desire which may come up unplanned. They tend to organize their life, and to approach others in a more creative way than women with children.»
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