Kathia tells us of her experience with non-motherhood, rooted in her family history and based on an informed choice, shared with her partner.
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KATHIA: «I am Kathia, I am 46 years old, I am married and I don’t work outside the home. My choice of non-motherhood goes back to the very beginning. I never saw myself with a child calling me mum. I don’t have health issues, so I could easily have children. I think… I would call it a natural penchant toward non-motherhood, strengthened by my experience which is a bit peculiar. I have been raised by my mother’s sister and her husband, when my mother found out she was pregnant with my sister. I think she felt crushed by this responsibility, unfit to be a mother. I say this because my choice made me feel very close to her. Later I realised that she didn’t have the same opportunities I had, whereas I, living in this era, I had the freedom to choose.
Not being a mother makes me feel extremely happy, makes me feel a total sense of freedom.
Freedom to live my life and not his or hers, a potential child. Freedom to move and be myself, whether sad, melancholic, or even angry, without strings attached. Some time ago I was told I should have my uterus removed, something than any other woman would have felt as a tragedy, whereas I smiled, my face lit up and I thought, “What a relief!” I didn’t go through with it, but thinking back, it made me understand how my tendency to non-motherhood, is very natural for me and how it is deeply rooted. It really belongs to my own nature. My choice was supported by my husband, who never desired children. All the same, when he proposed to me, I have told him again as we talked about it many times, “I will never change my mind”. Because I knew of other couples, who although very firm at first, one in the end decided to have children, being of course very natural for human beings.
In my case, mothers often tell me I am selfish, I would call it respect. Respect for that potential child whom I am doing a big favour: I will not be her or his mother. I can say this because I have been a daughter, and still am a daughter, not being a mother. And let’s say, my mother never really wanted me, she never wished to create a bond with me. When I was three, I remember she had to help me dress, I was already living with my parents, who later became my adoptive parents, and she did not know what to do, she didn’t even know how to put my skirt and t-shirt on. I got very angry, this tiny little girl and said, “Mum, this is how auntie does, you can’t do anything”. And she really did not know what to do, she started crying and got very upset. When I remember these things, for many years I have been very cross at her, then growing up, deep down I remembered that I also did not want any children, and this was very much because of her.
Something that hurts me a lot, about not being a mother, is the other women’s gaze. When they ask, “Do you have children?” I answer lightly, “No, I don’t”. But I know that people fall silent, they look down and become sad, thinking straight away, “She can’t have them, she must have health issues”. I let a moment pass, and then I smile and try to put them at ease, telling them that it was my choice. The second question is, “Does your husband know”? I fall speechless, because I think it’s crazy, if your life partner is not aware of such an important decision. So I explain that it was the first thing I told him, when we had been together barely three months. We’ve been together thirty years, so we’ve made ourselves clear enough. I find very difficult to understand this kind of women’s approach, this frenzy about having children at all costs, and they can’t see why I stubbornly do not want them. It makes me feel incomplete somehow, because I see how happy women are when they have children, and I think I will never feel that kind of happiness. I am happy not being a mother, but I might have been much happier if I were. Nature did not endow me with this opportunity, and I ask myself, “Why not me?”»
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