motherhood and not wanting it

[tielan]

I'm trying to think of whether there's any societally acceptable way (offline, outside of the kind of circles that we encounter here in online fandom) for a woman who's already had kids to express the sentiment that she wishes she'd never had them and I'm coming up blank.

The ones I can think of would mostly get waved away as "selfishness" - ie. career interruption, limitations on lifestyle - or "that's part of the role" - ie. emotional/physical/mental struggle, dealing with the children 90% of the time.

Can you think of one?

Comments

this doesn't answer your question but it pokes at the question yours points to

[alexseanchai]

Not offhand—but if we had better societal support for mothers, such that it didn't have to be and in fact consistently was not three full-time jobs (on top, often, of whatever she does to bring money into the household), then I am confident it'd be less of an issue. Like. If mothers weren't always either halting their careers to raise the kids or being criticized for not so doing, then who would regard a desire to not halt one's career in order to raise kids as a selfish desire? That'd just be a normal desire! I mean. It is a normal desire—in fathers.

I'm going to shut up before I rant about sexism in parenting and in treatment of parents for more than a single paragraph!

Re: this doesn't answer your question but it pokes at the question yours points to

[tielan]

I am in full agreement with you on that point going forward, but in the current context of the society that we live in, where it's not only expected but normalised for women to put their careers and desires on hold for children (that they may or may not want), I'm wondering if there are any reasons that people generally might say are justified reasons for a woman who's already had children to say she doesn't like being a mother.

Re: this doesn't answer your question but it pokes at the question yours points to

[alexseanchai]

Honestly I doubt it.

Re: this doesn't answer your question but it pokes at the question yours points to

[beatrice_otter]

Pretty sure there isn't.

Re: this doesn't answer your question but it pokes at the question yours points to

[tielan]

Yeah, that's more or less the conclusion I've come to.

Re: this doesn't answer your question but it pokes at the question yours points to

[thothmes]

If the kid does something ghastly, I think the mom can probably get away with saying that, especially if she was seen to be doing everything she could to get the kid help, but to no avail.

A kid is from a poor family. His single mom has been working three jobs to get him the psychiatric help he needs, but in spite of all her efforts, one Tuesday she hears that there has been a school shooting in the neighborhood, and the shooter has been shot dead by responding cops. It is her son.

She gets to play the "I wish I'd never given birth to him!" card with impunity.

[scribblemyname]

Um... No. I can't. Which is a shame.

Guess what? I don't want kids. I find it incredible how much wanting to have kids is foisted on everyone. And I don't blame people who wish they hadn't. You can still love the kid you got while regretting having gotten them. But I have no idea how to say that in a socially acceptable way.

[tielan]

And that's pretty much what I'm looking at right now (FB discussion).

eg. People will excuse dads who say "I never wanted kids, but she wanted them" as an acceptable reason for them to cry off fatherhood (pay no child support, don't see or care about the children, be uninvolved in their upbringing). But "I never wanted kids, but my husband pressured me" is not an acceptable reason for a woman to cry off motherhood. And even expressing this can be fraught for women as they face condemnation for 'selfishness'.

[lynnenne]

"I never wanted kids, but my husband pressured me"

A cousin of mine once told me this. She couldn't get pregnant and her husband pressured her into adopting two kids. Then he divorced her about a year after they adopted the 2nd child.

Asshole.

I felt really badly for her - and since I never wanted children myself, I was likely way more sympathetic than most people would have been. I imagine the typical response would be, "But think of all the joy they've brought into your life! Aren't you glad you had them?!?" Followed by shocked condemnation if she replied, "Well, no, not really."

[tielan]

There's this nearly obsessive insistence that there must be something redeeming in motherhood. Like, we'd wince at a father who decried fatherhood, but we wouldn't recoil from him the way we do at a mother who decries motherhood.

[frith_in_thorns]

Sadly, the only example I can think of is when the child has severe disabilities :/

tw: murder of disabled children (not specified whom, but This Shit Keeps Happening)

[alexseanchai]

and then she can murder the kid flat out and admit to cops that's what she did and nobody except disabled adults actually thinks she deserves more than being sternly finger-wagged at >_

Re: tw: murder of disabled children (not specified whom, but This Shit Keeps Happening)

[karmageddon]

Unfortunately yes.

Re: tw: murder of disabled children (not specified whom, but This Shit Keeps Happening)

[tielan]

D:

[james]

The only thing I can think where society would generally be more likely to agree that she shouldn't have had kids is a) if all of her kids were severely disabled and a huge burden on society (not just on the mother), or b) if she were a huge huge star in her field and everyone could say that yes a great mind was lost to needing to quit her job and become a mother (but that would be less likely, because many people would just say women are supposed to give up their jobs, no matter how good they are. Like, even if she were two seconds away from discovering the cure to cancer, but she had to drop everything when she went into labor -- people would say well, but of course she had to stop her research and become a mother.

Well. If she were a hot and sexy starlette whom the men were all drooling over and fantasising about fucking, and she quit making movies to get stretch marks and be fat, then yes they'd say what a shame.

[tielan]

So much D:

[gaffsie]

I just read "The Devil's Candy", and that's exactly the way people (men) talk about Melanie Griffith in it. "She was so hot, but now she's an ancient crone at 32 with stretch mark and saggy tits, and I can't stand to look at her."

[monanotlisa]

I think it's a perfectly reasonable thing to state to friends (but then, I come from the mental-illness position, so my view is particular).

[tielan]

There were a few people who got rather angry about the link on FB - the idea that these women expressed the idea that there were No Redeeming Features about having children was anathema.

At least one part of my point is that if we insist that women MUST see the upside in having children, then women are less likely to admit to ANY downside, which compounds the problem of their mental health and capability, because the instant they say "I don't like being a mother" someone slaps them across the face and grabs the nearest moral soapbox with which to wash their mouth out.

[elanya]

I was thinking that there might be acceptance at least in some circles if she had never wanted to follow through with a pregnancy and was forced to (e.g. child of a rape, abortion unavailable or inaccessible for some reason), but it would be controversial.

I also think there is a difference between 'I never wanted to have a baby' and 'I never wanted to raise children.' Like, it does things to your body that are permanent, but having a baby doesn't necessitate raising one, and likewise, there are ways that you can wind up with children to raise that you didn't necessarily want and don't feel like you can walk away from (eg. your partner has children from another relationship, you get wardship of children of relatives somehow). I think there are contexts in both of those where a woman could get away with saying she has regrets.

But "I chose to have children and now I wish I hadn't" is trickier.

On the other hand - have you ever read A Doll's House by Ibsen? The main character in that winds up abdicating all of her family responsibilities because she feels trapped by her life and feels no sense of fulfillment - written in Denmark in 1879...

[tielan]

But "I chose to have children and now I wish I hadn't" is trickier.

Or "I was coerced into having children, and now I wish I hadn't given in". We don't make a distinction between mothers by force or coercion and mothers by choice - once you're a mother, you are responsible - and moreover, responsible for making sure that the child never ever knows that you feel any sense of loss in parenting them.

[gaffsie]

I once listened to a really interesting interview with a woman who'd written a book about that. There really isn't a societally acceptable way for a mother to express regrets about motherhood, so she'd ended up talking to a lot of women who were just so grateful that finally someone was sharing their story.

It kind of broke my heart to listen to, honestly.

[tielan]

she'd ended up talking to a lot of women who were just so grateful that finally someone was sharing their story.

Yes, this - precisely this!

It's like, no, it's not that people don't love their children; it's just that there are regrets at what is lost, and those regrets should be considered normal, as alexseanchai mentioned above.