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

[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."