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

[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.