You read that right. I don’t want kids and I’m fine with it. This is a sentence that has repeatedly shocked the people in my life and will probably shock some of you the old readers. It is after all on this same platform that I repeatedly wrote “Letters to my Daughter”, so how did I go from baby fever to putting a lockdown on my womb?
As I’ve gotten older and observed many women around me far and near, I realise that maybe I was bamboozled. First of all, they lied! Everyone; our parents, the movies and worse of all, our biology teachers. No one told us the absolute truth concerning pregnancy, labor and parenting. I still remember how cold I felt the day I found out that your vagina could tear in labor and would need to be stitched. This was from my first friend to get married and become a parent in 2015. It went downhill from there especially on twitter and women opening up about some of the horrors they go through. We recently found out about engorgement and a woman who got a painful lump in her underarms from breast feeding on twitter, which led to more horrific confessions and ugly truths. Hold the fudge up. I didn’t sign up for this.
You may say, oh but Bondi it’s different for people. Your case might be different. Whatever. I’m not here for it. But I’ll give you the real reason because the above can be solved via surrogacy. Which is most likely what I would do, should I change my mind.
I have observed that many women are single parents even though they are married. Being surrounded by a lot of married women in my office and even some friends has shed a light on how the parenting responsibility rests heavily on the women even though it took both a man and a woman to create said child. And before you say I’m seeing it only from the women’s side, I have a lot of fathers in my office too. Seldom (and I’m being generous) have I seen any of them leave the office for immunisation appointments or take permission to go for school events nor have I seen them step foot in Balogun market (just beside us) to search for school supplies. Being a single parent scares me because I want my child to have both of his/her parents active in their life. It scares me because sometimes I ask myself if I have what it takes to be a present mother and have an active career. Let’s face it, there’s almost always a trade off, where it’s the woman who suffers more.
Ok yes, there’s domestic help. But do you know how hard it is finding good domestic help these days? In my office, it’s always one call after another to a domestic services agency. Like clockwork, every new year/after a major celebration, it’s always “I’m looking for a new help oh. My help went home and refused to return”. Now whether these people are being good employees, I can’t say. What I do know is I’ve seen even good employees suffer from bad domestic help. There’s always an issue where it’s either stealing from you, maltreating your child or something else. I mean we’ve seen those appalling videos of helps maltreating the children they are supposed to take care of on the internet. Mothers are so paranoid that I often see them glancing at their home CCTV on their phones when at work or placing routine calls. All that division and not being able to be fully present at work/whatever it is you’re doing. I wonder if the men have half this burden. And then that brings me to my next hesitation.
Will I be a good mother? Can I be selfless and pour into my kid and not raise an emotionally damaged person? I fear sometimes that I’m not done evolving as a person to become a mother and this is why I refuse to parent alone. I need the father of my child to pick up the pieces where I drop the ball, otherwise we’re failing our child. Growing up I thought my mother was emotionally distant and that was what made me want to become a mum so much, because I thought I could correct her mistakes. I thought I would be a mum who had a solid relationship with her child where they could tell her anything. I thought I would be a mum who talked to her kids about everything love, sex, relationships, money etc. You know us millennials and our fanciful ideas of parenting. That is the kind of mother I wanted to be. However as I get older, I’m finding that I’m becoming emotionally distant and the traits I didn’t want in my mum, I’m inadvertently seeing in myself. Remember my last post; Welp, I’m Becoming My Mother?
I’m also asking myself these days if I really want kids or been conditioned to say it’s what I want because it is expected of me. You know, the natural order of things. And it’s not just kids, it’s marriage too. Re; the latter, sometimes I say I want to get married so I can have christian guilt-free sex. Otherwise I’m good without it, you know. Let’s not digress, today we’re addressing whether I want kids or not. Interestingly, most women in my circle are speaking up on not wanting kids and I hope it’s something that is normalised. Allow women make decisions to do what is good for them and not what is expected of them.
I don’t want kids and I’m fine with that. I’m happy being the rich cool aunty who spoils her nieces/nephews rotten and takes them on international travels. I’m happy to let my loved ones drop their kids with me to go on trips, date nights or just take a break. I just don’t think motherhood is it for me right now. I could change my mind in the future but for now, my mind and my womb are closed.
Now can someone please escort me to go break my mother’s heart into a million pieces as I tell her of this development?
