In Choosing and Choosing Not
In the U.S., today is Mother’s Day. It’s also my “half birthday”! That means I’m halfway through age 39 today.. Almost complete with my 30s — a decade that began with a deeply painful separation from a life partner, spurred by a deeply profound (and hellish) spiritual awakening that would alter the course of my life in many ways.
In the couple years that followed the “big bang”, I’d come to the place where I would, for the first time, experience the realization that having children was something I could choose not to do. My entire life prior to this, having children was something I assumed I would do, and probably to some degree wanted.. Or thought so anyway.
This “wanting”, I would later learn, was simply rooted in the story I’d been fed by the world that motherhood is what a woman’s path is “supposed” to look like. Sure, I was always driven and ambitious, and knew I would have a career, though certainly I was also supposed to find a husband and have a family too.
I was supposed to be a mother.
Until that eye-opening realization at age 32 (I’ll never forget the exact moment), it had not once crossed my mind that not having children was even an option. That as a woman, the concept of “choice” in the matter wasn’t even floating through my field of awareness. While I come from a family where there was no direct pressure about about having children, the option of “not” wasn’t on the table either. It was simply never an idea that I ever heard talked about or saw playing out around me. I learned through observation that becoming a mother is what the world would expect of me.
After that clarifying moment in my healing cocoon studio apartment in LA, I took a deep dive into exploring this idea, studying myself and my feelings about it, my desires, visions, etc.. Having conversations about it with multiple older, non-mother women I was serendipitously meeting at the time — did they regret it?? I reflected carefully about what I would be missing out on by not doing it, I reflected carefully about what I would be sacrificing by doing it.. I felt deeply into my soul and asked myself a million tough questions about it. I wrote, I breathed, I reflected… on every angle of it. Even on the very idea of “supposed to”.
Was I supposed to because I felt the true call of my purpose in it? Or was I supposed to because I was conditioned to believe it is my duty as a woman to use my body for reproduction?
Supposed to because that’s where I was taught my value as a woman lies.
For women (in most western cultures anyway), there’s literally nothing that gets celebrated more than the news she is engaged to be married, or that she is “with child”. Again, these things absolutely have their place as far as what is worthy of celebration. Yet, if you are a women who has yet to do these things (especially by a certain age), or a woman who has chosen not to do one or both of these things, what you receive is the furthest thing from celebration. Not only are you under constant scrutiny and judgment, you are also belittled and disregarded in your choices.
If I had a nickel for every time someone said to me, “But you’re so great with children, you’re totally meant to be a mom!” Or, the much more degrading and offensive, “You’ll change your mind when you meet the right man” — well, let me just say I’d have a crap ton of nickels. People close to me, and complete strangers alike have felt no qualms about saying such things to my face many times over, and I have been made to feel like my life is “less than” for not being a mother more times than I can count.
There are few things that make me feel a fire in my belly the way that such statements do. Upon doing the remarkable amount of deep, uncomfortable, inner work and self-reflection to arrive at my choice of not pursuing motherhood, it is utterly disrespectful to brush off my decision and offend my great level of self-knowledge by essentially telling me I’m incapable of making such a choice on my own, and/or that certainly the only reason I could feel the way I do is because I have not yet met the “right man”.
Not only are these statements, or any others like them, entirely inappropriate (as well as completely uninvited & irrelevant opinions), they are absolutely dismissive of any non-child-having women and alllllll the other incredible things they’ve achieved. Generally and collectively speaking, there is no shower or party for the woman who’s launched her own business. There’s no celebration for the woman who’s traveled the world on her own. There’s no ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the the woman who’s birthed a massive creative project. There’s no “congrats” for the conscious choosing to not have children that came from a place of tremendous self-work and inner-knowing. What a sad fact it is that we are not celebrating women for these and the heaps of other things that deserve it.
As I deeply understand it now, “Mother” is an energy.
And this energy can be channeled and expressed in many, many more ways in addition to birthing or raising a human child. Obviously these are also one of the ways, which are powerful and amazing too. Sharing my thoughts today is not at all about debunking that, or competing with that, or making that any less incredible, valuable, or meaningful to a woman’s life. Sharing my thoughts today is about acknowledging the myriad ways that Mother energy flows through human beings. Sharing my thoughts today is about acknowledging that women (even those who are literal mothers) have wombs that are divinely capable of creating and birthing all sorts of significant things into the world.
In looking back over my lifetime, I also realize that I’ve been “mothering” all along — since I was far too young to be doing so in fact. Yet in the last several years as I’ve healed this and come to understand my version of channeling mother energy consciously, I see this expression manifest around me in many beautiful and meaningful ways. It is in the way I show up to my chosen path of aunthood. It is in the way I create and offer my creations to the world with care. It is in the way I lend a hand or supportive ear, and in the way I hold space for others’ dreams and pains. It is in the loving energy I extend to all of you here… and countless other ways too.
Around age 35, my partner (at the time) and I were met with what we all refer to as a “pregnancy scare”. Thankfully it was the one and only time I’ve experienced this in my life, and thankfully it turned out to simply be a randomly late period. However, the emotional turmoil of facing even the possibility of pregnancy was tumultuous and heart-breaking. I ugly-cried and felt sick and scared and anxious in a way I’d never felt before. I’m not sure what choice I would have made had that test read “positive”, thank Spirit I’ll never have to know. Yet, in those most gut-wrenching days, I was at least able to lean into the knowing that I would in fact have choices.
In the U.S., today is Mother’s Day. It’s also a day women are once again being faced with the exhausting fight for the legal right to make choices for our own lives and bodies. Motherhood is a beautiful thing. It is also something I feel should be chosen from a conscious place. A path equally valuable to one of choosing not from a conscious place — or from any other place or reason that is no one’s business but the woman who’s body and life are being impacted.
One of my top personal reasons for not choosing motherhood was choosing aunthood.
I knew if I had my own children who required my attention, I would simply not be as available to aunt-ing in the same way I was and do. I know deeply the purpose I have in this role, and while I am clear I am not these children’s mother, nor do I want to be, I am also clear it is one of the most special places in which the divine Mother energy channeling through me gets to be expressed. I share often how for me the experience is not that I’m an aunt by default because my siblings happen to have children, it is that I have chosen aunthood as my path with children in this life.
And just as I have chosen aunthood, I want all my nieces and nephews to have all the choices available to them as they grow up and learn about themselves too. I want them to know they have choices at all — that life paths and families look kinds of ways, and that whatever they may choose is not only allowed, it is also worthy of great acknowledgment and celebration.
To all the women who have birthed businesses, books, albums, pieces of art, etc… Who've traveled the world and taken the "alternative" route. To all the women who know what it feels like to be pregnant with creativity, or to express Mother energy to children, animals, plants… To all the women who channel this special, compassionate, nurturing energy in all the ways they do — Happy Mother’s Day.
Important Note: There are billions of unique experiences and points of view on the subject of birth, motherhood, pregnancy, choice, etc… All thoughts and opinions expressed here are simply one facet of my personal experience in this arena. This part of human life is deeply personal, and I encourage everyone to do their own individual research, inner exploration, and reverent reflection to arrive at the choice(s) or perspectives that feel true for them. Much Love to everyone in all the experiences.
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(She/Her)
The gal behind Held In The Heart. The Community Journal is a space for those who feel deeply to express freely. We explore all sorts of things here, from the real & raw healing stories & creative writing, to the funny & fleeting moments of everyday human life. I warmly welcome you and invite you to explore with us!