Maybe I should clarify:
I hate the culture of children.
It’s not really children, per se. Granted, I’m not fond of them being around, I don’t want one in my house or very often in my immediate presence, and I especially don’t like it if I have to watch one that can’t even talk coherently let alone understand what I’m saying, but all this is because I have no patience and no strong maternal instincts to speak of.
If I’m out in public somewhere and a child looks at me, I will smile at it. If I see a video or gif of a child doing something adorable, I might coo and share it. I don’t actively go out of my way to upset children or even discuss them with most people.
But I hate with all my being the culture that surrounds the concept of children.
There’s an overwhelming societal expectation of a beuterused person that they must not only have children (usually multiple), but that they must desperately want children, often to the exclusion of all else. It’s tied very much into the notion that everyone is supposed to get married and promptly produce offspring and put themselves neatly into heteronormative traditional gender roles so as to be a good adult and a “productive member of society.” Indeed, the mere presence of breasts and a presumed uterus is indicative that a person’s worth is whether or not they reproduce.
And it’s this idea that infests every conversation about health or future or family. It’s this concept that makes those of us who do not want children (especially biologically) have to constantly brace ourselves for potential arguments when we talk about any of these things.
It’s the reason I had to switch doctors when my first one kept insisting that “the ideal” was for me to “remain a virgin until marriage and then marry a virgin before having children.” It’s the reason people with vaginas require checkups for “reproductive health” to make sure everything is “functioning correctly for reproduction” instead of just to make sure things don’t hurt/aren’t infected/need attention. It’s the reason we see language used like “baby-making” for het sex with no stated reproductive intent, why the term “biological clock” is still exclusively used in regards to reproduction, and why there is an over-emphasis on pregnancy and reproduction language in sex (“baby goo,” “baby batter,” “gonna make a baby in you,” etc.). It’s why there’s still so much debate over who gets a say in pregnancy, why pregnancy is still terrifyingly often referred to as a punishment or as a means to control the beuterused. It’s the reason why family, friends, and even strangers feel completely within their rights to ask you about your reproductive plans, to make you justify all of your life choices to them at a moment’s notice, to question your thoughts and beliefs as if they know you better than you do yourself.
It’s the reason why the questions are so intensive when someone asks for lasting birth control. It’s the reasons why we are told over and over the rate of regret, the success stories of people who changed their minds, the horror stories of those who didn’t. It’s the reason why, when you state that you have a “phobia of pregnancy” in the hope that it will make people stop asking you without making you explain yourself or justify your feelings for the umpteenth time, the only advice you get is, “Well, that needs to be fixed before anything else.”
It’s the reason why “because I don’t want children” isn’t enough. It’s the reason why adoption is never seen as an option because “you’ll want some of your own someday.” It’s the reason why people put such value on “extending the family line” and “continuing the family name.”
It’s the reason I have to say I hate children for people to stop questioning me. It’s the reason I have to monitor my conversations with certain people because they’ll say, “Ah, see, you DO like kids!!” It’s the reason parts of my dysphoria kick in hard when I see the sort of things mentioned above. Because, unless something happens to remove or damage a uterus, it is not only expected, but demanded of you to know why you’re refusing “the most precious gift on Earth,” “your womanly duty,” “the greatest love you’ll ever know,” and so forth.
It’s the reason why “I hate children” is rolled off my tongue more and more until finally people just stop talking.
But I don’t hate children.
I hate the culture of children.
I hate the misogyny that surrounds pregnancy.
Most of all, I hate the people who perpetuate this culture, who deny someone else the right to say they don’t want to be part of it, who threaten to make them part of it.
But, you know, it’s so much easier to just say I hate children.
There is a sentence in this that I felt a burning need to address. It’s “Because, unless something happens to remove or damage a uterus, it is not only expected, but demanded of you to know why you’re refusing “the most precious gift on Earth,” “your womanly duty,” “the greatest love you’ll ever know,” and so forth.” Having a damaged uterus does not make you immune.
I’m not going to go into detail, but certain things happened to me as a child and as a result, my entire uterus is a ball of scar tissue. It only works well enough to make me an invalid for a week every month or so. It will never be a productive uterus, and I have absolutely zero problem with this. It means I no longer need to justify my lack of offspring to people like my mother. However, when it was discovered in my late 20s that I was unable to have kids, I requested a hysterectomy because menstruating is such a painful experience for me. I was actually happy about it, it was the magic excuse that would get everyone off my back about biological clocks and crap. I shit you not, the following is the actual conversation I had with the surgeon.
“So, since none of it works or will ever work, can you take it all out? It would be nice to not have to worry about any of this again.”
“Uhh.. No.”
“Why not?”
“You’re under 30 and don’t have children.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You might want to have children in the future.”
“But even if I did, you just told me I can’t. You JUST said that I can’t even have eggs harvested for a surrogate. Is changing my mind going to magically make it all work?”
“No.”
“So can you take it all out?”
“No. You might want children one day.”
It continued in this fashion for a good 20 minutes before she got angry at me for not wanting to become a mother and left my hospital room.
My uterus is such a mess that it has hospitalized me more than once, it doesn’t work properly at all, and yet I’m not allowed to have it removed because… honestly I’m not even sure how to finish that sentence.
Misogyny doesn’t even begin to describe it. I’ve even had medical professionals who know this story tell me that popping out a sprog would cure my depression. It’s outright idiocy. At this point, for me, whether I want children or not is irrelevant. I physically cannot reproduce, and yet the Culture of Children you talk about is so bad that it forces me to suffer through needless pain that could be easily prevented with a simple, common surgical procedure. Any time I ask for that surgery, I’m met with nonsensical cries of “BUT BABIES”.
Thank you for being vocal about this kind of thing.
And thank you so much for sharing!
This kind of thing fills me with rage, because it just illustrates how our knowledge of ourselves and our own bodies, even when completely backed up by doctors, is still ignored and outright rejected because of this nebulous idea that “Well, you’ll want children one day.” Even when going up against logic and plain fact, the “woman = children” (for the value of women that most medical providers only accept) correlation is so strong they don’t even think of going against it and will actively fight you if you reject it.
GOD, THANK YOU ALL.
I’m eighteen. I am physically healthy, identify as cisgendered female, and I don’t want kids, possibly ever, for a lot of reasons (not least of which is that I literally cannot deal with them unless I’m telling them a fairy tale, like what do you even do with children, no thank you). There are people in my town who joke with my parents, IN FRONT OF ME, about being grandparents. Or who hear me remark on how bad I am with kids and go “oh, well, you’ve clearly got some motherly instincts in there.” (In ‘there?’ In, like, my ovaries, waiting to be dispersed through my body like a brand new hormone? In my breasts? What does this even mean?) And when I call them out on it and say “If and when I ever have children, it’ll be because my partner and I want them, not because you think I should have them, but I genuinely do not want kids,” they pat my shoulders and smile patronizingly and say “that’ll change.”
Here’s the thing. My family? My extended family? Not a fun group of folks. My parents are great, don’t get me wrong, and they did everything they could to protect me. But I hate having people grab me from behind because it reminds me of when my grandfather (dad’s side) used to shake me for touching his figurines, and I hate being pushed against walls because it reminds me of when my grandmother (mom’s side) used to yell at me and make my head bounce off the plaster and poke me so hard she left bruises all over my chest. I’ve picked bad friends all my life because I hear 'mocking’ and associate it with people who should love me. I can’t always do things I enjoy, like writing fantasy, because all I can hear is the voices of my family telling me that I’m nothing, the throw-away grandchild, the kid who can’t pull her head out of the clouds and deal with reality, the girl who will never be good at anything, who will never be anything, because she’s too arrogant, too stupid, too weak. And all of my logical arguments for not having kids–I’m not good with children, I want a medical career, I’m so broke I probably couldn’t afford it–are NOTHING in the face of the fact that I live in absolute fear that my family runs in my blood, and I am completely unwilling to inflict it on a child. I know it’s not logical, but if I was ever to have children, it would be after many years of therapy, and maybe not even then. And hearing people tell me “Well, you’ll want kids someday” makes me want to scream at them about how my blood is fucking poison and I would never, NEVER give it to a child. I don’t trust myself enough now (again, I’m fucking eighteen, why the fuck are you asking me about children before I’m legal to fucking drink) and I might not ever, and that’s allowed.
So yeah. Thank you so much for agreeing that this is a permissible thing. This post made me feel better about myself.