Thoughts of a Teenage Girl

Motherhood

5/12/2019

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers, future mothers, and maternal influences! You are so important to all our lives.

I have what seems like a kind of unusual, or at least unpopular, opinion on motherhood for this day and age. As I've mentioned before, I do very well in school, even after missing weeks on end sometimes, and I've always been told that I'll "do great things" one day. But I don't have aspirations to be a doctor and cure cancer, or be an astronaut and go to Mars or a lawyer or CEO or even be president.

No, more than anything in this world, I want to be a mom.

Oh, you say, honey, but that's such a waste of your talents and abilities, you could do so many great things, do something useful in your life, then have children. You can do that later, live your life first.

Why?? Why is it so frowned upon to want to have children and be a mother?? Why do I have to be more? I get it, some people don't want kids and that's totally fine with me, you do you, I'll never tell someone that they should be "ashamed of themselves" and want to be a mom, that's none of my business. Just like it's none of your business to tell me what I should do with my life.

Family has been such an important part of my life. I have a huge extended family, 61 cousins total. I grew up with 5 siblings and I can't even begin to imagine being an only child. Nothing against that, it just seems so bizarre to me. And the way I grew up is exactly how I want to live my life with my future family.

In 8th grade English, we had a project where we had to write an essay about an "ism": industrialism, transcendentalism, feminism, abolitionism, and romanticism. I chose feminism, but I didn't write about women's right to vote or equal pay or sexual discrimination, or whatever else (tho I do think those are very important topics) No, I wrote about women's right to be a mom, basically what I'm writing about right now. That right now in the world we live in, there is so much women's empowerment and women in high places of power and fighting for equality for women, and that is so great. But in all this enthusiasm, we've forgotten that not every girl wants to be president or CEO or a firefighter or a marine or be the foremost expert in microbiochemical physics. No, some girls want to be mothers, yet we're shaming them for that. In a culture of women's empowerment in following their biggest dreams, we're making girls feel ashamed of what they really want in their lives. We tell them, no, that's not what you want, you want to do more, you want to be more. That's not how it should be, I think that's exactly the opposite of what the feminist movement is about. Women's empowerment should be about supporting women and girls in whatever it is they want to do. Some women want to be independent and be a leader in the world and make changes, and that's great, more power to them. But we must remember that not every girl wants that. And that is OK.

Don't get me wrong, I'm going to go to college, I'm gonna study Socio-Cultural Anthropology (at least that's the plan right now) and I'll get a job somewhere. But that's not what I want out of my life and it will never be more important than my family. If it comes to it, which it probably will, I would love nothing more than to be a stay-at-home mom and be there as my kids grow up. I want to be the kind of mom who all the kids know and love, that all of my kids' friends view me as a 2nd mom and know that I'm a safe place and be an influence that way. I just... I don't even know how to express it.

This is my dream, so please respect that. I know that there are so many people who view motherhood as a nuisance to their career, or something to be postponed or just lower in priority and I have nothing against that, I am in no way saying that that way of thinking is wrong. I will completely respect your opinions if you will respect mine. I think that's what our world is missing. We don't live in black and white, there isn't one single, best way to live your life that everyone should follow. We all have different lives and different paths and we need to respect that others' paths and views will be different from our own but that doesn't mean that either way is wrong.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Let me know what you think. Do you have/want kids? Or do you want something different out of your life?

Love ya always,

Ara{H}