I am a single woman who is swiftly approaching the last year of my thirties. I am childless, have never been pregnant, and I do not want to be a mother.
This isn’t the way I thought my life would pan out, though. Here are my thoughts on becoming a mother throughout the years:
Childhood/Adolescence
I loved baby dolls and Barbies and taking care of things. I grew up in an evangelical church where it was burned into my brain that I should desire marriage (heterosexual marriage, of course!) and motherhood. For me, it was never a question of if I was going to be a mother. It was when. I imagined marrying a strong Christian man, someone I chastely courted in my early twenties, and having a house full of children. In fact, in fifth grade, we had to write this vision of our future, and my future was being married with four daughters. (I was also a veterinarian in this dream. Somehow I managed to get through vet school and have four babies by the time I was 30.)
I didn’t date much in high school, but I wasn’t worried about what that meant for my future marriage prospects. I was just waiting for my future husband, and he would get to me at the right time. I didn’t need to date a bunch of toads to get to him! I would be content on my own, and I would know when I met him finally.
Young Adulthood
I also didn’t date very much in college. This is also when I started questioning some things about my faith and feeling very disillusioned by youth groups. I never felt like I really fit in, and I struggled to find my people. In college, I worked at a preschool and got a front-and-center look at what it’s like to be surrounded by children. Y’all, children are exhausting. They need constant care and attention. I would end each day feeling utterly worn out. I joked that it was “great birth control,” and it made me start wondering if I really wanted children, or if I just thought I did because it had been ingrained in me.
Still, I thought having my own children would be very different than overseeing a classroom of two-year-olds. And it would be! So I was still on the hunt for my future husband and still very much desired motherhood. Around this time, my brother and his girlfriend (now wife) had their first baby, and he was perfection! I loved him so, so much and knew I wanted one of my own.
Adulthood
As the years passed and I still had yet to find forever love, it started feeling less and less plausible that I would have children. Sure, I could do it on my own if I wanted to, but I never desired motherhood so deeply that I was willing to spend the money, time, and effort to take that path. If I was going to do something as big as having a baby, I wanted to have a partner by my side. And oh yeah, this is also when I began to fully understand my queerness and realized that maybe it wasn’t a future husband I was waiting for, but a future wife.
Present Day
These days, I have no desire for motherhood. I don’t feel like I missed out on something, even though I know if it had happened for me, I would have been a wonderful mother. My path to my child-free existence is different than some people’s because it wasn’t as if I never wanted to become a mother. It’s just something that never happened for me, and I learned to embrace the freedom that comes with this life. I am happy with where I ended up. I am content in knowing that my babies are two little cats who think I’m their entire world. Who knows if I would have even had kids if I had gotten married young? I mean, I probably would have, because it wasn’t something I questioned at all when I was younger, but there could have been many obstacles in my path.
I’m content that this is the way my life turned out, even if it’s not the path fifth-grade Stephany could have ever envisioned for herself.
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