The Problem
Here’s society’s view on mothers:
Have kids in your teens: you’re too young, too uneducated and definitely irresponsible, and everyone will assume your child was an accident. And if you *did* get pregnant on purpose, then clearly you have deep-seated emotional issues, low self esteem, and no worthy aspirations. Also, you now have no prospects, either. Congrats!
Have kids in your twenties: you’re putting your career on hold and possibly curtailing your adventures in higher education, and as such are probably a brainwashed victim of the patriarchy; plus, shouldn’t you be out having fun and celebrating your youth? There’s plenty of time for kids later!
Have kids in your thirties: you’ve probably just freaked out about your ticking biological clock, despite the fact that you’ve clearly left it too late for safety’s sake. I mean, everyone KNOWS the quality of your eggs declines after 35, and anyway, you’ve just spent all this time building up a career, only to hamstring yourself with kids at the worst possible moment. Essentially, then, you’re selfish with no sense of timing.
Have kids in your forties or later: you’re WAY too old to be doing this and probably irresponsible as a result; at the very least, you won’t have enough energy for parenting, and the rest of the world should pity you accordingly.
Conclusion: Society secretly thinks that, somewhere between their 29th and 30th birthdays, all women experience a Magical Mezzanine Decade wherein they’re expected to find a partner, gain a career, become financially stable, fall pregnant and have 2.5 children without actually ageing either bodily or in fact, so that once it’s over, they can truthfully claim to have lived an appropriately wild and adventurous twenties while simultaneously being set to turn 30 with kids, a career and the perfect work-life balance already in place. Any woman who fails to do this is clearly just being intransigent, having consciously failed to use her Magical Mezzanine Decade to full effect - which, of course, makes her either selfish, stupid or both.
It should be noted, of course, that any woman who claims at any age not to want children is necessarily unnatural, unsympathetic or wrong. To whit:
Not wanting kids in your teens: you’re too young to know what you’re talking about - but don’t worry. You’ll know better once you’re older, sweetheart. Just wait and see.
Not wanting kids in your twenties: you’re an irresponsible feminazi party-girl who’s probably been brainwashed through prolonged exposure to a Liberal Arts education. Either that, or you’re just bitter you can’t keep a boyfriend.
Not wanting kids in your thirties: you’re a cold-hearted, selfish, career-oriented bitch with less human sentiment than a box of paperclips. Also, you’re probably bitter than you never had them earlier (see above, re: Magical Mezzanine Decade).
Not wanting kids in your forties or later: you’re in denial about having left it far too late to try, and are just trying to compensate accordingly. Or you could just be a screaming harpy. Or both.
By contrast, here’s how it works for men:
Having kids at any age: congrats on your fertility! Clearly, your decision to embrace fatherhood, whatever your personal circumstances, is a profound demonstration of your maturity, sensitivity and acceptance of family values. Should you go the extra step of taking paternity leave, doing any traditionally female-oriented babytasks (such as, for instance, all of them) and otherwise acting like a Sensitive New-Age Guy, please present your fatherhood card at Subway, where you will be given All The Cookies as a reward. (Always bearing in mind that adopting a traditionally masculine, pater familias role will be lauded, too. It’s cool, dude: whatever works for you. We’re flexible!) If, on the other hand, you didn’t want to have kids, but the mother forced you into it somehow, please accept all our sympathies! We’ll be right there to back you up with lots of eyerolling about women, ball-and-chain jokes, and low expectations for paternal involvement generally.
Not wanting kids at any age: well, duh. You’re a guy. Why would you?
Which doesn’t even touch on the absolutely explosive bullshit faced by anyone who isn’t cisgendered, straight, financially secure and/or married/engaged, let alone the specifically poisonous and deeply racist stereotypes surrounding POC parents, with special emphasis on single black mothers. Or the related, extraneous clusterfuck of arguments surrounding abortion. Or adoption, for that matter. Or international adoption. Or interracial adoption. Or the foster system. Or pretty much any mechanism whatever through which parenting either occurs or is controlled.
Conclusion: there isn’t enough headdesk, tableflip and facepalm in the world to adequately convey how fucked-up our views on the various intersections between parenting, gender, race, class and sexuality really are, and coincidentally, this is why we can’t have nice things.
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