“Children? I wouldn’t start with them. If I could do my life over again, I would handle things completely differently. No, I wouldn’t let myself be convinced by a man anymore,” my mother says when I tell her about my lack of desire for children.
The story of my mother
She continues with a story about how times have changed. Doubt? There was no room for that over thirty years ago. In the Catholic south, it was simply assumed that you would announce your first pregnancy a few months after marriage. My parents were a bit contrary in that regard. I didn’t come into the world nine months later but rather nine years later. My younger sister followed four years later.
I never felt unwanted
“Your father wanted children. So I just went along with it,” she says in a tone that might sound like regret to others. I don’t have a problem with it. As a child and even now – almost thirty years later – I have never felt unwanted. My four years younger sister and I have never lacked anything, and my parents – despite the distance – are still always there for me.
Her opinion influences me
But now, as I think more about it because of MaybeMum, I realize that her comments have contributed to my opinion about having children. If every piece of news about a pregnancy is met with ‘Children? I wouldn’t start with them,’ then that’s very different from the stories of jubilant mothers who can’t wait for the moment they become grandmothers.
My English is not very good, so I’m translating this with the help of Google Translate and ChatGPT.