Choosing Not to be a Mother

 By Katie Moon

I am currently taking a class right now called “Human Development in the Family Setting.” For our discussion this week we had to read an article titled, “The Women Who Choose Not to be Mothers.” I was asked to explain the reasons why I thought women were choosing not to become mothers, based on the number of these women going up in the last few decades. It is historical that women have been placed in the role as wife and mother since the beginning of time. It is no secret that a woman's worth was primarily founded upon her ability to reproduce. A King would marry and if his Queen could not reproduce or could not produce an heir (male child) he would be onto the next woman who could do so. This instilled the woman's worth in her ability to reproduce at a very early time in our history. Could you imagine if it were somehow placed as the man's burden to reproduce? How would our culture change if it were the man's job to reproduce? Would we still have placed the same level of importance upon it, and made it so that was what defined these men? It was so common though for women, and has been the way of life as we know it until more recently. It is becoming more common, and more accepted that women choose not to become mothers. Not only with the aid of birth control becoming widely accessible, but also due to more women being in the workforce. Women who are married or in a partnership of some kind are now depended upon to help with the income. A woman helping with the income for the household might find it difficult to also raise a child, and so she then decided motherhood is not for her. 


There are many skeptics out there trying to find some more substantial reasoning behind why a woman would not want to be a mother, because it's hard for them to understand it. They then come up with reasons such as, "she hasn't found the right person to raise a child with," or " eventually when she is more settled she will then want to have a child." As our Nation, and as our world grows and develops I think it is much more acceptable for women to not rear children. It doesn't make them any less of a woman because of it. Or does it? 


On the flip side we see working women who get little to no time off for maternity leave. Managers making it appear that their lack of understanding for maternity leave was some sort of punishment for these women becoming pregnant in the first place. In a recent article from the Huffington Post, a woman speaks out about the inner turmoil she experienced when deciding how much maternity leave she wanted. Often though, women are not given an option, and some are not even given their original job back after having had their baby. 


Both of these debates are becoming increasingly more talked about with the amount of women entering the workforce increasing each year. Read through the articles and tell us what you think?  Leave your comments/ opinions!