Lossing my value?

[spaggel]

Or how I really will want to have kids. Once I, you know, get pregnant

This is going to be a personal post about, well, as you can read, me and my utter lack of wanting children and the conversations that take place when this is brought up as well as my take on the whole matter.

And how it seems to be that I'm losing my value by not wanting to procreate and peoples views on my body.


Disclaimer: I do love kids, I have friends with children that I watch and care for. I go to their birthdays. I worked at a daycare. Some of the best conversations I've had are with 4-8 year olds. I have friends trying to have children and it just isn't working and that hurts me to see them so sad.

This isn't about me hating children.

This isn't about me hating women who get pregnant.

This is about my body, my life and not wanting to change it. Not wanting to get pregnant, not wanting kids.

This seems to get to people. A lot. Me? A woman? Not wanting a child? That is just crazy talk, all woman want kids. I mean, that's why I'm here right?

I have known for a very long time kids are not for me. I personally don't want to go through the body changes as well as the life style changes. It's not that I can't, it's that I don't want to. It doesn't appeal to me in any way. So I won't. A very simple concept. People call me selfish. I'm too selfish to not want to procreate and give life. Sure, think that way. Or, think that this is a person who knows what she wants and isn't going to change her life to do something that she is either not prepared for or just doesn't want to do.

A lot of what gets said when people I talk with bring kids into the conversation, they always ask me what I think and the answer always is "I don't kids", can range but really boils down to a few choice comments.

"Just wait, that biological time-clock will kick in."

Yes, because I'm like a leaf in the wind, at the complete mercy of my hormones and age. When I get older I will want children. I just need to wait it out. Really.

This argument isn't the one that gets to me the most, as I group it with all age related comments. I'll get smarter, wiser, dumber, meaner, nicer, uglier, more refined with age. But I'll also it seems, lose my value. Because when they say "that clock is ticking" it's like letting me know that in a few years I will lose the ability to do something that defines who I am, defines my value as a woman. I will seem less desirably simply because I cannot reproduce.

I would like to think that my value as a person is defined by what I can bring to the table in a relationship. Personality. Humor. My range of compassion. 213 books. 2 cats. I don't know, me. But to put reproduction up as something to check off.

+ Has job
+ Washes daily
+ Loves mother
+ can have kids

Shit, I just lost 10 points. And here I thought we had moved past that view along with the one where woman are just there to keep your bed warm, cook you food and raise your kids.

This is not what I consider the worst though, because people do want to be with other people and have kids. I have ended relationships because of this with guess what, no hard feelings because they respect that not only is this my choice, but it's my body.

Which leads into a comment, which to most doesn't seem so bad. Really. Pretty innocent, but it really touches with me on the whole "this is my body" issue.

"It will be different when its your own kid."

For one, this comment gets said to me more times then I can count and I really, really hate it. It's like I have no choice in the matter, that my body is not my own. That when I get pregnant I am going to change my mind. That I will change my views of my whole life.

It does not work like this.

I do everything in my power to prevent outside of just not having sex. All my partners know this and they either respect it or we just don't have sex. Even on birth control, even knowing my partner is clean there is always, always a condom involved during intercourse. Always.

But people seem to think that I don't take these precautions and that I will get pregnant. And will go through with it and learn to love my child and just be so darn happy that it happened. Guess what? If I don't want to have a kid, if the idea of just me being pregnant upsets me, that I have had nightmares while waiting for that morning after pill when a condom broke, how is having a kid going to change all of that?

It's not. It won't change for me because I will not let it. It's my body and I've lived in it for a good amount of time and I know what it likes and dislikes. I know what gets it going and cools it down. I know during certain things make it feel worse, make it sick and I know how to cure that.

Anything you say or you tell me will change that is just pushing your views onto it. I don't need you telling my how my mind or body works. I get that enough from just being a woman. I don't need more people telling me.