This year on Mother's Day, I found myself feeling miserable. I'm not a mother. I want to be a mother, but I'm not one yet. I'll be thirty this summer, and being childless after seven years of marriage sometimes feels like I've failed in some way.
It doesn't help at all that when a married woman is not yet a mother, people seem to think it's appropriate to remind her of her childless state. They say things like, "I'm sure you'll start having kids of your own soon," or "Maybe next year, you'll be celebrating mother's day," or " Anytime now, it will be your turn." They say these things to childless women on Mother's Day, at other people's baby showers, when talking about someone else's child, or when a new pregnancy has just been announced. They say these things even if they hardly know the person. It's as if they're thinking, "Oh poor woman, she must feel bad that she doesn't have a child; I'll just say something nice to cheer her up."
I know these people must be trying to be nice. I suppose their words are supposed to sound like encouragement or support or empathy. But when I hear those words, they don't lift me up or brighten my day. They piss me off. As a 29 year old woman who's been married for over seven years, when I show up to a baby shower, I am very aware of the fact that people expect me to have started having children already. I am very aware that the expectant mother has something that I don't have. And I am very aware in that moment of my desire and longing for a child of my own. I really don't need someone else to bring this to my attention.
I already know I don't have kids. I already know you think I should have kids. I already know that I want to be a mother. I really don't need you to say any of that out loud to me.
When someone says these things to me, it feels like a put-down, a rejection, a slap in the face. It feels like they look at me and see only a woman who hasn't fulfilled anything in her life yet. It feels like all they're seeing when they look at me is a potential mother.
Actually, I'm a person. Really. Even if I don't have any kids, even if I'm almost 30, even if everyone else around me appears to be popping out babies-- I'm a person, a valuable and interesting and intelligent person who has a life. So please stop telling me about what I'm lacking in my life, and start recognizing who I am and what I do have in life.
"It is not our roles that define us, but the integrity and bravery we bring to those roles."
~Rachel Held Evans
