Apparently I'm a Sh*t Person....

Society: it doesn’t matter if you haven’t found someone suitable to be the father of your kids. You’re 35, figure out a way to have a baby, even if it’s at the expense of your well-being.

Me: No.

So, I recently posted something on social media that got a very important conversation going. I created a video that outlined the importance of perspective; how two incongruent feelings can exist in the same space at once. That was literally the intention of my video.

A few years ago, when I began my blog site, I wrote and published a piece for Mother’s Day about the hollowness that I sometimes feel when it comes to my biological clock. I yearned for a very long time to be a mother. There was a point when I decided if it hadn’t happened by a certain age, I’d take matters into my own hands and figure it all out myself. This one small part of the many motivating factors behind ensuring a successful and lucrative career. I believed in motherhood more than I believed in marriage and I was preparing myself to do anything it took to get there.

But now I look and look around and there’s so many women coming out of their quiet suffering to share darker sides of this life change. They are talking about things that no one else seems to have been acknowledging, that I hadn’t thought about upon deciding on my future until recently: the anxiety, the depression, exhaustion, body changes, the constant feeling of having someone need something from you, the financial sacrifices, the loss of self that plagues them in this role. Some are even saying that although they love their children, if they could go back, they would probably do things very differently, if they even have the children at all. Many are sad, many feel alone, many feel lost, many just want a good night’s rest for once, but pretty much all… just want a break.

And as for the rest of us non-mothers? Honestly, we are watching our parent-friends/family calming a meltdown in the cereal aisle at Publix in sheer and absolute horror… asking ourselves, “Wait, do I really want that? And why? Is it worth all of the things I will have to sacrifice? All the bad things that come with the good? Do I feel that life will be better or more fulfilling than this one?”

I can’t ask one of those questions without acknowledging the others, and I haven’t come up with a solid answer to any of them yet.

The number of women who are living and experiencing the same lifestyle that I am is truly staggering and I feel seen af. We are doing this life our way, and it is extremely liberating to be able to say, “I lived my life the way I wanted, and did only what I wanted to do.” Because self-care (enforcing boundaries, saying no, saying yes, prioritizing your mental well-being and enjoyment) is sexy as hell.

I love this dialogue because one thing I am really good at is shattering glass ceilings and putting stigmas into the theoretical garbage disposal. What I don’t love is people who cannot have informed, intelligent, and respectful arguments with regard to differing opinions. I’d like to take this time to speak on the certified psycho who left a nasty comment on my aforementioned video:

Paraphrasing, this troll told me I was a self-centered narcissist and then called me a POS person, all because I do not have children at 35. I only acknowledge this fool because this is not the first time I have heard the argument that deciding not to have children makes a person selfish. You know, like, unconceived, non-existent children….I would entertain the perspective if the child was already here. I have never seen someone so upset that I decided not to become impregnated with some other dysfunctional person’s seed. People really think like this!! Make this make sense…

Before you call someone selfish, ask yourself:

What quality of life will an unhappy mother provide a child? Or the possibility of an unstable home? Parents who can’t coexist before the child is even born?

He struck me as an ultra-conservative right wing MAGA man, worried about the rights and life of a baby that doesn’t exist, but not the well-being of a fully present, existing, real-life person. From the same group that would force me to keep my pregnancy (which I would, but that is my choice). Since when would this ideology of forced parenthood a productive option for the development of a functional member of society? So the selfless thing to do is basically opt into being a single mother… only for you to clown me for that too..? Obviously, anything can happen no matter how you began a journey, but that is not how I want to go enter parenthood. And I have that choice to do so, or not do so because society does not dictate that. I do.

I am 35 and childless, but also managed to go 35 years without anchoring myself to destructive and unhealthy people. Where is my award for that? For escaping the statistics? You don’t get to bully me into thinking structure, planning, and careful calculation is wrong.

Some days I want to snuggle a baby. Some days I want to laugh with a toddler. Some days I want to school a teenager. But EVERY day I want to get into bed when I get home from a long day. I love purchasing one plane ticket to my destination, or enjoying an impromptu happy hour or dinner after work to catch up with friends, or listening to 90s r&b on a rooftop while I take shots.

If that makes me a POS, then you can start addressing me as 2 Live Crew.

My mission is not to tell women to stop populating the world. It is to bring awareness to my kind, who do not conform to the standards of society, but disrupt those same standards that are used against us when they don’t work in a way that is practical for us. The same standard that would complain when I ask for government assistance when I need help.

Get TF real.

But wait, don’t yall also believe in having children within the sanctity of marriage? So what if I told you I am also unmarried? So you will clown me for my illegitimate kids also?

I don’t owe this clown an explanation, or anyone else who agrees. You know when things happen to or for me, my pen sets itself ablaze. I also do not need you to pat me on the back and tell me I am worthy. I know this. I’m not charity. I don’t need you to light the guy up like a Christmas tree, though my crew already chewed him up and spit his ass out. I am simply sharing and venting.

The undertone of the “a win is a win” audio that I used in that video is to show that despite ______, I still won. Against all odds, I still won. It might have seemed unlikely, but I won. Even though I might have struggled through it, I still won.

 AND DID.

All I DO is win, actually. No matter what!