My relationship with motherhood has always been complicated and uncertain. I’ve had every opinion from “I’m never going to have kids” (ages 20 to 26) to “If I’m still single when I’m 35, I’m gonna hit up a sperm bank and do this independent-woman style” (ages 26 to 30).
When I was 30, I made the decision to go back to school part-time (when you’re a mature student with an established career, taking out student loans to do a BA in creative writing feels unjustifiable). My five-year plan included a large chunk of my degree under my belt, maybe a published piece or two… my five-year plan did not include babies. It wasn’t even a conscious decision—kids simply weren’t on my radar.
And, in all fairness, thanks to the societal and financial struggles of my generation, it wasn’t really on a lot of my friends’ radars either. My womb was not exactly housing tumbleweeds in a sea of loin fruits. We simply couldn’t afford it; we had careers and dreams and, thanks to medical advances, weren’t feeling the crunch like our parents’ generation—we were in our early 30s, so we had time… right?
Fast-forward three years and, with my 34th birthday looming in the not-so-distant future, I’m starting to feel my logic wane: because women in my age bracket are starting to pop gremlins out of their uteruses with more regularity (I still have a panicked “Are we happy about this?” moment when they announce it), because despite medical advancements, my biological clock is ticking (even if my emotional one is still dormant).
But I have so much I still want to do with my life before I even entertain the idea of children—I want to publish a novel; I want to travel to Europe; I want to finish my useless degree.
A few of my close girlfriends know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they do not want children—they’re the women who want to get their tubes tied and vent about how their doctors refuse to do it because “they might change their minds” even though we all know they won’t. There are a few desperate to procreate—women who have dropped multiple crotch goblins, or have spent thousands of dollars in an attempt to create a life. And I have mad respect for both camps.
But what about us floaters—the women who feel the pressure of biology and society to decide what we want but simply aren’t ready; the ones who secretly fear we may never be ready; the ones who go from a resounding “Nope!” after witnessing a child having a full-on Kanye-style tantrum in the middle of a grocery store to an ovary-quivering “I want one” when we hold a friend’s baby and the tiny creature falls asleep on our shoulder?
We are here, and we are on the fucking fence, terrified that we’re going to make the wrong decision or that by the time we finally know what we want, it might be too late.