Otherhood

What is motherhood, and do I even want it?

I was chatting last week with my neighbour who lives across the road. She told me of her sadness and her bouts of depression. She had a fight with her daughter 8 years ago and hasn’t seen her or her grandchildren since. She asked me,

“Who am I, if I am not a mother or a grandmother?”

My own motherhood journey had led me to the same question. What am I worth if I am not a mother in the traditional sense and what is my role or purpose without it?

It’s 2025 and there are plenty of women out there who have created purpose and fulfilment outside of birthing children. I don’t remember ever being told I should have children in fact I received more of the opposite messaging. Most women I know have been so depleted by their offspring that they warn against it. And still, the need to justify my own life by creating another is so strong within me. Where is this coming from? and do all women feel this as I do?

For some context here, my own attempts at motherhood so far have been treacherous. Four miscarriages, one stillborn son and a couple of near death experiences. 8 years in which bearing children has been my focus. I have lived through the hope, the despair, the grief and the pressure. The toll it has taken on my health and my spirits has been considerable. Less motherhood, more otherhood. Given that my experience has been so fraught, I am well placed to question why someone like myself, with much to live for, finds it so hard to contemplate contentment without a child. What is driving me towards the most difficult and thankless job on the planet?

Yes, biological urges are undoubtedly at play. We are animals, programmed to reproduce ourselves, protect our bloodline and continue the species. I don’t doubt this. But the residual feelings of shame and unworthiness that accompanied every failed pregnancy lead me to believe there are unnatural forces at work – other pressures than our bodily destinies.

What of the roles we are assigned by society? Like university and marriage, having children is one of those things we’re supposed to do. If we don’t tick it off the list, like everyone else we know, we feel we are deficient or faulty. Others wonder why we can’t or won’t. We’re not encouraged to question the path, we are expected to follow it blindly.

After giving up my career due to illness, I know full well the shame that comes with not living up to expectations and of shedding roles that society agrees make me a useful member of the human race. The desire to comply and fill these roles is much deeper than I ever imaged. I only knew how strong the ties were when I tried to sever them. In terms of motherhood, it took me eight years of sorrow and frustration before I finally asked myself whether it was all worth it. I never even questioned whether I would enjoy being a mother if and when it actually happened. Now I have taken the time to examine my true feelings, I am starting to believe that I would be more contented without children. I have surprised myself.

It’s also been hard to shake the feeling that living a life without children is selfish. This beautiful house? just for me. This big garden? Just for my own enjoyment. Choosing to value your own time, pleasure and mental health is an honourable and worthy endeavour and it surely brings equal value to a world full of broken and overwrought families. It’s hard to remember this though, when you don’t see it modelled by anyone around you.

the idea of woman as mother is more pervasive than woman as worker, despite the modern day need to earn as well as procreate. And this is not exactly wrong… motherhood is a powerful and important component of what it means to be a woman. But in our culture of ‘have it all’, choosing one or the other seems like a defeat. We put mothers on a pedestal with the idea that the greatest achievement of all is to give life. And yet, we ask women to bear children in a world totally unsuited to raising them. We ask mothers to give their all and then give them no support. Even more brutally, we give them no respect. How have we managed to make motherhood consecrated and yet woefully undervalued at the same time?

If you’d asked me six months ago, the hope of motherhood was my reason for getting well. I don’t want that to be true anymore. I want my own self to be important enough to get healthy and happy for. It’s not easy to convince myself of this. I’m working on it. It was recently pointed out to me that the feminine aspect of oneself can be expressed in many ways of which bearing children is just one. The creativity in the feminine can be harnessed in art, acts of love, romantic relationships and friendships, nurturing plants, animals and ideas. We are unlimited if we only realise it.

Some of you may look upon me as a sad story. I have much sadness, I have lost children and lost part of my identity too. Whether I do or don’t end up with living children, this journey has the potential to make me rather than break me. I am much more than this one part of woman. I am more than my motherhood.

If you want to learn more about this subject, I found Ruby Warrinton’s ‘Women without kids’ to be informative and empowering. You are not alone!

NB. I wrote an album entitled Otherhood and it may bring you solace or companionship if like me, you have found motherhood to be not as you expected.