lazyboner:

sassygaythunderer:

narcomanic:

Anyone else find it strange that when 6-year-old girls play house and declare their desire to have kids of their own, people say, “Aww, that’s so cute,” but when a 20-something-year-old woman, who has researched the facts and considered her own aptitude for motherhood, says she doesn’t want children - then there must be something wrong?

I’ve never really had any sort of maternal instinct towards children. I do not like being around them much… I think I’d prefer to have animals and plants as my children. Just cause they’re not human doesn’t mean I can’t care for them.

Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I’m a mother.

I used to get a lot of emnity at work because I didn’t want to coo at babies when they were brought in. So I thought, oh well, I’ll be polite. Now I get: ‘See, all women like kids’. No. No, I do not. I’m being polite in the way I have to because not cooing at children, whilst expected for men, is taken as a slight from women. None of my male colleagues are even obliged to smile at the child in passing - it’s just not a factor in their work environment - but me? I’m the rude person who’s imposing her hatred of children on others by not acting broody.

Except, I’m not. Honestly, I’ve now come round to thinking that it is just polite to go say ‘Hi’ to a parent who brings a child into work and say how beautiful they are (regardless of whether they are or not). The parent is probably relieved to have some adult contact, and they’ll have put a lot of effort into raising that child, so why the fuck not tell them their child is pretty? And I think that should be true of everyone, not just women. (Unless you really do hate kids.) It’s just polite. But for me, that’s all it is. I don’t hate children. I don’t hate mothers. I just don’t want to be one, and I think it would be inexcusable to subject a child to my problems. It is not a criticism of anyone else for me to say I don’t want them, and my polite interest in someone else’s child is not a confession that I am wrong about my own emotions, which you, of course, know better.