Saturday morning, a work morning for me, and my hormones are raging once again. I thought I had made peace with them months ago, but these past couple of weeks they have fired up with a vengeance.
Is it biology or a true desire for a child that is this fire inside of me? Sometimes, I am not sure.
I fall asleep imagining a baby lying beside me on the bed and wake up to the envisioned sounds of small feet padding along the floor of the hall outside my room.
Is it so important to have a child? In this country, it seems to be. But I am under no allusions that this is the most important or only path a woman can follow in her life. I also know that progeny brings with it challenges of its own, as well as self-sacrifice. Could I be an artist and a mother? My research and music partner has assured me that something happens to a woman when she becomes a mother that causes everything else to become a lower priority. So much of my life I have made other people and their happiness a priority over mine. I am not sure I want to follow that path once more, at least not yet.
One of my challenges in my own life has been the desire to do everything I dream of. I went to Africa, twice; I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro after hearing stories from my father who had climbed it 26 years earlier; I learned a second language, French; I lived abroad; I moved to Alaska; I became a writer and songwriter.
Is it enough to bring songs into this world? In this day and age, I know that the earth does not need me to bring another child into it.
There are two paths before me, and I feel the burden of having to choose only one.
life of m 
I feel ya. I don’t have any urge to have a child. But I do feel the pressures of society that WANT me to (or tell me that I should) have a child. When I tell people I don’t want kids, I always hear the strangest reactions. I’m thankful that woman actually have the choice today, unlike the generations of women before us when having children was an assumed role for most. Still, it is such a heavy decision!!
Thanks for reaching out, Sarah! I completely agree that there is such cultural pressure to procreate. Everywhere I look, there are pregnant women, women with babies, and parents with kids. Sometimes, it can be kind of maddening. I get confused about whether I want a child or my hormones are telling me that I want a child or that I am bending to cultural pressure. Ah!! Here’s to having choices 🙂
Music is a loving child!
Awww…you are the sweetest, Julie, and you are very wise 🙂
Here comes the voice of oh god no, “a jewish motha.” Don’t think so much. Seriously, don’t think so much. I had twins and I raised them alone. Everyone loves babies so I let them all babysit. The were my priority most of the time, but not all the time. No regrets. None none none. They are grown ups now and I have nice kid friends. And don’t assume you only have two choices. I don’t know what that means, but it probably means something.