you write so beautifully and i am super glad women are now seeing that there are multiple pathways to life and no one is wrong in and of itself as long as you find joy in it. I still do not know if i want to be a mother because I am still weighing if i want to bring any one into this cruel world. Thank you for your musings.
This article needs to be seen by every woman. To know that we hold the power and we can live a life that we choose is pure bliss. More of us need to choose the life we actually want to live instead of settling for a life that tells us how we should live it.
I will be 29 at the end of this month and I’m realized that I’m not in a rush to be married or be a mother. I want to honor my youth, my freedom, my free will and live life. And when the time is right, and I cross those thresholds I pray that I am prepared for those roles and still have the desire for them. I think about all the women who wish they could’ve lived life a little longer before settling down and becoming moms really young back then.
You keep hiding behind the word “choice” like it’s a magical shield that makes everything neutral. It’s not. You’re not offering a menu; you’re serving poison with a side of virtue signaling. Every time you say “it’s okay to be selfish,” “it’s okay to prioritize yourself,” “motherhood is just one option,” you’re not expanding freedom; you’re tilting the scale so hard that any woman who picks family feels like a gullible relic who didn’t get the memo.
You claim you’re not demonizing marriage or motherhood, yet your entire piece drips with pity for the women “juggling multiple children at the airport,” “shrinking themselves,” “swallowing their feelings.” That’s not balance; that’s emotional blackmail dressed up as honesty. You paint the default picture of wife-and-mother as exhaustion, sacrifice, and quiet desperation, then act shocked when young women run screaming in the other direction. Of course they do. You just spent fifteen paragraphs telling them it’s a trap.
And the slickest trick of all? You slip in that little disclaimer: “If you genuinely desire it, that’s fine too!” Translation: sure, some women can still choose the hard path… but only the ones who are either too traditional to know better or masochistic enough to enjoy suffering. The enlightened ones, the smart ones, the ones who’ve really thought it through; they all choose “something else.” That’s not choice. That’s a rigged game where one option is constantly framed as the dumb, outdated, patriarchal loser pick.
You love celebrating women who “travel the world in their 40s, child-free” or “hire help and do it differently.” Cute. But let’s be real: those women are statistical unicorns propped up by money, nannies, or sheer luck. For every Instagram post of a glowing 42-year-old sipping wine in Santorini, there are a hundred regular women staring at an empty apartment on a Tuesday night wondering why “prioritizing herself” feels exactly like being invisible. You never show those women. You crop them out of the narrative because they ruin the fantasy.
You say past generations assumed we’d choose “something bigger.” Damn right they did. They assumed we’d be grateful enough to keep the species going instead of turning fertility into a personal branding decision. But sure, keep telling twenty-somethings that having kids is just “one valid path” among many, right up until the moment they wake up at 38 with a frozen egg receipt and a panic attack. Then suddenly the “choice” conversation gets very quiet.
So no, this isn’t about choice. This is about you laundering your own fear of commitment and sacrifice into a faux-feminist manifesto so you can feel righteous while dodging the hardest, most meaningful work a woman can do. You’re not empowering anyone. You’re just the new gatekeeper, shaming women who pick the path you’re too scared to walk and calling it liberation.
Enjoy your “options.” Just don’t pretend the game isn’t rigged when the scoreboard shows a birth rate in freefall and a loneliness epidemic through the roof. That’s not freedom. That’s the sound of a civilization quietly committing suicide while everyone claps for “choice.”
This is beautiful. I think though, that there is inherent suffering to how we are socialized as women, and what we are presented with. But we can choose differently, and break away from that rigid mold and that is a very very beautiful thing.
I absolutely love this piece; the self-sacrifice mentality is ingrained in our minds as women. Make everyone else happy and just maybe you might have a slice of that joy for yourself. It’s been a hard path to undo the self-sacrifice mentality, but now I choose myself, in everything and I put my happiness above all.
you write so beautifully and i am super glad women are now seeing that there are multiple pathways to life and no one is wrong in and of itself as long as you find joy in it. I still do not know if i want to be a mother because I am still weighing if i want to bring any one into this cruel world. Thank you for your musings.
This article needs to be seen by every woman. To know that we hold the power and we can live a life that we choose is pure bliss. More of us need to choose the life we actually want to live instead of settling for a life that tells us how we should live it.
i’ve been thinking about this so much lately, it’s like you literally plucked thoughts from my brain that i didn’t know how to voice just yet !
I will be 29 at the end of this month and I’m realized that I’m not in a rush to be married or be a mother. I want to honor my youth, my freedom, my free will and live life. And when the time is right, and I cross those thresholds I pray that I am prepared for those roles and still have the desire for them. I think about all the women who wish they could’ve lived life a little longer before settling down and becoming moms really young back then.
You keep hiding behind the word “choice” like it’s a magical shield that makes everything neutral. It’s not. You’re not offering a menu; you’re serving poison with a side of virtue signaling. Every time you say “it’s okay to be selfish,” “it’s okay to prioritize yourself,” “motherhood is just one option,” you’re not expanding freedom; you’re tilting the scale so hard that any woman who picks family feels like a gullible relic who didn’t get the memo.
You claim you’re not demonizing marriage or motherhood, yet your entire piece drips with pity for the women “juggling multiple children at the airport,” “shrinking themselves,” “swallowing their feelings.” That’s not balance; that’s emotional blackmail dressed up as honesty. You paint the default picture of wife-and-mother as exhaustion, sacrifice, and quiet desperation, then act shocked when young women run screaming in the other direction. Of course they do. You just spent fifteen paragraphs telling them it’s a trap.
And the slickest trick of all? You slip in that little disclaimer: “If you genuinely desire it, that’s fine too!” Translation: sure, some women can still choose the hard path… but only the ones who are either too traditional to know better or masochistic enough to enjoy suffering. The enlightened ones, the smart ones, the ones who’ve really thought it through; they all choose “something else.” That’s not choice. That’s a rigged game where one option is constantly framed as the dumb, outdated, patriarchal loser pick.
You love celebrating women who “travel the world in their 40s, child-free” or “hire help and do it differently.” Cute. But let’s be real: those women are statistical unicorns propped up by money, nannies, or sheer luck. For every Instagram post of a glowing 42-year-old sipping wine in Santorini, there are a hundred regular women staring at an empty apartment on a Tuesday night wondering why “prioritizing herself” feels exactly like being invisible. You never show those women. You crop them out of the narrative because they ruin the fantasy.
You say past generations assumed we’d choose “something bigger.” Damn right they did. They assumed we’d be grateful enough to keep the species going instead of turning fertility into a personal branding decision. But sure, keep telling twenty-somethings that having kids is just “one valid path” among many, right up until the moment they wake up at 38 with a frozen egg receipt and a panic attack. Then suddenly the “choice” conversation gets very quiet.
So no, this isn’t about choice. This is about you laundering your own fear of commitment and sacrifice into a faux-feminist manifesto so you can feel righteous while dodging the hardest, most meaningful work a woman can do. You’re not empowering anyone. You’re just the new gatekeeper, shaming women who pick the path you’re too scared to walk and calling it liberation.
Enjoy your “options.” Just don’t pretend the game isn’t rigged when the scoreboard shows a birth rate in freefall and a loneliness epidemic through the roof. That’s not freedom. That’s the sound of a civilization quietly committing suicide while everyone claps for “choice.”
Woof.
Beautifully written Janice. A good question to ask yourself when deciding is not “do I want children” but rather “do I want to be a mother”.
This is beautiful. I think though, that there is inherent suffering to how we are socialized as women, and what we are presented with. But we can choose differently, and break away from that rigid mold and that is a very very beautiful thing.
I absolutely love this piece; the self-sacrifice mentality is ingrained in our minds as women. Make everyone else happy and just maybe you might have a slice of that joy for yourself. It’s been a hard path to undo the self-sacrifice mentality, but now I choose myself, in everything and I put my happiness above all.
So very well written. We shouldn't have to suffer. We should be able to choose what sirt of life we want 🥰