As a woman, at a certain age, not only her parents, but also those around her will urge and advise her to hurry up and have a child, otherwise she will miss out on a meaningful life full of children and will be unhappy without children，"To suggest that someone – who may or may not ever have children – will not experience the depths of real love without procreating is at best ignorant, and at worst deeply insulting. It should also be noted that men are rarely subjected to this – how often is it implied that they don’t understand love because they haven’t had children? It is something often reserved solely for women"(Alexander, 2019). Studies have shown that unmarried women without children are happier, they can spend more time on themselves, concentrate on their careers, travel and drink in the bar. But such women are considered as selfish and immature in the eyes of society. "How this particular fear lodged itself in my brain is both mysterious and self-evident. I was sleeping perhaps two to three hours a night" (Katherine). You'll find that people are happy to explore and wonder why a woman does not want to have children, but we rarely ask a woman who wants children why she wants them. In their opinion, it is inevitable for women to have children.
When people sing about maternal love, they push the average woman to an unattainable level: you are a woman, you are a mother, you should sacrifice everything for your children. Whether it's health, money, or even life, that's what you should do, and if you don't, you deserve the blame. Motherhood itself is great and should be celebrated. The sad thing is that many women spend their whole lives being chained to motherhood and losing themselves." A year before the birth of their first child, about half of the women in our sample were employed full-time"(Killewald and Zhuo, 2019). As A mother, they need to give up my dream. They can't do what they want to do. From a girl to a woman, from a daughter to a mother, in people's traditional thoughts and cognition, this is a process that a woman must go through. No matter how old you are, you must have a child to be perfect for life.
"You're going to be a mother" and "You'll find out when you have a baby" may seem offensive to some women who don't want to have children. Women have the right to choose to have children of their own free will. "Her" life is diverse, and she does not have to choose to have children. Even if she becomes a mother, the mother is only one of her many social identities, and there is no need to overemphasize the importance of the "mother" identity.
Work cite:
https://theconversation.com/data-show-how-american-mothers-balance-work-and-family-110327
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/a28635150/why-we-need-to-stop-pressuring-women-over-30-to-have-children/
https://oc87recoverydiaries.org/parent-with-anxiety/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7NzkvNGv6gIVyrzACh0o1gAeEAAYAiAAEgKYlfD_BwE
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