Personal Perspective: Many women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s are currently asking themselves if they should have kids. But the answer is more complex than they think.
Many women are currently asking for an answer to this complicated question: “Do I start a family?” This dilemma is rife, indicated by conversations on, in chat rooms, and in friend groups. It shows that women are thinking seriously about whether they want to be mothers and what motherhood may mean for them.
These women know that the decision to have a child is not simple; it's a loaded and life-altering choice. It is no longer aas it was in the days of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers before contraception.and history. I have always wanted to be a mom, and having children has been essential to my being. I fought secondaryDespite this profound desire to be a mother, I have been faced with many challenges. Mothering has often brought me to the edge. There have been times when I have been unhinged with worry, despair, and torment. Equally, being a mother has been the most significant gift of my life, and it's at the forefront of how I have lived. While I regard myself as fortunate for never having a shred of doubt that I wanted to be a mother, I also deeply appreciate that this path is not for everyone. I think many 20-, 30-, and 40-something women live with doubts daily and know intuitively how hard it is to sign up for mothering. This takes me to a conversation that I had with an intelligent young woman—an influencer with thousands of followers—late last year. While I had supposed that she was familiar with my work on maternal ambivalence, it seems I was mistaken. During our exchange, it became evident that the idea of maternal ambivalence—an acceptance that there are multiple, often contradictory feelings attached to mothering and that the troubling ones hold value and meaning—was foreign to her. She kept steering the conversation toward her own uncertainty about having children and finding the answer to the binary question, “Will I regret the decision to have children?”—a topic that had also registered with her from other women. I thought about what the notion of maternal regret means. It is a feeling of sorrow and loss for things in the past, which, for this young woman, felt very alive in her present and future. I imagined it may include feelings of entrapment, of suffocation, a loss of freedom, and a questioning of her. Perhaps even a barrier to joy. There was deep concern about how she would manage these feelings of regret if she decided to have a child.wouldn't she have regrets? I wondered how she could marry these potential feelings of regret with the reality of mothering. My response was not to give her an answer. How could I presume that I knew what was right for her? However, what I could give her was something to think about from my work on maternal ambivalence; I could offer something that wasn't fixed to the binary. I encouraged a change in her thought pattern. A release from thinking in terms ofThe reality is that humans can hold more than one truth at a time. Rigid one-dimensional thinking neglects the reality that tension between opposing feelings is unavoidable and human. For her, whatever decision she would make would be marked with continual struggle and regret at times. So the question is, could she hold both?regret the life she once lived. The freedom. Being able to get up and go when she wanted without thinking of a child’s needs. This may mean a loss of agency. She would be making unimaginable sacrifices every day. Having a child is a decision that is irreversible. The decision to forgo having a child also holds regrets. The depth of mothering is profound; the intensity of maternal moments of love is indescribable. This was not the response she was looking for. She wanted a definitive answer. She wanted some sort of guarantee, a certainty that she could survive her regrets. She almost wanted me to say yes or no, then fight me on it. What We Talk About When We Talk About LoveThere was a problem adding your email address. Please try again.The Friend EffectSelf Tests are all about you. Are you outgoing or introverted? Are you a narcissist? Does perfectionism hold you back? Find out the answers to these questions and more with Psychology Today.
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