Like It Is

I thought this thought-provoking comment to my post My Husband Doesn’t Want Any More Children and I Do from Anonymous Female was worthy of being an article in itself. So I’ve made it into one. It’s also my way of saying thanks to AF for sharing her story on Like It Is. To those selfish people who feel that trying for a particular sex is a good enough reason to have child, or that your childhood dream of having four kids, your own ego, need for a child or your dream of a cooing baby are good reasons for bringing a child into the world and for insisting that, by the way, to be childfree is the “selfish” option – read on. I would call this story a cautionary tale. As AF says, think before you breed.

“I think that trying for another child just to have one of the opposite sex is really stupid!!! This is my life. Read this carefully before you decide to have more kids based on their male/female sex.”

“My mom had 2 boys already ages 9 and 11 years old when I was born. She had all of us with the same man, also had fertility problems which delayed my coming along when she’d planned to have me 2 years after my middle brother as they were 2 years apart. She actually told my dad that since he had ”raised the 2 boys” that she was ”raising this girl”.

This caused a lot of problems in our family. My mom undermined my father every way she could when I was growing up. My mother would disrespect our father right in front of us, and it was really hard to take his authority seriously when my mom was conveying to us that his opinion didn’t count. It was obvious that my dad didn’t want me. He was present in my life but rarely interacted with me while I was growing up. Most of the time he didn’t play with me or spend much time with me and even when he was home from work he would sit outside in a lawn chair and read by himself.

My mom taught me to be a spoiled girly girl who depended on others for everything. It was my brothers that taught me to defend myself and my street smarts and to not take any crap off of anyone.I didn’t get beyond my mom’s one sided raising of me until I was an adult. She taught me to have body image problems and that looks are more important than anything. Celebrity magazines were her guide for what a woman should be– an object for men to have sex with, and a domestic slave. Mom also believed that men were number one,to be taken care of and waited on hand and foot,and women were only second class citizens, here for men’s pleasure alone. Mom never cared about my education and would let me quit any course in school when it became hard. Mom thought that I didn’t need much education because my only purpose would be to snare a man, produce kids and be a household goddess.

Mom was anorexic when I was growing up and always was on me about my weight.This led to me being depressed and even wanting to kill myself a lot of times. She made me feel unworthy unless I was on a diet. I am obese today because of her negative input. My father was not there emotionally to step in and rescue me from her abuse.I went through years of smoking,drinking and overeating,and popping diet pills,and starving in a vicious cycle of abusing myself.I often have felt that I missed out on my family and being raised with my brothers because of the age gap between us. Nobody ever talks about how selfish it really is to have a child with a big age gap between it and it’s siblings. By the time I came along,my brothers were bordering on teenage years and our family vacations stopped. I only remember one or two summer vacations with the whole family.When my brothers were young, my mom and dad took them all over the country.My mom ended up taking me by herself to travel all over because my dad didn’t even want to go with us. I felt rejected most of my life by my dad because my mother insisted on ”having a girl” and doing what she wanted no matter what he said.

My middle brother often insists that he was ‘’supposed to be a girl” because he saw our mother relentlessly spoil me and give me special privileges that my brothers were not allowed.This has caused tension between my brothers and me,and caused hardship for me after I started working for and earning my own things,also. Every year when I was growing up my mother told my dad right in front of me that she was divorcing him. This turned me into a commitment phobic. My stomach burned daily with the fear that our family would dissolve. My youth was entirely spent under my mother’s strict controlling ways. She had to know everything I did,where I went,who I was with,what I was doing and when I would be home. I remained a virgin until I was almost 20 years old. I never had any fun at all when I was young because of her extreme control. Mom used to beat the crap out of me for not doing exactly what she said. She’d often pull my hair and swear at me and belittle me about my weight and how I look.

My mom said over and over again that she was going through menopause,and would use this as an excuse for her screaming,tears,threatening suicide and violent outbursts toward me.I feel that my dad was absent in my life until I was an adult and that my mom only used me to be made into a perfected version of herself.To live vicariously through me. Every accomplishment I have made in my life was looked upon with extreme jealousy by my mom. She has acted jealous because I chose to be a working woman, not a stay at home slave to a husband and kids. She has acted jealous about my work accomplishments as she never kept a full time steady job for long, and every educational milestone I have achieved as she quit school in 10th grade. I believe that my mom’s lack of accomplishments in her life made her want to have me so she could punish someone about how her own life went.

I chose to be childfree because I know I wouldn’t be a good mother at all. I cannot commit to anyone or anything because of the extreme control I suffered through in my youth. I don’t want anything in my life that I can’t undo.The only thing I can ever commit to is my career because I can always change that. I had my tubes tied four years ago as I don’t want to repeat the cycle of abuse.

To all of you out there who want to keep trying for a girl, please don’t. You don’t need to have kids with big gaps between their ages. You also don’t want to make your kid suffer as you go through menopause. And you don’t want to make your kid feel lonely because they were not really raised with their siblings and don’t know them very well.

Trying for a girl is a mistake. Using your kids to fulfill yourself and your own shortcomings is a mistake too. Having kids with big age gaps between them is not fair to them as is having them so late in life that you are old and have no patience for them when they are still young and full of energy.Think beyond yourself when you decide to bring others into this world. It’s not all about you and your wants and needs.Think about how awful this world will be in the future that your kids will be forced to live in-environmentally,economically and socially.There is too much overcrowding right now, pollution, environmental destruction,disease, poverty, lack of education, competition for jobs & crime to put more people on Earth.

Don’t create a child to stroke your own ego. Think before you breed. Thank you.”

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