Nobody’s Mommy
I have to be honest. Sometimes, and only sometimes, when I think that I am nobody's mom and never will be, I feel weird. I feel like I am doing something I am not supposed to be doing. For the longest time, I looked at it as rebelling against what was expected from me as a woman and, more importantly, as a Middle Eastern woman. You see, in our beloved culture, getting married and becoming a mom is an undeniable part of women's identity in society. So much so that if you say, "I have chosen not to have kids," people will assume you "can't" have kids and that is how you are consoling yourself. I had an aunt - may she rest in peace - who for the first 6 months after my wedding, would call me and ask: "Are you pregnant yet?" I am not even exaggerating. After 6 months, she started saying things like, "Well, you have to get a grip! The clock is ticking here, child." And I was only 24. She passed away a couple of years after I got married, and I can only imagine how much sorrow she would have felt for me if she could see me now, still childless, 15 years later.
I recently read this post on Substack sharing a somewhat similar experience of choosing not to be a mother. I have seen people throughout my life who do not necessarily consider becoming a mother the epitome of being a woman, for different reasons. But when I moved to North America, I realized how vastly different those "choices" are. When you live in a third-world country, plagued with a dictatorship, with a patriarchal society that does everything to suppress women, and on top of that, people are dealing with inflation, pollution, and lack of resources, how much of a choice do you really have if you think about bringing an innocent human being into this world? No offence towards those who have chosen to do so, of course! But for someone like me with a high level of anxiety and a lot of fight in me against all norms, it seemed impossible. So after reading Emma's post, I was thinking to myself how much I have been forced to make this choice and how much of it was my own doing. Would I have made the same decision if I were born in Vancouver instead of moving to it in my thirties?
Sometimes I think there is a part of me that only wanted to be different from what my family was expecting from me. I had one of my cousins ask me: "If you didn't want children, what was the point of getting married?" Do you see what I had to deal with? I was so baffled that I couldn't even get a response out. I stared at her, and she walked away triumphantly thinking she had made her point. Then my little sister got pregnant, and the plot thickened. First of all, I have to say how I am still in awe of her for being such a great mom to my lovely nephew. She has shown a great amount of perseverance and strength, a kind of superpower that I can imagine becoming a mom creates in people. I specifically remember we were all invited to a wedding, and my sister was 8 months pregnant at the time, a beautiful glowing ball of joy and promise! Everyone was gushing at how pretty she was, asking her when she was due and whether or not she knew the baby's gender. I was sitting at the table, minding my own business, probably eating (duh!), when I saw one of the women from the circle approaching me, and I said to myself, uh-oh, here comes the cavalry! She sat down beside me with tears in her eyes, like she was talking to a patient with a terminal disease, and said: "Don't be upset, my dear! The last thing we want is for you to feel less of a woman or to feel you are excluded. Who knows? Someday, God might answer your prayers as well." Then she tapped my hands and walked away. Honestly, for a moment, I thought I was getting punk'd, and I was looking for a camera group of people to start laughing. I am not going to lie; that was a hard moment. That was the moment I realized I was, in fact, an anomaly. That is how they see me.
On the way home, I asked my husband, "Do you think we will ever regret not having children?" He said no. We have talked about this many times, and we know what we are doing here; do not let them get to you. They did get to me one last time, right before I was moving to Canada. I heard they were collectively happy for me as I might get better medical treatment there and finally have a chance of becoming a mom. That moment was when I let go of any kind of hope that they might ever understand that you can "choose" not to be a mother. It was a lost battle, and I was finally free.
Now that I have somehow settled into this new way of life, I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have a small version of yourself walking around and discovering the world. I remember a mom once told me it's like having a part of you living outside your body; you're constantly worried, and there is not a moment of rest, but it's all worth it! I never realized if all this is something people tell themselves to get through the hardship or whether they actually mean it. I guess I am oblivious to this part of human emotion as they are to mine and my choice of being childless. All I know is that having a child is a lot like falling in love. It's hard, risky, and heartbreaking at times, and people do it all over again just because it's what makes us human after all. I think if we replace "romantic" with "mom" in this famous sentence of Hot Priest in Fleabag, it still makes total sense:
Being a romantic takes a hell of a lot of hope. I think what they mean is, when you find somebody that you love, it feels like hope.
Here's to all you brave moms out there and to us childless crowd who keep cheering you on and here's to women empowering each other for all the choices we make.