Today is Mother's Day in South Africa and other parts of the world.

I, myself, have chosen the childfree option. Not a perfect term but one that is growing in society’s vocabulary.

My choice means that my personal narrative is not reflected back to me in the Hallmark cards or popular cultural narrative.

The first time I had sex, I used 3 different types of contraception. Perhaps part of me was grateful for all the options available to me that weren’t available to millennia of women before me. 

There’s that calculation that someone sat down and did about how many people had to exist for you to be here. That may be true, but let’s not romanticise it too much. Many, many, many of those people had no other option than to be mothers. 

I believe it was during my final year of high school, in English class, that we were required to do an oral. I attended an all girls school and wanted to speak about something relevant to my audience. I chose to speak about the history of contraception and how the oral contraceptive pill works.

My brother was studying pharmacy and provided me with the pharmacological info and the physiological impacts. I included little known factoids like it can result in additional ear wax being produced.

My English teacher stood at the back of the class. Taking questions afterwards was an interesting experience.

In my early twenties, I saw a t-shirt that had a pop art cartoon character on it. She had her head in her hands and the thought bubble said. “OMG! I forgot to have children!” 

This delighted me. To me, it was an acknowledgement that there’s so much to do and be in the world and this t-shirt encapsulated those options for me.

Later in my twenties, a friend’s mother, who had four children, told me that each child was the result of a different contraceptive method that failed her. She loved her children but felt she didn’t have the choice of a different life option for herself.

My maternal grandmother was a midwife and had 10 children. My mother loved telling the story of how she was being wheeled into the delivery room and told her doctor that her mother thought she wasn’t ready to give birth. 

The doctor asked, “and how many children does your mother have?”  When my mother told him 10, the doctor started removing his gloves and sent her home with the comment “your mother has more experience than I’ll ever have!” Turned out my grandmother was right.

My mother felt that being a mother was the most important thing any woman could do. I feel differently.

There are many reasons why I chose not to have children. I will not share them here. Not for any other reason than I expect you to respect my decision. I will not participate in justifying it so that it may, or may not, make it a more digestible decision for you.

It frustrates me how people will insensitively barge into asking women why they don’t have children. When I witness this happening I wish my family and friends (who have walked a path with infertility) would just let the asker stew in their blunder. Instead, they often rescue them by providing more information like: I have many children in my life.

And infertility is just one of many obstacles and complexities that may be encountered in deciding whether children are an option or a possibility.

Just as I am more concerned about your capacity to love, rather than who you choose to love, I am more interested in your ability to respect and accept my choice than I am in fulfilling your need to know why. 

My choice is in no way a reflection of your choice. If you’ve chosen to have children, I respect that. I hope your choice makes you happy. I’m happy with mine.

We all come from mothers. Good, bad, beautiful, ugly, flawed mothers. Let’s be cognisant of the fact that not everyone’s experience, relationship and feelings are the same about their mothers or motherhood.

Just as there are many journeys to motherhood - biological birth, adoption, surrogacy, fostering, IVF and probably a host I’ve forgotten - there are many paths away from motherhood too.

On my more militant days, I want to wear a t-shirt that declares “MY choice to be childfree means I’m leaving a better world for YOUR children!”

I’m not for a moment suggesting that women shouldn’t share their struggles or ease with which they’ve journeyed to motherhood or away from it. I just think it should be their choice to share, or not.

If you have the perfect mother and the perfect relationship with her then, seriously, write a book because people need to know that. Again, I’m not suggesting that there aren’t wonderful mothers out there or that people don’t love them. I’m merely surmising that most of us have imperfect mothers and imperfect relationships with them. 

Of late it’s been difficult to believe, but in theory, we evolve. Part of this means that our mothers lived in a time, space and society that we can’t fully understand and was probably very different to our own lived experiences. 

Amongst other things, this can cause a generational disconnect. Just as we may not be able to fully grasp the life our mother lived, she may not be able to fully understand our perspective.

And as we ourselves age and, hopefully, evolve our perspective, relationship and judgement of our mothers may shift as well.

Many of us have chips, broken bits, from less than ideal familial circumstances. We may carry wounds because our parents are/were flawed and maybe didn’t have the emotional capacity that we needed and desired. Our inner child may cower when we encounter circumstances that mirror our trauma. 

Some of the most important personal work I have done is mothering my inner child. Whenever I experience an emotional tantrum or pain I welcome her onto my lap in a soft hug and let her let it all out. What does she need right now? How are we going to meet her needs now, and in the future? How are we going to make her feel safe, loved, valued and whole?

I reparent myself. I remother myself. I give to my inner child what she couldn’t get then. I often remember the wise words of Maya Angelou and I do better because I now know better. I now know how to parent myself. I have the tools. I have the capacity. 

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”

― Maya Angelou

I have options, knowledge and skills that weren’t available to my mother. I chose to use them.

My husband and I have an IT business. A few years ago I started referring to myself and my age as Cathleen version 4.6 or now 5.2. Fifth decade, second year. 

Learning, growing, changing, not just ageing, upgrades my software - my operating system. But, no matter what version I’m on, my inner child is always going to be the core software or legacy code, that all the other versions are based on. If she’s not okay the software cannot be stable, cannot function optimally.

It doesn’t matter if I have the most tricked out hardware. If my operating system is sluggish, full of bugs and viruses I don't perform well. 

In a way, my sharing on this blog is an act of sharing my code, making it open source. 

Taking care of that internal little girl is my most important job. When she’s taken care I am more whole, less broken.

The broader concept of motherhood and the mothering archetype, to me, is about comfort, support, safety, nurturing, growth, learning, loving, sustenance, sustaining. We all have the potential to develop these qualities in ourselves. And when we do we become more loving individuals - to ourselves and others.

Whatever the state of your relationship is with your mother or your children, I hope that you have united the mother and inner child within you. The world, your world, my world will be a better place for it.

If what I share adds some benefit to your life or touches you please hit a like button, subscribe, share or comment.