Thanks PCOS! Love, Happily Barren

When I found out I had PCOS I eagerly jumped online to search for information and support to help me deal with this complex condition. As an avid blogger and blog reader I was looking forward to finding some PCOS related blogs to learn about other women’s experiences and share in their journey with the disease. Although I did find many blogs like this, I have to admit I found myself unable to relate to many of them.

Most PCOS blogs seem to be (understandably) dedicated to infertility and pregnancy, so it was refreshing to read Linda’s post on PCOS Today about her decision not to have children. She seems to be an exception to the rule though. While I can sympathize with women who have infertility problems due to PCOS, I understand it’s deeply frustrating and heartbreaking, but I can’t really empathize all that much. For the simple reason being if PCOS has made me infertile I would be GLAD!

I have no interest in having children. Nor do I have any interest in reading about that aspect of someone’s PCOS journey. That’s not to say I don’t applaud the women who do embark on that journey and blog about it, it’s just that it’s so far outside my realm of interests I think it would be disingenuous of me to follow those blogs and comment with faked enthusiasm.

I don’t want children and never have, not once, not even for a millisecond. Now that I am 30, this fact can no longer be dismissed by those around me as some sort of youthful phase or deluded feminist rhetoric. I am serious. I don’t want to have kids and I would like to be able to make that statement without qualification or justification.

But alas..

A woman who does not want to have children is viewed with skepticism and scorn because society assumes that the desire to have children is inherently “natural” to women, and therefore any woman without this desire is abnormal and going against her nature. This is why people always patronize me with “you might change your mind one day”. One day? I’m 30, the days for “one day” are running out. Their response, I reason, is said in order to reassure me, or more likely themselves, that nature will kick in sooner or later and I’ll revert back to what nature intended and want a baby.

It’s not that I don’t have any affection for babies and children, I just don’t want to raise one. It’s an unfortunate curiosity that this fact is such a difficult concept for people to grasp. Folks barely blink an eye if a man does not want to have children, because the desire to breed is not considered to be as inherent to men as it is to women.

Is it too much to ask to have my decision accepted and respected as a legitimate and valid choice?

Apparently.

One mother I know bluntly told me there was something wrong with me because I do not want to have a child. So let me get this straight – there is something wrong with not wanting a child, but nothing wrong with wanting and having children, bitching relentlessly about how horrible it is to have children, and then telling women who do not want children that something is wrong with them?

Confused? I am. There’s a whole lot of hypocrisy going on here it seems, and perhaps some insecurity about how women define themselves as women. For many women it seems, the bulk of what makes up this definition is motherhood. And while there is nothing wrong with that, there is something wrong with assuming that this definition applies to all women. So when a woman like me comes along who shuns motherhood, which implies there is another way to be “a woman”, this challenges those who view motherhood as essential to womanhood. Perhaps it unsettles those women who took the traditional path without a second thought because it demonstrates that motherhood is not inevitable, that there are other options, perhaps options they failed to consider.

But I digress. Rather than acknowledge the self assuredness and self determination of a woman who decides not to have children, she is viewed as less of a woman, she is selfish and “childless”. I resent being labeled selfish and ‘childless’. Calling me childless implies I am without something. Nothing is missing (well maybe there is, but it sure aint a child). The correct term is child free thank you very much (check out this cool childfree blog too).

If PCOS has made me infertile, frankly, that is one thing I can thank it for.