I absolutely abhor the ideology that in order for you to graduate and step into womanhood unequivocally you must use your uterus and have a child.

I am 34 years old and I made a decision a few years ago to allow my uterus to remain fixed at factory settings. And that is okay. I never thought my ultimate purpose in this lifetime was to have a baby or babies and become someone’s mother.

Sure, there was a time when I considered motherhood, I even dreamed of what it would be like to have a daughter, and what I would want for her, and that is when I began to realize how much damage I could possibly wreak on a child if I decided that I would bring him/her into existence for my own selfish reasons.

There are so many stories of how parents have children as an attempt of having a redo of their life. They try to push them into career trajectories that they themselves were not able to achieve just so they could bask in the glory.

Don’t get me wrong, parents should want the best for their kids but they should allow them the freedom to decide what is best. Instead of having them to live vicariously through them.

What is most unsettling though is how some cultures will treat a motherless woman as less than a woman because she either was unable to conceive due to biology or she made a personal choice not to. We are more than our uterus — deciding to not allow modifications to it via gestation is not a violation against womanhood. It is simply an autonomous choice.

This is not a community uterus. A woman belongs to herself and is not beholden to society’s need to propagate the human species.

Earlier this year, a former friend of mine decided to let me know just how she felt about my decision to not be a mother. The conversation started over my lack of belief in her god which she used as a platform to let me know that because I don’t have god in my life, it has made me bitter and not want kids. She went on to say it seems I hate people for having kids, which is absolutely ludicrous. During this admission and admonishment, she said she was tired of hearing me talk about it.

Well, I’m tired of it being brought up in conversation. If I had a $5 for every time someone asked me “But don’t you want to have kids?” or “When are you going to have kids?” I’d be able to purchase an around the world travel ticket.

The implication is that because your DNA reads XX, you should automatically want to bring new life into the world. That is a harmful narrative because it reduces women to a singularity governed by the utility of their uterus.

For so long women have had to struggle under the weight of patriarchy and in some part matriarchy as well, and the idea of mandatory motherhood is just another struggle that is a leftover sentiment of a time long past.

It is wonderful to embrace motherhood and the lifelong journey it entails but a mother is no more a woman than a woman who either decides to not bear children or is physically unable to.

Our worth as women is wrapped up in who we are as individuals. Our singular abilities as creatives, dreamers, and talented individuals should hold much more weight than our reproductive organs and what we decide to do with them.

When people ask me why I don’t want to have kids I usually laugh and say I’m trying to help the environment or I simply say I want my life to be my own. The truth is I have a list of reasons why I personally don’t want to experience motherhood in this lifetime.

1. I’m still trying to sort through the trauma I experienced as a child and I hope to emerge as a healthy individual once I’ve released it all. I cannot hope to do that while raising another human being.

2. I don’t want to pass on the trauma that has been my burden to shoulder through the generations of women I stem from. While I am quite self-aware and completely in touch with my trauma sometimes subconscious behaviors still seep through the cracks and we end up playing them out in some damaging way on our offspring.

3. I truly want my life to be my own. If that is selfish then yes I am selfish and I think that being that kind of selfish is okay. I want my life to be an endless exploration of self and a one-way adventure where I learn all I can through experiences.

4. I want to chase all of my dreams. It is hard to do that when you are dedicated to pouring all the goodness and then some into the not so carbon copy of you and your partner.

5. I have a very real fear of pregnancy and giving birth. I don’t know if there is a phobia for it but if there is I have it. I’ve always had wicked periods and I can only imagine what pregnancy would be like for me. No thank you.

No one appreciates mothers more than I do, except perhaps their kids, but I do, I am currently witnessing a first-time mother in action and it is a wondrous thing to behold. No doubt about it, mothers are superheroes. I appreciate everything they juggle while still trying to hold onto a semblance of self. I just don’t want to be one of them.

We have to stop making snide comments to women who are and intend to remain childless. It will never make them less of a woman. In a society where going against conventions is almost seen as a criminal offense, it can get quite taxing on those of us willing to go against the grain to follow our hearts' desires.

I am childless. I am a goddess in all of the divine splendor. I am a woman. I am free to choose.