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An essay on motherhood

I wrote my essay on motherhood. Growing up in a Kurdish community, I always thought it is one's DUTY to be a parent when you're old enough. Like most cultures, the Kurds have a patriarchal view on motherhood (read more about this in the essay). From a young age I didn't like the idea of that. Motherhood and fatherhood were never equal in my eyes.
It's as if you need to do a project with someone else, but you end up doing everything yourself. You decide at the beginning of the process to work with someone and think of something , but you do the research, you reach out to people, you interview the people, you execute it and you are the one who puts everything together. When it's time to present the project and get a grade, your partner get the same grade as you, while doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
That's how I saw parenthood. That's how MY parents were, and they were both content that way (I think). I thought that's how my future looked like, but I didn't want that.

Only when I got older, I understood that you don't need to be a parent. Also that different people have different upbringing styles.
Most people choose to be a parent or they become one through certain circumstances. But there are also people who live a child-free life, by choice or, again, certain circumstances.

For a long time I didn't need to think about whether I wanted to be a mother or not. At the beginning I just assumed that I was going to be one in the future, even if I didn't like the idea of motherhood.
After I stepped away from the Kurdish community and my family, and moved to Rotterdam, I decided live life more consciously. Motherhood is one of those things. I started thinking about what motherhood is and all of a sudden, I had all these questions and thoughts.

What is motherhood?

What does motherhood mean to me?

How will my life look like if I decide not to have children?

How will my life look like if I decide to have children?

How will my mom react?

How will my dad react?

How will future friendships look like ?

WILL I BE HAPPY IF I DECIDE NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN?

Motherhood, even parenthood, is WAY BIGGER than people will led you to believe! How is it that people just want children? Do they do some research before deciding to have children? Do they just want it? Is it some kind of instinct? Does everybody want children? Just more questions!
For the longest time I had a healthy coping mechanism concerning this topic, IGNORE.

But then one day came this guy along, who seemed cute and funny. After a while we started dating and now we are in a committed relationship. The thing is, he totally destroyed my coping mechanism! He has made it clear that he wants at least three children. So now I have to figure out if I want that.

Will I be an outcast if I'm child-free?

What kind of financial impact does a child have?

What kind of physical impact does a child have on my body?

What kind of environmental impact does a child have on this world?

I can't buy or have nice things if I have children! Those little rascals will surely ruin it!

This essay was a way to find answers for all the questions I had about motherhood and to see if I want children of my own.
Unsurprisingly, at the beginning of my research I only found blogs about how great motherhood is. But I remembered an article I read a couple of years ago. It was about a book written by an Isreali woman and it was called "Regretting motherhood". So I went to the library to look for that book and after a while I finally found it. I noticed that there was a big section about parenthood, but only a couple of those books were for people who didn't want children. Most of the books were about how to prepare for parenthood, to have patience if you can't get pregnant and other books related to getting children.
Bit by bit I found more information about people who decide to live child-free. Then I found more academic sources about motherhood. After that it got real deep, real fast. The sources talked about the core of motherhood, within a patriarchy.
After that I did a bit research and looked at the news, like Alabama's new abortion law. I had already read the book "A Handsmaid Tale", but I also watched the serie. I started to have a dialogue with colleagues, friends and family.

One thing was certain from all this research, there is this big tabboo surrounding this topic. That's weird.
If people want children, that's fine.
If people don't want children, that should also be fine.

Who are we to decide for other people what makes them happy?

As for me, I still don't know what I want. This essay has made me even more confused about the whole idea of motherhood.
I might decide to live a child-free life. I might also decide to have a child later in life.
Either way, we'll see when we get there.

My only advise is to really think about what kind of life you want to live and think if you see children in that kind of life.