#this readslike internalised misogyny to me

[ajokeformur-ray]

I experience a full-bodied shiver of revulsion whenever I get told I have an innate mother in me or a maternal instinct etc. just because I’m a woman. It makes me feel so sick and I completely rejected any kind of idea of motherhood when I was so young. I was eight years old when I decided this and never once have I ever even needed to reconsider it. 

I’ve known who I am for a very long time and over the years people have (thankfully) given up telling me that I’ll change my mind - at this stage, that’s incredibly unlikely and I’m so proud of myself for sticking to my guns. I have no desire at all to resemble a mother in even the vaguest of senses and I have future plans to get sterilised, too.

I’m going to be the aunt which any kids my mother’s other children have see maybe twice a year and they will barely know me. If ever they come to me for advice it is not going to be motherly, it is going to be simply that... advice. I’ll just be that estranged family member who they only see when it’s an important event and that will be by design. I won’t have any interest in getting involved and my mother’s other children are already aware of this.

I know who I am and it isn’t my fault if others don’t, particularly because in real life I have always been very vocal when this topic has come up in family conversations. 

(Edit: I feel the need to clarify that I am not anti-motherhood overall. I truly appreciate and admire anyone who can be a mother or any kind of parent/al figure. I just know that I could never do it and I would never want to do it, either, so in this way I am anti-motherhood for myself.)

#erika talks #this readslike internalised misogyny to me #but it's not #i just genuinely have no desire at all to be a mother #in any kind of way #like ew no thanks i don't want it