My 30th Year Series #3: Parallel Lives

To mother or not to mother? And I don’t mean in the serving c*nt way.

Welcome to my second essay in my new 30th year series. Every month, I’ll be dropping an essay on my journey out of my twenties and into my thirties. This will be a free newsletter, each month, but any support is greatly appreciated - as it helps me do this (gestures to the Substack universe). I’m offering 10% off my annual subscription plan at the moment, grab it while it lasts.

I’ve been stuck on an idea lately, stuck on two versions of myself I could become in the near future. I’ve been grieving the lives I’m choosing not to live, saying goodbye to them slowly, painfully. At the crux of this splintering is the question: To mother or not to mother? And no, not in the serving c*nt way.

From the age of thirteen to twenty-six, I thought I knew the answer — a solid, resolute no. Then, suddenly and unoriginally, something shifted. My no turned to a maybe, then to a yes. Now, I find myself thinking about motherhood as something approaching, inevitable. Not yet, but in a few years. My partner and I talk about it sometimes, and whenever I babysit a friend’s child or see a toddler in a padded suit, I feel the want to be a mother in my bones. At 30, I know I could practically be a mother; I’m in a stable relationship, we live in a stable environment, and I feel ‘grown-up’ enough. My career as a writer is less stable, and so, like for most of us, money remains a question mark. How do people actually afford to have children in this crumbling society?

A recent PCOS diagnosis has brought these thoughts to the forefront of my mind in a way I haven’t fully processed yet. The parallel lives in front of me are splitting away, faster than before.

Part of me feels almost embarrassed to admit that I do want to be a parent. My friends were shocked — a lot of them had known me as the one person in our group set on no. Some claimed they’d always known I’d ‘change my mind’, a statement I find jarring but not offensive. My family have been saying the same thing since I was a teenager. I understand the impulse. We’re told that women are born to be mothers, that it is our natural duty, and that if we reject it, biology has bigger plans for us.

Looking back, my reasons for not wanting children were misjudged. I didn’t trust myself to be the kind of parent I’d want to be, and a lot of that stemmed from self-doubt and insecurity. I felt resigned to repeating certain familial patterns, as if I had no autonomy over my own path.

I was cynical, convinced I’d never meet someone I trusted enough to embark on parenthood with. Until I did. Love shifted my perception of my future.

If I’m really honest, and this is hard to admit, I used to see parenting as a cop-out. I know that’s deeply wrong and unfair, but when I was younger, I was obsessed with a vision of my life that was career-focused, glamorous, solitary. I mistook hyper-independence for fulfilment. I misread parenting as something people did when they had no other direction, because I simply didn’t have the wanting so many women around me described. At times, I believed my commitment to work and motherhood couldn’t coexist.

In fairness to myself, the ideals of family that society sells to pregnant people have never appealed to me. I don’t want a heteronormative life, I don’t want to parent in a binary way, I don’t want motherhood to be my only identity. I don’t want to sacrifice every other part of myself for it. The messaging around motherhood is deeply patriarchal, and breaking free from it is hard — but not impossible. If I do become a mother, I intend to do so in a way that consciously rejects traditional expectations.

As public conversations around parenthood shift, from abortion rights being limited to surrogacy debates, the terrain feels increasingly difficult to navigate, both internally and externally. Pregnant people seem to have both more and fewer choices than ever before. This contradiction is unsettling.

Another factor that pushed me away from parenthood was the sense of entitlement many people have towards it. Often, people have children to fill a void, to create ‘unconditional love’. But no love is without conditions. We’re told this lie, and we believe it. I saw, very young, what that lie could do, and I wanted no part of it. What I didn’t realise was that there are other ways to approach parenthood.

So, at 30, I’m standing on a cliff edge. Acutely aware that, especially with a PCOS diagnosis, my biological clock is ticking. I can see both futures clearly, one with children, one without. Both would be happy. Both would be full, in different ways. Both terrifying, both exciting. I’ll be honest, BBC’s Motherland has been my main companion through these feelings.

Let me know in the comments if you relate to any of this - it’s a bit of a vulnerable one! xx