On Choice, Parenting, and my Mom

Last week, I went on a short trip to Nebraska to visit my grandmother.  My mom came along.  We ended up sleeping in the same room, and so, like school girls, we spent a lot of that time discussing different issues.

I love talking with my mom.  I truly appreciate the fact that I can discuss my political views with her, even though she may see them as a little too left for her taste.  I savor the time we can spend discussing reproductive rights, racism, domestic violence, privilege, heteronormativity, and choice.  It gives me a chance to practice my discourse on these topics, without fear of sounding like a complete fool.  But it also leads to a lot of learning for me.  Hearing my mom’s perspective on these issues gives me a lot to think about.  Sometimes it gives me a perspective that I never imagined people would feel, so I can then spend some time figuring out how I would respond to that particular view point.

So last week, we got on the discussion of having kids.  I’m childless at this point, by choice, and my husband and I have had a lot of talks about the possibility of never having kids.  I have several reasons for this, all of which I outlined to my mom: 1) I’m terrified of hospitals, being pregnant, and childbirth; 2) I know I would not be a good parent to a disabled or otherwise difficult child – neither my husband or I have the patience for that kind of thing; 3) There are so many thin lines one must navigate as a parent (When do I allow her to wear makeup?  Should I allow him to play with violent toys?  Do I homeschool or send to public?)  and a potential mistep with these decisions might lead to disaster later on;  4) Money; 5) Lack of freedom; 6) We’re not very good at being responsible for ourselves right now, let alone for another, very fragile, human being.  These are very real concerns for me right now.  My mom pointed out that I was making issues out of things that probably would never be problems for us.  She tells me that my husband and I would be excellent parents and I agree.

Then she says that she thinks today’s generation thinks too much about decisions.  I know I’m guilty of that, myself, though I don’t know if this is a generational thing.  But finally, she says to me that for her, having children was never really a choice.  She tells me that she was on birth control, a doctor found some scarred uterine tissue and told them that they would probably have trouble conceiving.  She went off BC right away and conceived me a month later.  But while BC was being used, and my parents made the decision to go off of it very early into their marriage, there never was a question of not having children.  My mom expected, from a very early age, that she would get married, have kids, and stay at home.  This was what was expect of her, and she never considered any other options.  Now, my mom is not old.  My parents were married in 1979, but I think it is interesting that even after the supposed feminist revolution, someone like my mom didn’t ever really have a choice.  Or at least, she perceived that she didn’t have a choice.

On my end, approaching 30, I am very grateful that I have these choices.  I can be on BC, or not, stay home or work, even live on my own should I ever want to.  But I wonder if the multitude of choices that I now have limits my ability to ever make a choice.  Since there are so many choices available, how do I know which choice to make?  It seems that life would be so much easier had I never thought about the choice to have children or not – if we had an accident in our early married life and now I had a small family to take care of, rather than just me and my hubby.  I want the choice to be made for me sometimes.  But then I consider the opposite.  What if I didn’t have the opportunity to make the choice?  I’m sure I would feel very different about it.  What if I were forced to have children and stay at home?  That’s a very different prospect, one that I’m happy to say I don’t have to confront.  But still, choice makes things complicated, and sometimes (just sometimes), I wish the choices were already made for me. 

Do other young feminists feel this same way?  Or is this not a generational issue, but a difference between feminists and non-feminists?