I’m Not Ready For Motherhood, but Why Can’t I Get It Off My Mind?

Ever since my 30th birthday this summer, I’ve noticed a recent uptick in motherhood-related content on my social media feeds. Some of it informative, some anxiety-inducing. From Reddit’s r/regretful parents, to trad wives promoting “traditional” values, to pro-natalists urging everyone to have as many children as possible, it seems like I can’t scroll more than five minutes without being bombarded by baby talk. It’s almost as if the algorithm caught wind of my age and decided it’s time for me to, at the very least, start thinking about babies.

I’ve never wanted kids. I spent the majority of my 20s happily untethered, experiencing life on my own terms. I assumed I’d always live my life this way – free from the responsibilities and stressors that I personally never felt ready to take on. Yet I feel something has shifted.

Is it the fact that I’m in a committed relationship? Or the societal pressure that looms larger and larger as a woman enters her 30s? Maybe I’m just being influenced by the algorithms. Whatever it is, Charli XCX’s “I think about it all the time,” one of the more subdued and introspective tracks off her “Brat” album, has been on repeat as I consider the pros and cons of motherhood. In it, the 32-year-old singer contemplates her purpose and future with her fiancé, George Daniel: “Should I stop my birth control? / ‘Cause my career feels so small / In the existential scheme of it all.”

I get it, brat summer is over. But I can’t shake the feelings “I think about it all the time” has stirred in me over the last few months. It captures my own emotional ambivalence – how you can be so sure of who you are and what you want, and yet you still find yourself questioning it.

There’s no denying we are in the midst of a major cultural shift. The number of women opting out of motherhood is steadily rising, whether due to economic constraints (let’s be real, raising a child is wildly expensive), political and environmental factors, like the climate crisis, or an inability to find an emotionally present partner who is willing to share the physical and mental load of childrearing.

This phenomenon isn’t limited to the United States: fertility rates have been on the decline in industrialized countries since the 1960s. Some European countries, like Hungary and Norway, have created incentives like extra vacation days, subsidized loans, and fully paid parental leave to encourage young women to have children, but none of these programs have actually changed their minds. It seems as though many women worldwide genuinely want to remain child-free.

I’ve always aligned myself with this camp, but then I scroll through TikTok and find out women only five years older than me are considered to be of “advanced maternal age.” It’s almost laughable to think of a 35-year-old as being of advanced age, especially when there are so many women who have had their first babies at 40 and older (Chloë Sevigny, Olivia Munn, and Eva Mendes all come to mind). But then I think of the real complications that come with having children later in life, or the possibility of not being able to conceive at all. What might I miss out on if I change my mind too late, when my biological clock has ticked for too long?

My boyfriend and I have friends who recently became parents within a month of each other. When they talk about their new lives, it’s easy to understand why someone would want to have children: the sense of pride and accomplishment that comes with giving a child the tools they need to be successful adults, the endless potential for discovery and joy, the idea of creating a new life out of love for another person. I think about what it would be like to, in Charli’s words, “know these things that I don’t” when I see our friends with their children.

I don’t think motherhood would give me “new purpose,” as Charli hypothesizes, but I like to think it would bring a certain depth to the work I already do. I’ll be honest, I catch myself fantasizing more times that I’d like to admit about a life upstate with a child playing with Montessori-friendly toys while dinner simmers away in the kitchen while I write.

Of course, there is no shortage of reminders of the realities of motherhood online – the risks that come with giving birth, the sleepless nights, the postpartum depression, the unequal division of housework and childcare, the loss of identity. There’s the discussion of the motherhood penalty, or, as one TikTok creator explains, “the price women pay when they choose to have children and remain in the workforce,” whether that’s earning less or being passed up for promotions.

The rise of candid mom content speaks to a generation of women who were sold the domestic dream only to realize it wasn’t what they wanted – and to a generation of women who have the ability to reevaluate their priorities and redefine what fulfillment looks like.

The question of motherhood still lingers in my mind in a way it didn’t before, wedged into my consciousness by my age, societal expectations, by the internet, by my own evolving desires. Whether I want kids or not remains unclear, but what I do know is that for the first time in my life, I’m giving myself the space to truly consider motherhood and to think about what it means for me.

So yes, Charli, I also think about it all the time. But I’m going to continue taking my birth control for now.

Related: I Love Being Child-Free, but Who Will Take Care of Me When I’m Older?

Ashliene McMenamy is a freelance writer, essayist, and cultural commentator from New York City. She received her MFA in creative writing from The New School. She is interested in beauty, pop culture, and how social media trends intersect with everyday life. Her work has also appeared in Teen Vogue.