Posted 14th February 2013 210

In life, choices have to be made sometimes. You very rarely get to have your cake and eat it too, right?
Consider this:

Having cake = getting married to someone who respects you, is lifelong-companion material and (icing on the cake) is attracted and attractive to you

Eating cake too = being a mother

With each passing day, considering the situations of my highly-educated, ambitious, career-oriented former classmates of a prestigious all-girls school, I become more and more convinced that ‘eating the cake’ is a better option than having the cake - at least you get to taste it, right?

I am finding it increasingly difficult to justify holding out hope for a theoretical ‘other half’ who may or may not show up, and yet somehow holds the keys to my ability to reproduce in a society-approved fashion (ie, within a marriage), even though, in the actual situation they do not exist RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW. I do not understand why I am being asked about the impact that my adopting children as a single woman instead of ‘waiting for The One’ will have on The One himself, as there is the possibility might exist that he might not want to care for offspring that aren’t his.

How is it logical to take into account the feelings and wishes of a theoretical person when they don’t currently exist and therefore can’t contribute any meaningful input to the conversation?

Why should I prioritise the needs and wishes of this as-yet-non-existent person? Why should they have a say in WHEN I procreate? For that matter, why should society?

Perhaps I just live in the wrong society. Are there any places where being a single mother by choice is celebrated rather than merely tolerated? Not talking about being 16 and pregnant here, talking about being a 31 year old, university-educated trilingual architect who just wants to get on with being a mother and KNOWS that if it came down to regrets at the end of life, I would regret not being a mother much much more than not being a wife.

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