Member-only story
Once you have it, you’ll see. You’ll love it.
That’s the fantasy.
The myth that women are “made” to want and have children is probably the hardest one to pulverize.
Possibly because folded up inside of it is the convenient (for the patriarchal types) belief/insistence that we’re natural nurturers. “Maternal.” A word that should be stricken from dictionaries and everyday vocabulary because it is for some reason considered synonymous with “nurturing,” yet there’s no sister-word to describe nurturing males (“paternal” doesn’t work).
The problem with the myth is that people so deeply believe it to be true that they feel justified in pressuring women to have children. Or even forcing them to (see: laws or abusive partners or institutions that compel women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term).
Two things not considered:
- It simply isn’t true that having an unwanted child will automatically turn a woman into a grateful mother.
- Men almost always knowingly contribute to pregnancies, and we tend to assume they’ll learn to deal with fatherhood, no problem. (“She wants a kid, so I guess we’re having a kid. SHRUG!”)
Many stories promote the by-circumstance father trope, leading us to believe the part of the brain that generates strong opinions about…
