Motherhood Is A Spectrum: Reflect On These Prompts To See Where You Fall On It

In the new book Women Without Kids, writer Ruby Warrington explores why we need to reframe the way we as a society talk about women who choose not to have kids. In this excerpt, Warrington shares a thought exercise to help you uncover where you fall on the "Motherhood Spectrum"—from Affirmative No to Absolute Yes.

How do we begin to shift the needle on the Mommy Binary, instead embracing the concept of the Motherhood Spectrum? First and foremost, we need to be able to speak openly and honestly about who we are as individuals and to share our deepest fears, needs, and desires for our lives. These are conversations we can begin to have with one another. It's often seen as "not polite" to inquire too deeply into a person's reasons for being a woman without kids. But this is yet more pronatalist conditioning, the implication being that a person not being a parent must be the result of a misfortune too tragic to mention. If anything, open, honest conversations about where we orient on the Motherhood Spectrum, and why, can be both validating and illuminating.

For example, around the time one of my best friends and I were both turning 40, as I was finding my confidence with my Affirmative No, she became entangled with what can seem to outsiders like the industrial birthing complex known as IVF. I walked the emotional tightrope with her, watching her go from hopeful and determined to disillusioned, tearful, and spent. Now that she's an ecstatic (if exhausted) mom to bouncing baby twins, I quizzed her about what had compelled her to keep going. I was hoping she'd be able to describe the baby fever that I had never been able to detect in myself—if it were biological, then surely it must be physical? In my imagination, this felt like a raging hunger, but in the heart space. But instead, she told me: "I loved big family holidays when I was a kid, and I wanted to re-create those experiences; I wanted a noisy house full of people because I was afraid of the opposite; I wanted to make my parents happy, and see them as grandparents."

Hearing her describe all this, I realized that her reasons for having kids were not unlike my reasons for not. Except where she craves noise, I need cleansing hours of silence in my days; and where she's excited for family trips to Disneyland, in my favorite childhood memories, I am by myself. As for seeing my parents as grandparents, I had a hard time picturing this (for reasons which will become clear). But there was also something else, which got closer to the mythical baby fever. When we spoke again a year or so later, she shared, "I felt like I had so much love to give that I would have done anything to have a child." And in my case, I realized I had always felt like this about my ideas. It was partly a compulsive need to say what I had to say about the world that had me apply the same dogged determination to my writing career.

Reflecting on this, it seems less like we are wired with a shared biological imperative. Rather, what we are fortunate enough to have in common is being born in an era when it is within our power to pursue the path we know is right for us, even if a woman choosing a life of the mind over family life still means she will sometimes be perceived as heartless and uncaring.

It could be that you're reading this because you're like me; you never wanted kids, and you need to know you did not miss some great big memo in the sky. But perhaps you're still undecided, which in and of itself feels more like a no than a yes. If the opportunity passed you by, perhaps you have found yourself privately grieving your childlessness and unsure of what comes next. And if you're one of those moms who does not naturally revel in motherhood, perhaps you're looking for ways to explain to yourself why this is. Whatever the reason you're here, I believe that a full understanding of where we fall on the Motherhood Spectrum—and why—is key to understanding ourselves as part of an emerging and diverse womankind. Not to prove or to excuse anything, but to make our peace with diverging from a narrative that was written long before we got here. The better to untether our search for meaning and fulfillment from our capacity to procreate and to engage with areas of life that have been ring-fenced by the conventions of motherhood—purpose, family, love, legacy—on our own terms.

When considering our place on the Motherhood Spectrum, let's look to those elements that "make us who we are":

What comes up for you when you feel deeply into these categories? Read through them again. Take your time with each and make lists. Write out the stories and memories that swim through your consciousness as you engage with this self-inquiry. Feel the feelings in your body that accompany these visions, and notice any other voices (your mom's? society's?) that want to make any of what you are noticing about yourself "right" or "wrong."

There is no correct way to feel about any of the above. A combination of nature and nurture, much of it is also beyond our control. There is only the person you are, the life you have lived, the influences you have been exposed to, and the degree of choice you have had access to along the way. Holding this position, ask yourself: What stands out as my nonnegotiables for living a worthwhile, contented, and meaningful life?

The next step is to map what you have uncovered about your nature against what you also know to be true about motherhood. Not the Instagram version—but the raw, daily, down-in-the-trenches stuff of mothering that you have witnessed with your own eyes. What are your recollections of your personal experience of being mothered? What has been your mother's experience of mothering and her mother's? How is it for your friends, your colleagues, and the members of your wider community? Do you see motherhood as a tender refuge from the competitive cut-and-thrust of the world outside the home? Or has a lack of financial and emotional support stretched the mothers in your life to a breaking point? Maybe it's a combination of both.

Given the emotional charge of the word "mother," now see what happens when you strip this away and instead place your nonnegotiables within the context of parenthood. That is, the responsibility for feeding, sheltering, nurturing, and educating small human beings. The psychological, intellectual, moral, and emotional labor of raising well-rounded, secure adults. What version of yourself do you see in this picture? Is she largely content with her lot? Relishing being the mistress of her own universe and its subjects? Or is she harried, resentful, and out of her depth? Maybe, again, it's a combination of all of the above. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers, and none of what comes up makes you a good or a bad person.

Perhaps this exercise will help you feel more confident in your Affirmative No. Or if you always wanted kids and it hasn't happened for you, maybe it will inspire you to prioritize other ways to "mother" and to center children in your life. Remember, the change-making potential of our revolutionary sisterhood begins with each and every one of us owning, embracing, and sharing our diverse experiences of being women without kids.

Ultimately, there's no such thing as the "right" place to orient oneself on the Motherhood Spectrum—only the place that is right for you.

Excerpted from the book Women Without Kids: The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood by Ruby Warrington. Copyright © 2023 Ruby Warrington. Reprinted with kind permission from the author and the publisher, Sounds True.