Motherhood is not a woman's most important job | Motherhood Unplugged

Brace yourselves this may come as a shock to some of you but believe me when I say that "Motherhood is not a woman's most important job.' I am here pictured above as a new mom of a new born + just turned 2 year old and the state of that closet directly reflects how chaotic my life was at the time. I came to be a mom of two children who were both conceived on the very same day two years apart via love and no contraception :) Just being honest here.

Speaking of honesty, I never actually thought about being a mother until I was well into my 20's because well I didn't grow up in a household that exactly displayed what a loving view of what marriage and having a family looked like. Sorry mom + dad. To the neighbors we might have looked like the perfect family because mom and dad were married with 3 kids and a dog but things were far from peachy in the Carter household. I grew up in the 80's in the South Bronx of New York City. Life was definitely rough for a lot of people back then, there was lots of crime, violence and poverty in my neighborhood and the only saving grace my family had was that my father happened to be gainfully employed, active in the community and we had a SAHM to mind us after school. Looking back on my childhood as an adult, I definitely see why I did not aspire to be a mom when I grew up. I had my eye on getting out of New York City and making a life for myself elsewhere and that is exactly what I did.

Simply telling a woman that motherhood is the most important job she will ever have in life imposes an imperative on that role as a mother. This also negates all of her other accomplishments in life such as college graduation, landing that job as an engineer at the power company , scientist for the Center for Disease Control, bank manager for Wells Fargo, coder for Instagram or even a computer hacker for NASA. When I was in my 20's, I can remember sitting around with my friends at the time talking about babies, boys and well... marriage. I think we all had that ingrained thought in our heads that we had to have kids by 35, you know the magic number they tell you to aim for or else all your eggs will dry up and disappear. It turns out that those same women became a VP of Marketing, Human Resources for Delta Airlines and an Entrepreneur and none of them have been married nor birthed children. Now I don't know if any of them long for either of those things now that we have all crossed the threshold of year 35 but I'm almost certain that they are proud of their careers + accomplishments otherwise.

Sometimes when you meet a woman that has not been married or had children we are shocked and offer a sad state of condolence as if she hasn't lived up to her role as a woman. We think, maybe she struggles with infertility, maybe there is something wrong with her because she hasn't found a suitable husband, maybe she didn't realize that she could have it all (both a career and a family) and selfishly chose to climb the corporate ladder instead of dating for keeps. The thing about that train of thought is that it is full of judgement and often times puts the imposer in a higher social class looking down upon those who have not followed their same path in life. It's wrong and total bullshit. PLUS, we almost never have these same thoughts about men. We expect them to chase their coin aka the bag and frivolously run through women until they are ready to settle down IF they decide to make that choice. Some people think choosing childless lives is a crime of nature. I personally think you should choose what suits you best and don't feel compelled to have children if that is not your hearts desire. I was good with having just one child but we have two and our youngest is the blessing our family needed. However, I definitely do not wish to expand and we made damn sure that wouldn't happen ;) I always loathed the question, "Are you going to try for a girl?" and to that I always thought, "How much $ do have on raising that baby?" lol Kids are expensive, shoot, I'm not just popping out a baby just because grandma wants a granddaughter.

The moral of this post is that we should all be more inclusive + understanding of other's choices in motherhood just as we are with others' sexuality and religion. Don't fall for the trap that our society sets. It begins as soon as the doctor tells the parents that they will be having a girl. Her life of marriage and children is already planned out in their head and sometimes she has to unravel all of those preconceived notions about who she should be just to live more freely. I will never impose a certain lifestyle on my two boys. Sure I'd love for them to grow up seeking adventure, culture and freedom through global excursions but if they choose to settle down with their high-school sweetheart and never leave their hometown I'm OK with that too.

What are you thoughts on this topic? Please feel free to share, I'd love to hear from you.

Happy Travels,

#motherhood