Kids? Maybe, Maybe not

an ongoing mental dilemma

I don't remember exactly when I started chanting “I didn't want kids”. I don't even remember when I had solidified the thought in my head. All I remember is that from the moment my brother was born, and I saw all it really took to raise a child, I was out.

It couldn't be me, I'm sorry. I like my sleep.

Now you may say that came from a place of laziness and you'd be right (God forbid a woman prioritizes herself). But over time and unrelated to my brother, I actually started to get better reasons for genuinely not wanting them.

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The earliest I can remember—which is probably the root—was watching kids as old as I was hawking at church.

It didn’t seem fair to my little mind then.

They would be besides their mothers selling sweets in torn and tattered clothing while I was walking to the car in that one dress I couldn’t wait to show off to my friends.

I remember feeling bad. Why raise children in this condition? Why give birth at all if you can't care for their basic needs?

I even felt guilty, for being raised comfortable while these kids were poor.

I promised myself not to have kids I couldn’t cater for.

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Then, I discovered that giving birth wasn’t just a cut your tummy open and sew it back together like you would do with a teddy bear spilling stuffing.

I learnt the baby came out of one of the tiny holes in my body called the vagina.

But if it’s for sex, how does a baby come out? Those have two different diameters. Wasn’t it painful? Cutting and closing seemed easier.

It was explained to me that the cutting open is a surgery—surgeries were BAD in my mental book, most I had heard of then were unsuccessful—and the stomach had multiple layers to get to the baby.

The surgeries were called C-section and some people died off it.

My mother said all her births were natural, but I was thinking, why go through so much pain?

And as young minds do, my brain found a correlation.

Sex=Pregnancy=Pain.

I don’t like pain, therefore maybe no kids?

I pushed the episode out of my mind.

Maybe when I got old enough, I would be able to withstand the pain and give birth.

It shouldn’t be my worry right now.

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I grew older.

I noticed that as cute as kids were, I liked them from afar.

But probably not my kids.

I would love my kids, shenanigans and all.

Maybe there was a certain age where the shenanigans stopped being annoying but endearing. Let’s wait till then.

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Social media happened. I stumbled across a girl who was making a list to not have kids. It looked scary. I wasn’t sure I could.

I didn’t want to.

Like, have y’all seen the girl with the list? And all her 400+ joyful side effects of motherhood?

No?

Oh, well fun fact, pregnancy doesn't just include the morning sickness, random cravings, body swelling, breast pain, breast leaking, discomfort, being unable to see your feet, being unable to walk, contractions, tearing a pencil sized hole to a pineapple sized one, pushing a baby out of a hole with a 10cm diameter, tiredness and the reward of a noisy demanding bundle of joy but it has other probable side effects such as:

Did you know your feotus can pee and poo inside you? No? It is possible.

Besides, I still couldn’t tolerate children’s shenanigans. They tested my patience, my brother especially.

And gentle parenting was all the rave.

But let me tell you the truth yeah, gentle parenting is just a fancy term for patience, and I don't have a lot of it.

I'm a first-born daughter, that well dried out years ago.

I didn’t want to raise a kid that would either end up despising me or claim I gave them trauma.

I was raised by the cane, and I didn’t want to raise my kid that way.

To be afraid of me.

But I wasn’t sure I knew any other way.

I fought demons every day to not beat kids I didn't know that are misbehaving, and the only reason I didn't touch them was because they weren’t mine and their mother was right there. So, I knew I would fight a lot more demons not to whoop my own kid.

Accidentally slap me in a giggle and I'm fighting demons.

Vomit on my new dress, demons.

Vomit anywhere but the toilet, demons.

Pee on anywhere that's not the toilet, demons.

Honestly, I didn't think I could be a mom without sharing trauma like it was a souvenir at their birth.

Besides, I didn’t even believe in love.

So, for the first time in my life, I acknowledged it.

I didn’t want kids. They were enough in the world. If I needed to have, I would just adopt (then I also thought I would never marry)

Most of my close friends knew.

My plan for my future was, become rich enough, open an school for poor children who couldn’t attend, pay the teachers out of my pocket, pay school supplies out of my pocket and make sure every kid had a meal that day.

200 lvl Chineme was a dreamer.

I had the logistics mentally mapped out and everything and told anyone who cared to listen about my future career in philanthropy.

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Then I fell in love. The no marriage part of my plan fell through, and I started envisioning kids with him.

Maybe I could try.

Maybe I wouldn’t be so bad.

I could go to therapy. Heal.

But what if I didn’t.

I discussed with him. I told him the truth. I didn’t want kids.

We decided to put a pin on it. Afterall, we were just eighteen. We didn’t need to know right away.

So, I put a pin in it on our relationship board. Still didn’t end my internal struggle.

Did I or did I not?

If yes, what if I traumatized them? Also the whole pain of pregnancy, plus its probable side effects (and they’re a lot).

If no, what if I get old and feel unfulfilled and regretted not having them?

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I’ve graduated now. The decision is looming in the horizon, and I’m still torn.

I still go about saying I don’t want kids because I have a visceral inner reaction of terror every time my mother casually mentions me bearing her grandkids.

The only reason I actually want them right now, is so I don’t later regret it, and I don’t think that’s the mindset I should be having.

But I have four more years to make a final decision.

Maybe I’ll have more reasons.

We’ll see then.

I applaud all good mothers, current and upcoming but I'm honestly not quite sure I have what it takes.