I grew up with one older brother and three younger ones. There’s quite a difference in age between us. There are fifteen, nine and eight year’s age difference between myself and my three younger brothers.
No one asked me, nor was it expected of me, that I take on the role as ‘a second mother’ to my younger brothers, but that’s exactly what I did. I would take responsibility for them and how they felt. I used a lot of mental energy worrying about them, and also being there for them and doing things with them. At times I would even yell at them and put them into place and really acted out the ‘mothering-role’ as a teenager.
Back then I thought I was doing the right thing through being ‘good’. In retrospect I see that I did it to ease my own pain from not being met by my own parents. I did everything I could at the time to try to prevent my brothers from feeling the way I felt – not met, seen or loved.
I was always praised for being such a wonderful sister, and people would comment on how I one day would be an equally wonderful mother. I connected beautifully to other kids, my friends’ kids as well as with kids I didn’t know. And the same comments kept coming – what a wonderful mother I would one day become.
I was never posed the question whether I wanted to become a mother or not; the comments were laced with predetermination, like a fact. Like I had no choice in the matter, but rather – “You are placed on this Earth to become a mother, Nathalie. Deal with it.”
As much as I love and adore kids, I really didn’t question ‘the pressure’ I felt from myself and others and smiled at all the comments and politely said ‘thank you’. Through many years I bought various garments, books, toys and little things that I would have for my future children. I even knew in my mind what I would name them. It didn’t cross my mind, not in a million years, that I would not have my own children one day.
Boyfriends came and went, but starting a family never seemed right – it wasn’t the right time, nor the right financial or living situation, and not the right boyfriend.
The years quickly went by and my friends around me started to get established with houses, children and pets. They had their first, second and some had a third child. Through the years I went in and out of being desperate to get established and have my own children, but I never took the last, necessary step – stop and commit. I was too busy studying and travelling and being with the wrong guys. Ironically it was when I met someone who I could see as the father of my children, that I made the big decision – to not have any of my own!
I was totally confused. I thought “Who will I be if I am not a mother? Who will I be and what will I do with myself? Isn’t that a ‘mission’ all women have? Everyone is expecting me to become a mother. What will I say? What will people think? Am I a failure as a woman?” The thoughts went on and on…
I was caught in much doubt, confusion, self-loathing, shame and embarrassment – all at the same time.
That was until a new awareness awakened within me, in 2011, at the age of 36.
For the first time in my life, EVER, did I realize that I had a choice. I actually had a choice to become a mother or not. It was a true revelation happening inside of me, as I had never ever seen it as a choice before.
I had held onto the belief that becoming a mother was as ‘natural’ as the fact that I had a left arm. It was such a strong, profound and cemented belief in me, which I had never questioned. When I realized that I had a choice, it was a huge relief for me and a lot of tears were shed.
When I actually made the decision to not have any children of my own it was like a weight of a hundred kilos dropped off from my shoulders. Only then did I realize what process I had been through.
It’s quite ridiculous to now look at how oblivious I was in regards to my own body and my own life, and to what extent I had taken on a belief from outside of myself. I was blind to it, but the choice belonged to me all along.
I came to realize that I am a woman first and foremost, and to become a mother is a choice for each and every one to make on their own.
I feel complete and whole as a woman and not the least less amazing for not having children. I share the whole of me with all the children I meet on my path.
I was once asked what makes me joyful – my immediate answer was and still is children, of all ages, but that doesn’t mean I need my own.
I am beyond thrilled to have a 2 year old, adorable lovely nephew, from my oldest brother and I cherish spending time with him, every second and with the wonderful children of my many lovely friends.
I am forever grateful to Miranda and Serge Benhayon who supported me during the time I felt most confused and lost. They put things in perspective for me and it allowed me a deeper understanding of the way that I needed. I am forever inspired by their work through Universal Medicine, and it’s many students and practitioners.
I have never looked back. Living my life as the woman I am, choosing not to be a mother, feels joyful and complete.
By Nathalie Sterk, Oslo, Norway
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Women in Livingness Blog 
Girls are raised in our society to be conditioned to be mothers, and yet this is not what may feel true to many women, and so they are left to feel like there is something wrong with them. As women we have so many roles and so many beautiful things we can bring to the fore, so when a conditioning is imposed upon someone, there is little space to bring the truth that one is here to deliver and reflect. Remove the impositions and the woman blossoms, children or no children as it has nothing to do with birth.
What is different about your sharing Nathalie is that there is no trying to convince nor any justification in your writing…there is a true and deep and joyful acceptance of your role as a woman and that you know deep within that it is not the physical birthing of a child that makes a woman a mother, but that the true supporting mothering energy is something that one can express regardless of having given birth or not. This is an acceptance and a knowing in the body that deeply holds and reflects all other women too.
Nathalie, what an absolutely gorgeous sharing and one that all women need to read – for so many of us do not realise that we do actually have a choice and that it is OK to not have children yet love children.
Can be difficult to stay strong against societal norms, to claim the fact that as a woman you don’t want to have any children. Even writing this comment i paused for a split second before typing “don’t want to have any children”, because my socially constructed mind tells me that it is not okay to not want to have children, what will my life be like if I don’t? Are we willing to settle for any relationship just so we an fulful the role as a wife and a mother? Is it possible that many of our relationships are actually based on this pressure rather than the true purpose of being with another person? How screwed up is our way of thinking if this is our guiding impulse..
Feeling yourself to be a woman is beautiful. We do not own our children so all children are the responsibility of all of us to nurture to know who they are.
Had I not had the role models I have now from Universal Medicine and Esoteric Womens Health since I was 21 I’d be comparing myself now (i’m 29) to many friends who have chosen to have children. It feels great to grow up throughout these years knowing that I don’t HAVE to have children it is optional if I choose to.
This is lovely to read, and yes, children do bring us so much joy, they have a natural joy, ‘I was once asked what makes me joyful – my immediate answer was and still is children, of all ages, but that doesn’t mean I need my own.’
When we make choices that are true for us, we liberate ourselves from the pictures we’ve created for ourselves or have adopted from society about how life should feel or look – and everyone benefits as a result.
Choosing not to be a mother because you are choosing to be you and to make your own choices. Very powerful and inspiring. Thank you so much for sharing this incredible journey.
A great awareness that you came to, ideals and beliefs can be so strong and it then feels like we have no choice, ‘It’s quite ridiculous to now look at how oblivious I was in regards to my own body and my own life, and to what extent I had taken on a belief from outside of myself. I was blind to it, but the choice belonged to me all along.’
This is such an honoring choice and reflects how we can be a mother to those who are not our blood – it is all in the relationships we have. I had someone come for dinner the other day – she is not a mother but she spoke to my toddler in the same way I did – constantly reinforcing responsibility – and in that moment, she was a mother – and it was beautiful to watch my toddler respond to her and feel the consistency that can be presented from people around her, without any need for there to be titles or certain relationships in order to present this.
It feels so imposing to bring our young girls up with pictures of how their life will unfold and include in that an assumption that this will automatically include becoming a mother at some point. Your blog is a great counterpoint to the pictures that so many are fed about fulfilment coming from having your own children when this is absolutely not necessary or for some true for them this lifetime.
To realise we have a choice whether we want to become a mother or not shows the ideals and beliefs that are carried by the world in general and imposed onto children from an early age
“I was once asked what makes me joyful – my immediate answer was and still is children, of all ages, but that doesn’t mean I need my own.” This is beyond amazing Nathalie, as so many women have the ideal pictures of what it means to be around children, which entails giving birth oneself. As you have shown you can enjoy children but don’t need to be a biological mother. We can all have mothering energy for all the children we meet.
” what a wonderful mother I would one day become. ”
Its important to note that one does not physically need to be a father or mother to be involved in parenting children, its the responsibility of all adults.
I sometimes see little girls acting in the ‘mother role’ with their younger siblings and wonder if they are mimicking the way they see their mother parent the boys. It seems likely to me or that they have picked up on societal cues, as the words they use, or the sighs of frustration seem out of place in a young girl. There is no joy in their interactions, just the weight of responsibility and trying to be seen to be good/helpful.
Yes, taking on that mother role is very familiar to me! I did it with my two beautiful brothers, and then repeated it by doing the same in my own family. My children are older now, they don’t need me to mother them. My role is to offer them a reflection of love, care, commitment, responsibility, accountability to self and therefore to all others.
So beautifully shared Lucy, the reflections that we can offer are powerful indeed and often the best way we can be with others to support them and also learn from them equally so.
“I feel complete and whole as a woman and not the least less amazing for not having children. I share the whole of me with all the children I meet on my path.” A beautiful understanding of sharing your mothering energy with all.
This is such a great sharing and so needed to be exposed the insidious pressure to have children and if you do you have to have st least two! I can feel the joy you have in being true to you, super inspiring.
‘I feel complete and whole as a woman and not the least less amazing for not having children. I share the whole of me with all the children I meet on my path.’ This is beautiful to read Nathalie, you are an inspiration to women everywhere as you have chosen to not live from ideals or beliefs. What a powerful reflection you offer other women of how to live and express in the world as a true and loving woman.
The choice to become a mother or not is as you say a non-choice for most of us. The indoctrination that motherhood is how a woman gets her sense of worth for herself and from society starts very young. I see we need to start valuing our girls for their qualities rather than a role they can play, so they can actively make the choice about motherhood free from societal expectation.
Judging by others questions I am already at the age (28 currently) where people are asking me if I am married or I have or when will (rarely ‘if’ but ‘when’) I have children. I feel the support of Esoteric Women’s Health and Universal Medicine has supported me to head into my 30’s knowing that I am far more than a potential mother or wife or career woman. These roles do not make me into a woman nor am I less without them.
To no longer feel the pressure of having children is immensely freeing and I can understand the pressure you were carrying around with you Natalie. There is still a strong belief in our society that women should have children and make them fit into their lives without stopping to feel if this is really true for them for this life. I know I made the choice not to have children and I have never regretted it. I love to be with children but for me this life is about supporting myself to build a strong foundation to know who I am as a woman, without all the ideals and beliefs that we are bombarded with every day.
Breaking away from the expectation that as a woman you should bear children is immensely freeing and immensely empowering, it should be the choice of every woman to decide what is important for them in this life and not be confined by the ideals and expectations of those around her. Once you know what is true for you, it’s enormously settling.
I can relate to this and am still finding my way with this, I too always thought that I wanted kids but was never in the right situation for it. Then when I did have a partner who would make an amazing father I got to feel how having children didn’t quite fit in with my life. I am still finding my way and learning to let go of any pictures that I had of wanting children.
A choice of personal truth always gladdens the heart.
That’s awesome Nathalie. I feel very blessed to read these types of articles that support women to know they have a choice. I currently have no intentions of having a baby or getting married, and if I feel a pressure then great! I get to expose any beliefs I’ve picked up that tell me I should. Because when I feel something is true for me there is no pressure. And to be given the permission to follow what is true for me, from ladies who have done so for themselves is inspiring. Thank you.
I agree Leigh, what a gift these blogs are and I love reading the truth you clearly know and live in your body that comes out so strongly in your comment.
It is beautiful to come to a place where you are free to let go of the impositions we are subjected to as woman and embody what is true for us and then express that truth as a powerful and claimed reflection for other women to feel that there is another way than what is expected.
Gorgeous sharing Nathalie, it is great to disperse of all the images and pictures of how we think we need be and get on with being who we truly are. There are enough children in the world for us all to enjoy.
When we as women are basically defined by our ability to give birth we are being reduced, as motherhood is far greater than physicality, as well as there is much more in the ‘being a woman’ than motherhood.
If we have to do a lot of mothering when we are young there may then not be an impulse to be a mother later on. That seems sensible and it is great that you saw you have a choice, Nathalie.
My sisters have not had children and there are even Ideals and beliefs about not having nieces and nephews the pressure on women to have children is immense from all quarters. I love this sharing Nathalie it is so important to expose the binds of social pressure and rather let us all be ourselves and make our choices freely because they are true for us.
Very beautiful to read Nathalie. There are so so many ideals and believes in the world about what women should, do, be and look like and it is so freeing to realise this.. how we do have a choice and that there is no right or wrong, just what is true for ourselves.
Isn’t it interesting how we take on a picture of how we think we should be in life without questining if it is right or not for us. What a freedom you clearly felt making the decision for yourself – congratulations.
So inspiring that you made the true choice for you and let go of the pictures and expectations of yourself and others.
It seems such a simple thing and some may dismiss this decision as no big deal but it’s true we never truly ask ourselves if we want children and for many it’s just a predetermined outcome based on thinking it’s the right thing to do. I remember telling people I was never having children and didn’t like them. I did this to stop people talking about them or having them around me. It wasn’t until after having children that I realised I even had a choice. It was great to say no to more, even though I had already been blessed with having them. It was like those light bulb moments when I could recall ever actually asking myself if I wanted children, I mean it was discussed but I never really asked myself. It was more a weigh up, you know we’ve been together, we getting older now, it seems like a good time to have them but never a direct ‘do I want children?’. I respect the decision in the article, respect the fact that based on what someone truly feels they have made a decision for themselves with some trusted support.
I wonder if more women would choose to not have children if we didn’t impose so heavily onto each other that being a mother is “just the done thing”. Having woman that choose to not have children is as important as having those that do. I remember growing up we spent a lot of time at my god parents house, they could not have children and really loved spending time with us. People that are not busy raising their own kids have a fresh and lite approach to hanging out with kids, there can be a real appreciation and relaxed approach that is needed.
Great point Sarah, and how beautiful that there are those who love connecting with children that are not their ‘own’ (such a terrible expression really)…to raise children it takes a community, and so it is not so much about whether one has birthed the child or not, but rather more about how one can reflect what is needed to support them and equally so learn from them.
It is not the birthing of a child that makes a woman a true mother, but the claiming of herself as a woman and with this the whole-hearted ability to nurture herself and thus all others with the light of this sacredness. Nathalie, you are an awesome example of someone who has not be coerced into blindly adopting the dictates of a society that has strayed from the truth of who we truly are and in so doing you have helped us all see that we too do not need to be bound by such chains.
Many of us women do have ideas about what it means to be a woman. I know I have had a few and still wade through ideas that do not truly reflect who I am. It is great to expose what is not us, no pictures of should, we all have our own path in this big plan and we do not all have to be parents, physically. Parenting is not biological, parenting is about connection and responsibility in community, not blood.
Freedom of choice is one of our greatest freedoms and the freedom of a woman to choose to have or not to have children of her own is a great place to start to unravel the pressure that to be complete as a woman necessitates bearing offspring.
We as women should and always have the right to choose if we want to have children or not and not feel guilty or less of a women if we choose not to.
The path to motherhood by a woman can be one of taking one step after another on the path society has laid out for you. It is presumed the path will be followed and if you do not follow you are questioned. But is the path true for each of us? Generally this is not something we are encouraged to ponder.
Nathalie, you write that nobody asked you to be a substitute mother but I often wonder whether unspoken communications within families can be even more powerful. A mother, through her actions, expressing “I am not at all capable of being a mother, I want somebody else to do it for me” might send a powerful signal to her daughter to take care of her younger children.
This is beautiful because I know from my own experience of mothering and from talking with other women that having children can fill what may seem like a great void in our lives, just by the amount of activity that they generate in their need for care, or just by the amount of noise and chaos they can bring in to the home – it all can give a sense of belonging and family which is hinged on them being there. What I love about this blog is how you highlight the fact that as women we are actually pretty awesome already and do not need children to fill any void that we may be feeling, but simply to be ourselves and meet them with all of that.
There is so much pressure on a women to be a mother, I know that I felt it, especially when I got married. I did not choose to have children in the end, but I did get swept up in feeling less than because I wasn’t a mother. I have since felt and healed what needed to be healed, so not to diminish who I was as a person without kids, now cherishing who I am and all that I bring as a women.
Someone said to me recently that I chose to be a career girl rather than a mother. I found this comment curious so have sat with it. Even the term career girl comes with pictures on what it should look like. The fact is I needed to work, like the majority of us and that has not changed. So I choose to work and I have experienced and learned much in terms of the work that I do and the jobs that I have had. I have also chosen not to have children, not because I don’t like them, but I can feel how it was not for me this life time. I don’t feel less as a woman because of this decision and I love hearing stories that my friends with children share.
It’s one of the biggest lies woman – and men – have been sold: the a woman without children is not fully a woman. Freeing ourselves from this lie is one step closer to freeing every man, woman and child as well so that we are not needing and dependant of each other to fulfil false ideals from outside of us that try to impose on us what we ought to be.
As women I feel we embody different expression. For some women being a mother is part of her expression, for other women it’s not. Either way we deserve the full freedom to make our choices to truly express the women we natural are.
When we are stuck in a paradigm the obvious is very rarely obvious for the person caught between what they should and shouldn’t do.
To feel ‘joyful and complete’ is a sign of a choice made in absolute honour of all of you. Congratulations 🙂 Isn’t is fascinating (and heavy) to feel the imposition that a belief system can hold over us and seemingly without us even realising for many, many years. Once that veil is lifted and our authority in our own choices is regained we can’t not feel the sense of lightness and beauty that is there to claim and live, from here it never matters what anyone else thinks of our choices.
I was just reading the title of this blog: “A Woman’s Choice: To Become a Mother, or Not” and it occurred to me how absurd that we even need to have a blog with a title like this. How could it be anyone else’s choice but ours as to whether we are a mother or not?… which is exactly what you also say at the end!
I agree – there are an enormous amount of expectations for us around, all of whom in effect make it harder for us to act from our free will.
What a pressure there is from believes we hold and how letting go a belief like you did Natalie is freeing yourself from a picture. Choosing to be the beautiful woman you are first is living your true purpose and all comes out from that place.
I love hearing from women who choose not to have children, not because they had no opportunity, but through a genuine choice of what’s right for them. Life’s about so much more than just having a family and a partner and children, we actually have a purpose here.
“I have never looked back. Living my life as the woman I am, choosing not to be a mother, feels joyful and complete.” The joy in what is shared here can be felt as well as in the pictures you share when with the children you know. Thank you for sharing your inspiring wisdom 🙂
A very good point, Marika. Even as a parent I recognise that I, with my partner, am merely supporting our child – there will come a time when he makes his own choices/life. There is no ownership in parenting.
Beautifully said, Monica. There is so much truth in being ‘judged as somehow lacking if we’re not’. People even feel pity, which is a horrible judgement. There is so much expectation and judgement which comes as a woman – I hadn’t appreciated this so much until now.
You redefine the word Mother here as well – a mother doesn’t just have to be someone who bears children. And you will have been a more loving mother figure to your siblings and friend’s/family’s children than perhaps their own parents.
What an honest and revealing article. Girl to woman to mother is indeed one of those things which is expected…like school to university to job. It’s just ‘what you do’. But it clearly isn’t – that is a just a preconception. Thank you for sharing your story, it is a beautiful one.
I agree Natalie, it is a huge expectation and imposition that frequently is imposed on us women to have children, great to expose these false ideals and beliefs. We always have a choice, ‘I came to realize that I am a woman first and foremost, and to become a mother is a choice for each and every one to make on their own.’
We often are told that the biological clock is ticking and that we have to make a decision about whether we want a child or not – there is so much unnecessary pressure about this. If we really feel like being with children in our later life then truly there should be opportunities to do so – I mean so many parents are in overwhelm and are in need for someone to support them with their children, that if we were to offer ourselves as a nanny, there would be more demand than we’d be able to cover.
Thank you for sharing Natalie! I made the same decision like you only that I made that one already as a young woman. First I was running away from life and its responsibilities and then I felt I really needed to get some things right for me as a woman first before I took on the responsibility to bring a child into this world. This feels so loving and honoring and every woman should truly have that choice and not be pressurized in any other way.
This is a really important blog for so many women. We all have a choice, male or female to be a parent or not, biologically. It is not for everyone, and yet the societal beliefs we are brought up with certainly suggest this is a pre-determined course of action.
This is great Nathalie, and that you came to realise we do have a choice, ‘When I actually made the decision to not have any children of my own it was like a weight of a hundred kilos dropped off from my shoulders. Only then did I realize what process I had been through.’
Not only is it our choice to become a mother or not, it is also a choice to believe or be run by ideals, beliefs and images of any nature. We always have the choice to choose what influences our perspectives in life and how we see things. Who knows how many weights we are carrying around of heavy ideals about all sorts of situations in life! It takes consistent observation and honesty to free oneself from the shackles of these images.
It’s interesting how people will say things like “what a wonderful mother you will one day become” in response to seeing and experiencing someone being beautifully mothering with another – which negates the fact that they are already ‘a mother’ just maybe not for their ‘own’ child!
What an amazing place you’ve come to with yourself Nathalie ~ there is much inspiration in your process and deep understanding of motherhood.
I had one of the biggest lessons of my life, and the lesson was to feel what choice I made from my body. Sometimes it is not the ‘right’ one or most evolutionary choice at the time but its your truth at that time. Understanding and space must be applied otherwise that sabotaging way of bashing a dead horse can ruin you from moving forward.
As the years pass and with the help and support of Universal Medicine practitioners, the more I am coming to understand what mothering is all about. With this understanding I can see that it is not so much about myself and what I can achieve through my children and their successes and or abilities, but rather more so about nurturing a connection with the divinity inside us all. This puts to rest the pressure to become a mother and places it in the realm of true responsibility and not a venture to be taken on a whim.
I can very much relate Nathalie and too have felt so much freedom in my choice not to be a mother. I had always thought in my 30’s that I wanted to be a mother, but as I was single and approaching 40 it led me to question the beliefs that I had around being a mother. Upon deeply pondering these, I came to the same realisation as you have Nathalie, that I am a woman first of all and my expression as a woman is not reliant on becoming a mother. I joyfully now explore what it truly means to be a woman and celebrate the beauty that comes from my connection with her.
It became a revelation to me too that I also had a choice to become a mother or not. I always assumed I would because that is what women do. I also assumed I would because I like children and felt that I would have been a great mother. Like you Natalie I never met a partner that felt right to have children with and when I connected to the fact that I didn’t have to have children it was like my whole world transformed. My life opened up and I realised my identity and sense of self worth as a woman didn’t hang from the fact of having a partner/children or not.
What I got so strongly from your writing, is how much ingrained beliefs can weigh us down and majority of the time we dont even realise that we are carrying them. It is only when we are free of them, do we feel the lightness and the freedom of no longer carrying it. Congratulations on letting go of such a big one for women – this one is a big one and one that many women carry.
Wonderful Nathalie, so so good to read your sharing and to feel how you have come to full acceptance of you as a woman with your choices. Awesome.
To deeply understand that we have a choice as women and what kind of choice supports us and not our ideals is very freeing.
I agree, I feel women need to have choice in whether they become mothers without any shame or burden. I am so glad I have been developing a far greater appreciation of how I am as a woman in the world.
The pressure in society for a woman to have a baby is huge. I grew up with an image that to get married and have children was what every one did. If I had chosen otherwise I would have been questioned as to whether there was something wrong with me. The images we have on what is right or wrong are so abusive unless dealt with and it is my responsibility to deal with all the images that I am being faced with as to whether they are true to me or not.
A pen or a paintbrush can write or paint whatever the holder wants, and no one ever objects no matter who is holding it. So, why should women be expected to do something with their body that they do not? We all have our expression, and it should never be affected by the values and beliefs of others.
This line… “I was once asked what makes me joyful – my immediate answer was and still is children, of all ages, but that doesn’t mean I need my own” is quite a revelation and so very inspiring Nathalie. How many women would have this perception – I imagine very few and yet this is absolutely true. This completely debunks the belief that if someone doesn’t have children then they mustn’t like them!
“I came to realize that I am a woman first and foremost, and to become a mother is a choice for each and every one to make on their own.” This needs to be taught in schools, shared with teenagers and women of all ages Nathalie… there is so much pressure to perform, to be a certain way, without ever considering if this way is even true for us.
The comments you received growing up Nathalie about making a good mother one day are common amongst many of us – it was with me. And there is truth in what they felt and saw in you but it was interpreted into something that then set you up to ‘believe’ you were to be a mother. But what people were feeling and seeing in you were your innate qualities of being loving, gentle, kind, playful and joyful with children – full stop. No translation needed just an appreciation that this is part of who you are and now with understanding, it is easy to see this and to appreciation within yourself – which you clearly do.
Mothering is a quality we hold and with this bring to people and not a status quo we have to achieve through having a baby. Motherhood is one of the most bastardized roles in society with the strong purpose to keep women from embracing their full power.
Beautiful Nathalie, this is a huge thing for so many women, carrying the burden of the expectation that they will have kids from quite a young age. I recall being asked repeatedly as a younger women ‘how many children will you have?’ This is long before any committed relationship, let alone any prompting from me. I always assumed two and would say so… with no idea where that came from other than it sounded like a good idea, not too many, not an ‘only child’ because they were always spoilt rotten! So many pictures and ideals involved… none of which played out in my life either, though I did end up having one child, and being completely comfortable and sure at the time that I didn’t want more.
You share Nathalie how much you love and adore kids, but have chosen not to have any of your own. I’ve just realised the extent of the picture out there that if we love kids we ‘must’ have our own (give birth to them); and if we choose not to have kids, it’s generally because we don’t like them all that much. This is not true at all, but shows just how convoluted our choice to have children or not can be, and the enormous pressure on women to make a choice based on ideals rather than truth.
I just had lunch with 2 women I worked with over 10 years ago, at that time both women did not have children and obviously a lot older. They have since both had 2 children each, so in this catch up the conversation went to our lives and where we are all at. They spoke of their children and work, then it come to me and I could feel I had a real opportunity to reflect me as a women, feeling completely at ease about who I am and my choice to not have children. I am unsure if that is what they got from what I shared, but it is definitely how I feel, confident in who I am and my choices.
This weekend I am staying with friends and their three children. I love hanging out with their children and feeling all this love for them. I don’t have my own children but I feel a mother to them. Not from a need of having to be a mother but from the qualities that are in me to nurture, cherish and love.
I just love how clearly you talk about how everything is a choice, not a given, not a ‘must do’, nor an ideal we have no decision in, including whether or not to have children. I love how much freedom and power comes when we apply this principle to everything in life.
Knowing that we have a choice in everything we think and do is truly freeing and empowering, changing ones perspective on life completely, and the depth of our self responsibility.
I thank you Nathalie for your great blog, I could actually feel your joy and the power that comes with making a choice for yourself. Choosing to be a woman first and foremost and then deciding whether to be a mother or not feels so true and so freeing….often we just expect young women to have babies, and many like myself find ourselves pregnant without ever having made a choice at all.
With a greater understanding of what true family means, we can realise that we all know and parent hundreds of children through our lives… that is the opportunity and up to us what we do with it.
We can loose ourselves in so many roles. Motherhood is a big one. Your blog brings home the fact that we should always be the woman we are first and not give ourselves over to societies ideas of the roles we should play.
To actually decide to not have children felt like a very liberating choice and also in the knowing that there was no failure on my part as a women for making this choice. The beauty is that in my life I am around children all the time and this I love…but with immense joy I go home to me at the end of the day!
To really accept and live the fact that we do have a choice is the single most empowering thing I have ever realised. From victim to ‘self-drive’ I am embracing the responsibility this fact brings. This article breaks through one of the most insidious ‘rules’ about what we ‘should’ do as a woman. Thank you, Natalie.
The more we accept our decisions the more we can take responsibility and then move forward with all that is currently in our life.
its all about choices and changing things that don’t feel true for us.
Its no different if its about motherhood, all we need to do is feel whats true for us, and then live from that, children or no children, we have the right to be very happy with our lives.
i love how the children of the world are not missing out simply because you chose not to have them. I can feel the joy you express with them and how much they enjoy being with you. Children don’t have to be born through us in order for us to nurture and mother them and just have fun playing about. There is much to be learned and appreciated from this sharing.
Most woman do not even realise that there is even a difference between being a woman and being a mother. We have got the ‘doing’ so ingrained in us that we think that is who we are when we are actually not the doing at all. That is just something we do! We are first and foremost an amazing Woman or Man and that must always be honoured and adored first
What you describe so honestly here Nathalie, is how we can learn and take roles on when we are younger because of the approval and recognition we may get from them. If this happens in adolescence we can easily continue the identification that a role may bring us and just believe that it should continue to define us for the rest of our lives. You have shown a deepening regards for yourself to actually contemplate who you are as a woman first rather than be defined by your roles that choose to take on.
You beautifully outline how we as women have the opportunity to value ourselves firstly as women and what we bring rather than a role such as being a mother. Then we can make a choice to be a mother or not based not on ideals and beliefs that we may have picked up rather than feeling into what is right for us or not.
Yes. We are women first and then we do whatever we choose to do. It is an amazing feeling to step out of the expected roles and rules laid out by society and make our choices with a sense of responsibility for all the qualities we bring.
Nathalie – reading your blog again just reminds me how important it is that we value ourselves as who we are first and foremost. And that roles or beliefs can so easily take us away from appreciating that essence. You clearly have a connection with children and love them, and whats beautiful is that the don’t need to be your own flesh and blood for you to feel this way, you just know that your whole body appreciates children. I think that is just so beautiful and shows how our love is so much stronger than a role, and for you, accepting you won’t have kids of your own, but at the same time knowing you will always be surrounded by kids you love deeply is a joy to read.
What you have shared here Nathalie is so deeply healing for so many. As women we assume we have to be a certain way and live a certain life but really we are here to fully embody our own beauty and simply live this with commitment and consistency. Everything else we do … we do because of this not to find this.
‘For the first time in my life, EVER, did I realize that I had a choice. I actually had a choice to become a mother or not. It was a true revelation happening inside of me, as I had never ever seen it as a choice before.’ Naturally we have a choice, but how often do we stand so heavily under ideals and beliefs, that we cut ourselves from having a choice, because we only can see the ideals and beliefs we carry.
Reading this wonderful blog this morning and having connected to its awesome capacity to empower women, I picked up on the statement “being with the wrong guys”. It had me pondering how this term can be misconstrued to mean that being ‘players’ or abusive or the like was in their nature, when the truth is that it is a conditioned part of our culture that men take on thinking it ok, when it is not who they are. As Nathalie was accepting full responsibility in the context of this blog, I understood her expression to relate that the role a women might play to choose a man allowing these behaviours to dominate him and his relationships, is equally conditioned in that role to tolerate such behaviour and is not being who she truly is.
This is liberation Nathalie, to choose our own way life, ungoverned by expectations, presumptions, roles, and conventions. It is liberation and equally an enormous expression of responsibility, not always so easy in a world full of ideas about how we are meant to be.
Nathalie it’s so amazing you’ve written this. I always felt ashamed for not having children but it wasn’t because I didn’t have children but because I never embraced being a woman. I carried a shame of having intermittent periods, or none at all for years, and knowing I was running my body on constant motion. I believed having children would bring me the insights to what it was to be a woman. But this is illusory. Like you so beautifully express, ‘I feel complete and whole as a woman and not the least less amazing for not having children.’ Without the amazing role models of Universal Medicine students -women being women first whether single, married, with children, without, etc -I’d never have seen this was possible and started to live this for myself.
There is so much pressure on women to become mothers, it somehow is thought that without children you are not a women, which is crazy. I have seen some of the most loving and nurturing women with children who do not have children themselves out of choice. The factor here is out of choice. So many women in their 30’s feel that their biological clock is ticking and so want at all costs a child or children. But what if they are not in a truly loving relationship? What if things just have not set themselves up for children? What happens then? What quality do you then call a child into this world with? It feels completely different to when you plan and prepare for children.
“I came to realize that I am a woman first and foremost, and to become a mother is a choice for each and every one to make on their own.” I love this line, I too have been through a similar journey with what it means to be a women and not be a mother. This wasn’t something that thought would happen as I was someone how always wanted to have children, but as life happens, choices made that did not lend itself to having kids. It really is the choice of every women to be who they are first and not identified or pigeon holed into ‘not’ being as well rounded a women if she doesn’t have kids, but celebrated for who we are, as you say, first and foremost.
If we live our life in the expectation that we were born to fulfil a certain role, it’s no wonder that we never feel the fulness of the fact that we are already everything. And, it’s also no wonder that we become so exhausted as mothers, never feeling enough as women to begin with.
Thank you Nathalie , this is a very sensitive subject for many women. We are women first before anything else, so beautiful to fully appreciate that, then everything else simply falls into place.
It is really interesting isn’t it that as a society we seem to have placed ‘mother’ in the same basket as ‘woman’ in that there is no choice involved and women are just born to be mothers. However if we begin to see being mother as a role that women can choose to take or not, rather than an inevitable, it puts it in a completely different perspective.
This article is offering the opportunity to total re-write the ‘rules’ for women. It is fantastic to explore this question: ‘A Woman’s Choice: to become a mother or not?’ And then: what else we might be doing as women in auto-pilot simply because we have not stopped to ask a question.
I have put a lot of pressure on myself for years, thinking that I had to become a mother. I felt I would miss out if I would not have children. This pressure is reflected back to me from society and it would be great if we become honest about it and share among women how this is for us.
This blog highlights just how much the beliefs we take on affect our lives and our choices to the extent that we do not realise that as a woman we all do have a choice to become a mother or not. And that if we choose not to become a mother, we are no less a woman as you so clearly and beautifully illustrate. Thankyou Natalie for sharing, as I am sure many women will find your sharing turly supportive.
Its a huge thing I suspect as a woman to know your value to society beyond motherhood, just as it is as big for a man to not been owned by the concept of fatherhood or family. This is not to say such things are bad, but rather that our life should not be governed by such ideals.
Thank you Natalie. And mothering is not only exclusively for birth mothers. I know plenty of amazing women who mother in our community without having given birth.
Beautifully expressed Natalie. Every female born will grow into a woman first and foremost the choice to become a mother or not is just that the choice of every individual woman.
How awesome to read your blog this morning Nathalie. How awesome you came to this awareness and understanding of knowing yourself. So many women feel the pressure to have children and will often conform or if unable to will live with deep hurts buried away. What you are showing us is this does not have to be the way and we can come to a truth inside us, when we feel our truth we are walking in freedom.
Beautifully expressed Nathalie “I have never looked back. Living my life as the woman I am, choosing not to be a mother, feels joyful and complete.” I’m sure your story will inspire woman over the world to make the choice and be comfortable with it feeling complete as woman whether they choose to have children or not.
There is so much pressure on a women to be a mother, society looks at you in a way that says ‘you are not a complete women, unless you have given birth’, I have felt this pressure and experienced the looks and judgement when choosing not to have kids. These experiences enabled me to look deep within, understand more about myself and who I am as a women, without all the labels and found a very wonderful connection to who I am.
How differently we would embrace ourselves and our contribution in life if we didn’t construct it all on a need to have children, or, out of reaction to this need, by rejecting the possibility completely. Neither option allows the space for us to deeply know what is true from our own bodies.
It’s incredible to me that even though we are born with a choice as to whether we will give birth to children or not in this life, many of us do not even know we have a choice; or, take many years to realise this. So strong are the ideals that fog the clarity of our own bodies.
I even felt the pressure to have more than one child – an ‘only’ child seemed to feel shameful; I felt a guilt of being selfish to only have one and not a ‘mate’ for it. I cherish my two children, but if honest, the reasons for having them both were not based on what was true for me as a woman but what was expected of me from society’s definition of what a woman is.
So strong is the expectation in society to have children that those rare women who do come to a decision not to have children, are deemed by society as selfish.
Whenever I read such inspiring articles like this which pose women have a choice to have children or not, I cannot believe the pressure and expectation I have felt from society that having children makes a woman complete.
Nathalie, it is important we have women like you as role models to show the world that all women are beautiful and amazing, with or without children. There is so much pressure on women to have children, somehow with them they do not complete the fairy tale picture – utter rubbish. And no shame whatsoever whether a women decides to have children or not.
it is very much an expected thing for women to have children. It’s like it doesn’t seem right if they don’t. a little while ago i was certain that i would have children. Now, not so much, and the comments I get when people hear this makes it obvious how ingrained the belief that women equals baby is. Thanks for sharing Nathalie.
It seems very common for women in their 30’s to be stuck on the idea of having children. And I have seen women in their 40s a little deflated if having children never became an option. When we do this, we give our power away as women. We are powerful beings yet when we think we should be something (e.g. a mother) we loose appreciation for all that we already are.
“I came to realize that I am a woman first and foremost.” As a mother I was once hugely identified with this role. Today the identification still lingers but I am more aware of it. Whether as women we are mothers or not, so much of our life can be spent identifying with this role, wanting children, or in Nathalie’s case thinking we want to be a mothers when in truth we do not. Realising we are women first and foremost is very empowering.
Thank you Nathalie for so beautifully showing by example that a woman does not need to become a mother to feel complete in herself, and that the choice to not have children does not mean the woman does not love children, or is incapable of being deeply loving with young ones – it is a simple personal choice to not have children of one’s own. It is wonderful reading and feeling the love in your blog and appreciation of children, as well as your clarity in what is the right way for you.
I can honestly say having children was not a huge pull for me but I succumbed eventually and had 2 of my own of which I do not regret at all but if I could not have had them I would have been very comfortable with that situation. I never mentioned this until not so long ago with a friend because in previous years, if I had of said this, it would have most definitely attracted reactions as it was going against the norm of what society says a woman is to do.
I remember the pressure I felt to have children once I hit my thirties and was aware that the biological clock was winding down. I happened to meet a woman who was very easy with her decision not to have children and speaking with her instantly removed the idea that
motherhood is our destiny. I saw that I had a choice and this allowed me to make the choice to have children, not from being hoodwinked by the idea, but because I genuinely chose to have them. I knew what I was doing and I could therefore take responsibility for my choice.
Beautiful blog Nathalie and very supportive for women to show them that they do have a choice to have children or not and they are no less if they are not mothers. In fact we can have a great impact on children around us and provide a beautiful role model for them without being a biological parent.
It is quite amazing how little a role children have played in my life. When I was young, I wanted to be a grown up – able to make my own decisions, when I got older I did not feel ready to have children for a long time and when I felt ready, the circumstances were such that no children happened.
Nathalie your awesome blog is a deep confirmation for me as I never want to be a mother even when I was a little girl. Therefore most women react to me in a not so lovely way and so I often got the feeling to defend my self for choosing not to be a mother. It took me a while to understand that this women react because I was free so to speak to chose what I felt was true to me and not that I had to follow any ideals or believes.
When I became a mother I completely lost who I am as a woman, and even as a person. I just lost myself. But I can see from this blog by Nathalie, that loosing ourselves is not exclusive to motherhood, it can happen at any stage of life just by choosing to not honour the beautiful women and the beautiful people that we are.
Nathalie it is a monumental achievement to feel ‘whole and complete’ as a woman who has made the choice not to have a child, and I applaud you for getting to that place. Our world is riddled with beliefs but there are certain beliefs that seem more over bearing than others and the belief that a woman should have a baby if she can is one of them.
What is interesting for me to feel is that I also have beliefs about women and children swirling around my body, I could feel them whilst reading your article. They were not standing out in relief but I could feel their influence clouding my understanding. Cognitively I know that there are no beliefs in the inner heart, it is a matter of returning to that knowing as an actual lived state.
Choosing not to be a mother and what is more, feeling full of joy about it, is such a turn around to the norms and expectations placed on all women. I felt that this is a very much needed blog that could well serve in a high women’s profile magazine. So many women must be in a dilemma of whether to ‘settle’ in a relationship to have children against their deep down felt truth about it.
As Women we are expected to be mothers and this is placed on us as young girls and yet no one ever questions the imposition.
Who will I be if I am not a mother? And…Who will I be if I AM a mother? We are beautiful, delicate, strong & wise women regardless of having had children or not.
We will still be ourselves. 🙂
Everything in life is a choice, there are no real ‘have go’s’. The question is what will we choose in every moment of every day.
It is a great celebration to realise that we at all times are presented with a choice and never are we forced to be anything in life. There are boundless reflections to push us this way and edge us that way and many false pictures, ideals and beliefs yet all the while we have our own trusted navigation – our inner wisdom and knowing that will never let us down and an unbreakable compass if we care to connect and heed the wisdom on offer.
This is a great blog and is a voice of many women.
Many of us have defined ourselves by the role of a mother, if not mothering ourselves, mothering others around us directly and indirectly. Mothering whilst one of many expressions we may choose, is a great deviation from our true essence and core expression of being a woman first and foremost. As Serge Benhayon often presents – we were not born mothers, we were born a woman first yet how many of have chosen a lifetime of expression of only a mother, rather than living as a woman and bringing this quality to ourselves, our families and to life?
What a power-full sharing, Nathalie. It reminded me of when I was engaged, and the stance I had to take to combat the ‘expectation’ that I would become a mother. I was very, very clear with both my then-fiancé and my in-laws that I was not going to have children. I never wavered in this resolve and as a result the usual ideals and beliefs of others were held at bay. Still there, but silenced. When I found myself pregnant 8 years later, my husband and I were able to make a choice that was right for us then that I know would not have been right for us any earlier. The unspoken pressure and expectation of parenthood had all but faded away and we basked in the knowing that the choice to bring this child into the world was ours and ours alone. A tender, miraculous moment. Until that moment, I had been very certain and very clear that no one was going to question my knowing that I did not ‘need’ to become a mother to be complete – just as I knew that I would not suddenly become complete because I decided to have a child.
What if every girl growing up was offered this knowing.
I had actually been avoiding reading this blog as I knew it would bring up stuff for me, but I’m so glad I did, I feel it’s time to look at all these ideals, pictures and beliefs I’ve held onto for years around being a woman, and having a child. That we as women are no less or incomplete whether we have children or not. I feel like this goes back for hundreds of years, that ideal / image is that a woman’s place is in the home with kids, but at the same time we have to watch we don’t combat it with the other extreme the 80’s power suit and the belief that we as women can do anything. A women in her essence whether she has children or not is complete.
Dear Nathalie thank you for writing this blog, being a mother and having a child is something I need to look at in terms of I know there is something there for me to heal, as anytime someone mentions do you have family I can feel a reaction in my body. I’m not sure If I have ever actually stopped and asked myself do I really want to have children, or am I ready to have a child, is my body ready to have a child and is it right in this lifetime for me. I think as well there is so much pressure put on us as woman in the sense something being wrong with us if we are not married with kids by the time we are 40, maybe even younger than that. This is definitely a great blog for all woman to read.
Nathalie, a very beautiful article. I was contemplating on the comment you received about you make a great mum one day and how imposing that is. Why would we assume that this is expected of a woman? It actually feel like a bit of a set up, to put beautiful young women off from truly blossoming as women first before they even contemplate having children, thereby women end up seeing themselves as less because they do not have children. Which is nowhere near what the truth is.
Mary, that would be completely laughable if it wasn’t so sad.
What an offering to all women, Nathalie. To read the words of a woman who has actively chosen not to have children blasts so many expectations out of the water. I walked blindly into having children just because it was the next thing on my to do list as a woman. Yes, I have learnt a lot on the way but did I make an empowered, informed, active choice – no.
You make a great point Brendan, in that it’s not just about a woman becoming a mother, but also a man becoming a father. Parenting will only change when there is the greater or deeper understanding of what it’s all about – to raise not your surname, physical look or genes for self-interest, but to raise kids only with love to be able to serve our community as true citizens of humanity.
“I was once asked what makes me joyful – my immediate answer was and still is children, of all ages, but that doesn’t mean I need my own” – once again Nathalie, i share the same sentiment, in that i adore kids, can have them medically speaking, and yet choose to not have them – this stance always foxes many people and shows the ingrained default expectation and ideal of a woman, and one she readily swallows to make herself as a ‘full and complete woman’. The completeness of a woman lies in 1. her acceptance, healing images, ideals and beliefs that imprison her to be a certain way, and in this 2. responding to where her essence is needed the most, and what what she is born for – to be and live as her true self without bind, irrespective of her personal circumstance.
Well said Sofia, every woman is complete from the day she was born.
“I had held onto the belief that becoming a mother was as ‘natural’ as the fact that I had a left arm” – what an excellent analogy Nathalie, was the same for me too, there was no way i thought as a younger woman, that i would not have children, though like you the fact that ‘having kids’ is a woman’s choice and not default position means many women can be relieved of expectation or guilt in this regard. Being a mother with kids is such joy, and yet equally so is not being a mother – why? Because it’s really about being a woman first that’s the crux of true enjoyment. After this, everything else is a bonus to that joy, not the maker of it.
In loving, full relationship with ourselves as women, we are free from the ‘shoulds’ and expectations that litter life.
That was an amazing journey you describe Robyn, a 360 turnaround because you could truly feel your choices, how beautiful that is. And also absolutely equally beautiful for you Nathalie to honour yourself to choose not to have children.
Your story of un-covering who you are first and foremost as a divine and amazing women Nathalie, is deeply inspiring for all women and girls.
Whatever the images, ideals of pictures we have taken on the result is the same, as we then spend the rest of our lives striving and pushing our bodies in an attempt to achieve this picture, even if we succeed we are still left feeling empty, as we have not known or connected to who we really are.
Its truly wonderful to see more women who are students of the teachings of Universal medicine, celebrate and claim themselves as the gorgeous women they are, irrespective of whether they have children and are in a relationship or not, they are setting a new normal for society, that says first and foremost we are gorgeous, precious and powerful women.
It feels incredible to read such appreciation and honouring of women written by a man. Very inspiring and an impulse to take responsibility for being ‘gorgeous, precious and powerful women’. Thank you, Thomas.
I love this Thomas, ‘they are setting a new normal for society, that says first and foremost we are gorgeous, precious and powerful women.’
I enjoyed reading this, and it reminded me of my own childhood as a boy who felt he had to be father to his brothers. Never was a relationship tainted by such toxicity.
Takes an enormous sense of self worth and value to go against the tide that says get married and have kids. Very inspiring Nathalie and huge support for women who are going through a similar process.
Doesn’t it just marylouisemyers, i was riddled with anxiety about this in my late 20s/early 30’s, but that’s because back then i had very little true self-worth and was easily swayed with what society, friends, family wanted, expected, invested in. I didn’t truly know myself, and deferred to others for approval and acceptance. Once i began to self-accept, i felt steadier in my own trust.. to make the true choice in whether that’s to be in a relationship with a guy, get married, have kids.. or not. Today i feel empowered in that choice, not aggrieved or less in that regard.
Its so great isn’t Zofia when we make choices about our lives free from any concern about what others will think about our choices. We make them knowing that they are true for us.
Absolutely Mary-Louise, ‘Takes an enormous sense of self worth and value to go against the tide that says get married and have kids’, there is so much pressure on women to have children, it is wonderful to read your article Nathalie, this is so needed, very inspiring.
It is so empowering Nathalie for you to actually make a choice to not have children, in my day I felt like I had no choice, this is not true, but because I was so steeped in my self created picture of getting married and having children this is what I did because this was what was expected of you. You are a true role model for women world wide
What a crazy thing to say – like you have any control over what type of sex your baby is going to be. Yes Mary where have these kinds of beliefs originated from and what feeds them to be still in today’s world? Each child in this situation before it is born has been conditioned to fit into certain beliefs so it fits a picture… imposing like this detrimental to this child.
Yes to all the above, marylouisemyers. I followed the ‘rules’ and am hugely inspired by women who have chosen to make their own choices. Nathalie’s ‘voice’ is one of such authority and a huge offering to women world wide.
Agree Matilda we need more women like Natalie speaking up so others can know that they too do not have to go down a well trodden path that is not true for many women.
and when we do things because it’s expected or it’s the done thing to do, we end up so unsatisfied by the life we are living, we end up looking for as many escapes as possible.
Very true Brendan, and it seems absolutely crazy to expect someone who doesn’t want children to spend their whole lives being a parent. We have enough unwanted children in the world without pressuring people to have more…
I deeply value and appreciate what Nathalie is saying, it is liberating to read at a fundamental level that is relevant to all women regardless of whether they have had children, plan to have children, or not.
It’s quite incredible that we have fallen for the false ideal that we are more of a woman if we have children. I love what you share Nathalie “No children and no less a woman … All women are beautiful and amazing, with or without children!”
Absolutely true Rachel and Nathalie, ‘All women are beautiful and amazing, with or without children!
Your blog is a wonder-full reflection for all women Nathalie, a reflection of joy, deeply honoring and appreciating yourself as a woman, and not falling for the beliefs and images that we are fed that say women have to have children to be happy or complete. There are many other beliefs of picture that if we allow hold us bound, and in a cycle of always trying to achieve these, not stopping to question whether they are true or not.
We as a humanity have become identified by what we do, we use what we do to gain recognition, love and approval from others, always trying to better ourselves to fit the image or picture we have been given, although the image of beliefs vary the root is the same, we have disconnected with our essence and the gentle movement of our bodies, making life about what we do, rather than our quality of being.
Reading Nathalie’s words gives us a real alternative to being an unquestioning, obedient puppet of the expectations laid down by our families, cultures, nationalities, gender etc. Understanding this means we can take responsibility for our choices – no more blame or victimhood.
Yes Brendan the environment for the child that comes into their family has that as their surrounding influence which then feeds their ideals and beliefs of what they ‘should do’. This crazy cycle has been going on for centuries and Nathalie is sharing that it doesn’t have to be this way. It is super freeing and giving us the grace to do what feels right for us. Being born into a family where there is no ideals and beliefs gives the space for us to just be who we are.
I appreciate greatly your expression here Nathalie about being locked into being a parent. It is wonderful to read how you became free of that and the support you received to claim yourself as a loving person first and foremost.
I agree Beverley, there is an absolute desperation by some to do whatever it takes to live up to the ideal so to not face the consequences of society viewing them as having failed in their purpose for life. If only they knew their worth was not related to achieving a belief imposed upon them.
It is extraordinary the power that one belief can have when imposed upon on us from the outside world and perpetuated over and over… and how freeing it is to see it’s hold over us and be able to truly let it go. I love that you have come to the place you have where you can expose the falsity and ultimately dissolve the power through highlighting that there is a choice and women are not less if they make the one that challenges the norm.
We are bound by the beliefs, ideals and images that are fed to us, which we in turn take ownership of, spending the rest of our life’s trying to achieve these. Serge Benhayon and family have been truly inspiring for me to examine these ideals and beliefs and let go of the ‘strangle hold’, they place over ones life, allowing for a simpler, truer way of being, responding to what life presents and what’s needed next.
Thomas, living our lives with the philosophy of ‘what’s needed next…’ can be evolutionary and liberates us from living under the ideals, beliefs and images we have imposed on ourselves.
We have subscribed to a false notion of our children belonging to us, in the sense of ownership and identification in a way that is separative and exclusive to others.
Children are the responsibility of all adults, irrespective of whether they are our children or not, we need to look out for them and care for them, showing them by example a true way to be themselves in the world.
Its super important that we as a society deeply examine the images, pictures and beliefs that we have been fed, honestly looking at what no longer serves us, as some of theses are simply not working and are very detrimental to are health and well-being. By discarding what’s clearly not working and embracing what supports and nourishes us, we can return to a truer more harmonious way of life.
Thank you Nathalie for sharing your experience, I found it very enlightening as a man to see the pressure society places upon women to have children, and the images and picture we are fed that in order to be happy and live a contented life it must look a certain way. By you stopping and inquiring and looking at the deeply held beliefs that women can hold, you allow the possibility for other women to make a real choice, free from the ideals they have been fed.
Nathalie you truly claim who you are as a woman in this blog, before you are a role. That is so powerful – and I bet it felt like a weight off your shoulder when you finally let go of the expectation you had on yourself to have kids based on what others were saying. This pattern is true for so many of us – we try to be a certain way because people see something in us. But the question is, what do we see in ourselves?
I know that I felt a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders when I let go of the expectation of having children based on what I felt the wider expectation was. We have created enormous falsehoods around what we think being a woman is.
I agree hvmorden, we place such enormous expectations on ourselves, as well as carry the expectations of others to be a certain way, to let go of all these and be ourselves is so liberating.
I never want to be a mother even when I was a kid I always played that I went out to earn the money. Like you I love children and they love me but I always knew that being a mother is not my cup of tea. Everyone always told me that there will be the time were I want to be a mother and then it is to late but that never happened. I love it to be a women and therefore I very much appreciate your amazing blog – it is really time that more women can discover that they have a choice – thank you Nathalie for being such a great role model.
You raise a great point esteraltmiks, about people saying, or more insinuating that choosing to not have kids, will bring great disappointment later on in a woman’s life, as if it’s the ‘be all and end all’. I have experienced this too from people. This is only true when there is a picture and investment of an ideal way of being. When the picture is removed, regret (and everything else is removed) and in its place clear spacious joy for the woman we are. There being zero disappointment in this.
Natalie what an inspirational blog you have written – wonderful. For me it is time to break this old consciousness that women are only on earth to be a mother. This believe is like a trap and I like it very much that you showed us that women are a woman first and then a mother.
It’s a deeply sacred role being a mother, but no less than the sacredness of a woman – with or without children.
There is no obligation in love.
This is so true Annie, love just gets in and does what is needed.
The quality of how we live as women is what will bring us true joy – not having children.
Beautiful Annie ‘The quality of how we live as women is what will bring us true joy – not having children.’ This is so true.
The other day I imagined myself as a 60 year old woman, single and without children. I asked myself, “would this be ok?” I felt for the first time, despite wanting a relationship and children, that I would be ok, in fact more than ok. I knew I could still enjoy life being my own woman if I didn’t tick the boxes that were expected of me. I imagined what my family and relatives would say and I knew that I could handle any criticism.
Nathalie thank you for sharing your experience. There are so many roles that we can slip into, and mothering is a big one. There is a an unspoken expectation that women want to be mothers by default, so it is great to read how you were able to stay true to yourself.
Thanks you for sharing your experience, Nathalie. It is so supportive for women to recognise they are perfectly complete as themselves and that becoming a mother is not an essential ingredient in the mix for one to have a truly joyous and meaningful life.
Yes, Judith, there is nothing more beautiful than a woman who feels complete in herself and has no need of any outer trappings to identify herself with, be it a baby, a husband or a career etc. There is so much for every woman to offer just by being themselves.
I agree. There is nothing more beautiful and sexy than a woman complete in herself, who knows herself before her roles.
Wow Janet that is so true and imagine more women just being themselves without all the ideals and believes – we would ground a new wonderful “normal” way to be as women.
This is so true Janet, ‘There is so much for every woman to offer just by being themselves.’ We are complete just as we are without anything or anybody else and we have so much to share with the world, whether we have children or not and yet this is so rarely talked about or presented, thank you Nathalie for this wonderful, empowering article.
Thank you Nathalie, your blog beautifully shows the exquisiteness and fullness of what it feels like being the woman first before anything else in her world.
Yes I agree johannebrown17 and I like it also because the more women are talking about it so openly like Natalie did the sooner it can become a normal way to live for all women.
Nathalie you look simply Amazing! One thing we have got wrong in our society is that we judge people based on the outer appearances and the roles they ar playing but we don’t cherish people for their essence.
Beautifully said Harry. We don’t cherish people for their essence and judge them on what they do or say, how they look – all these things are not truly appreciating a person’s essence.
I agree Annie, when we judge a person, we are not wiling to bring understanding to them, and we stay in separation to them.
Well said Harry, once we connect to our bodies and the love inside, we then feel that all others in their essence are that same love, no matter if they are choosing that love of not, in their behaviors and life.
How amazing to read Nathalie! It must have been so liberating to make that decision for yourself, to feel the power that you can have a say and don’t have to follow all of the ideals and beliefs that we carry from when we are young.
Nathalie, thank you for your honesty. I can so relate to how we grow up with a perception of it being our destiny to have children. The biggest one for me to realize is that I HAVE A CHOICE AND THE AUTHORITY not an obligation in my life. The quality of my connection with myself will then determine the quality of my choices.
Yes Concetta the choice has always been there but our up bringing and the ideals and beliefs we put on our selves or feel from another sells the image of motherhood is a must for every women.
I agree, its still not fully accepted and embraced that women can choose this, its like a picture from young that this is what a girl will choose when she grows up, when women don’t have kids its getting more accepted but there are still often questions asked.
This is a much needed sharing Nathalie, it is in fact ground breaking as your tears showed! We are so emeshed in the ideals of having children we are very unaware of how much this informs our decisions, I felt a lot of pressure to have a second child again all from Ideals and when I simply asked my body it was a clear no. Simple but when I tried to make the decision from head I could have a pros and cons list as long as the north motorway!
I agree with what you have said about enmeshed (new word I have learnt) ideals. The other day I was at a salon and lying on the couch while the beautician was doing a treatment she said ‘do you have children’ to which I replied no and then straight after that loads of things came up for me as that was that conversation suddenly over, … like poor me because I don’t have children or that I had to justify why I didn’t have children by saying but I work with them. Yep Nathalie has spoken about something that is a great discussion for all women with children or no children.
I loved your comment Vanessa, when we try to make decisions from our heads or minds it becomes very complex and removed from what’s actually true, yet when we feel into our bodies and the wisdom they hold the answer is very clear and simple. This is far more honoring of our bodies, as they have to live with the end result of our choices.
Yes when we connect to our bodies we know what it true for us. It is a simple yes or no. We like to make a drama out of some things and take it into the head to toss it around for a while creating some entertainment! This is not actually necessary and we would save a great deal of time if we simply stayed with the body and listened to the answer.
I also feel this pressure to have a second child Vanessa – it is huge and seems to come from so many different people, friends, family, people i meet at work, people i meet out and about – it is so set in society to have two children, preferably a boy and a girl and if you don’t then there is so much pressure to conform to this very limited idea of family.
Reading this blog I can feel that what is needed for us all is an understanding that our amazingness as women (and beyond this, as simply beings) needs to felt as normal and not something we champion. The deeper the knowing of this, the less we will rely on the outer confirmation from others and even from our own thoughts. The knowing of this comes from a more pure place then the mind. It comes from our essence.
Anna your words relate to what I was pondering as I came to the end of this blog, that we are Souls, living a physical life and identifying ourselves as any less than this, even our gender, can lead us down a slippery slope that just may be a barrier to living our potential.
I agree Simon, and yet we are a long way from living this understanding in all that we do.
This is an awesome sharing that inspires women that they do not need to play a role to be enough. And the principal applies to everything we do, not just mothering for a woman. Though we seem to be wedded to the idea that the woman is there to be a mother, whilst at the same time being beautiful, sexy, running a household. Where does it end if we allow roles to define who we are?
By choosing to simply just be and not do, we allow the possibility of a very powerful, inspirational and gorgeous woman to be seen by all.
How much angst there is around doing “the right thing”! And how much ease the Benhayon family reflects when they present how life is simply about being us.
A true blessing.
Thank you, Nathalie. Universal Medicine has supported me also to expose all the ‘shoulds’ and ‘ought tos’ that I had no idea were determining who and what I felt I was in the world.
So true Janet, Universal Medicine is the only place that I have studied that exposes how run by ideals as an energy that we align too, I was aware of the unconscious motivations etc but the true healing was when I realised it was a choice to align to the energy of the ideals, when you feel that you can instantly heal and no longer be run by it.
I agree both of you, Janet and Vanessa, ideals can be very subtle and difficult to realize because they seem to be so normal and when you do not have them you seem to be “unnormal”. Universal Medicine supported me to see the true normal, that which is natural to us. This supports to let go of ideals and beliefs.
Great blog Nathalie, so lovely to read about that we have a choice in everything, nothing is predetermined which so many pictures and believes from outside of us make us believe.
Thank you Nathalie for writing this blog. Have done the same as you, lived a life believing that I didn’t have a choice about certain things, that they were ‘the done things’ so to speak. I completely understand that moment of realisation that you had when you had the awareness that you actually do have a choice yourself, it can be extremely profound, especially when we’ve lived many many years without that awareness.
‘Mothering’ is just one expression that we have as a Woman, and we don’t need our own children to ‘mother’.
This is so true , Carmin. We do not own our children and it is beautiful for them to feel “mothering” from other women. The “mothering” expression is for all women and our children today need to feel this beautiful expression as it is not always there from their birth mothers.
I love that Carmin – it opens up mothering in a very good way and I am sure that also the children will love it.
Very true Carmin, I have many children in my life who I support in this way yet don’t have the emotional relationships with them so am able to provide a steady support.
This is so true Carmin, ‘we don’t need our own children to ‘mother’. I have one son and voluntarily read with children from two different schools I have built up a really lovely relationship with these children and I enjoy seeing them and they enjoy seeing me, I am as loving with these children as I am with my son and reading your article makes me realise that we can ‘mother’ children whether we gave birth to them or not.
Thank you Natalie for a great blog debunking the myths of many years ago, which were held in the spinster of the past, alone and childless, barren, and in a sense worthless. Times have changed but still the beliefs hold that to be childless is somehow to not be fulfilled. beautiful to see women re- imprinting what it means to be a women first and foremost , living no less with nurturing qualities than mothers who do have children.
This is such a superb blog Natalie about something that is rarely talked about. The assumption is so strong that young girls will grow up to be mother because ‘that’s just what happens’ and not that there is a possibility of a choice. I love how you came to a point where you chose not to have children and how profound that realisation was that you actually had a choice.
I have been doing quite a bit of babysitting recently, and it has been an amazing opportunity for me to experience first-hand what having a child is like, so I can chose motherhood one day from a far more educated placed. I love children, but the time care and responsibility required to raise them is huge, and I know that far more than the fact I am a woman, the kind of upbringing a child has is important. Having kids should not be a automatic end result of being in a long term relationship or being a woman, it should because you want to bring someone into this world and give them the best start to their life as you can. What if the responsibility of parenthood was talked about in sex education, so that boys and girls know that having kids has to be a choice not an end result.
” I came to realise I am a woman first and foremost.” Beautiful. It was; not until I came to Universal Medicine that I ever gave this much attention myself.
It is really interesting to observe that when someone is ‘good with children’ they are straight away labelled as someone who will be an amazing mother in the future. The choice is totally left out which is not right because there is always something to listen to first and foremost and that is if it is true for woman to have children this life.
Indeed Lieke, as a society we somewhere are missing a point, the point that each of us has a free choice how to live and dedicate our lives to. Society comes with many ideals and beliefs of how we should live our lives in order to ‘fit in’ and to be an ‘contributing citizen’. One of these ideals and beliefs is that women should become a mother among the many.
Wow Nathalie that is quite amazing, Becoming from a pre-determined mother because you were told so into a woman who has her own choice, the choice to have your own children in this life or not. I think not many woman without children can say that…
I like this phrase ‘pre-determined mother’ Nico, as it portrays how fixed our societal beliefs have been about women and their roles in life. It is beautiful to read an account about a woman celebrating herself and what is true.
We as women are so laced with the image that we ‘have’ to grow up and become a mother, because as you rightly posed the question ‘“Who will I be if I am not a mother?’ I can really relate to this question. I always did want children of my own, I wasn’t ever desperate for them, but I did feel to have them. I did however marry someone who had 3 children, so I became a step-mother, very much still wanting to have children of my own. But the enormity of taking on 3 kids was indeed enormous and as the years passed, there did not ever feel like there was the space for my own. When I did separate and finally divorce, it was a tough time, feeling into that question, who will I be if i am not a mother? It means you are a women doesn’t it. I worked through a lot of these ideals and beliefs, landing in a wonderful place within myself, claiming who I am as a women, not because I have kids or don’t have kids, but for who I am innately within.
Beautifully said Raegan, what you share would be very supportive for many women, letting go of your ideals and beliefs have allowed you to embrace the amazing woman you are.
I was watching a TV news article about a young girl who was killed and the commentary that came is that she would never grow up to have an education, get married or have children. And what struck me was how normal that is the expectation for women that is our path – I mean it is good that education is now in the mix as it was not for so long – but it is still so cemented in our path that we are to get married and have children. So if we dont do that when we grow up, there is a sense of failure or not quite fitting in the mix. It is time we stopped putting these ideals and beliefs into ourselves and allow what is there to unfold.
There is so much pressure and expectation placed on women to be mothers, as you say the conditioning starts from a very young age.
Nathalie, I have really enjoyed reading this blog, It is lovely to read how you ‘ share the whole of me with all the children I meet on my path.’ I have one child of my own and voluntarily read with children in 2 schools in my village, I can feel how I have a gorgeous connection with these children and how supportive it is that I sit with them and adore them for who they are, It is lovely to feel how we can support children without being someones mother, so I do not feel the need to have more children of my own (there is huge pressure to do so), because I feel like there are many children that I care for and support.
To hold ownership over children, using them for identification, is the true evil of creation and the cradle of individuality.
yes and this is also a burden on the children.
I know so many people who decided to have children and then spend their life organizing the logistics to get rid of them in form of endless activities or being taken care of in a very functional way by others to have time out for themselves. It is like so many aspects in life that we want a part of a role or an ideal we hold and don’t commit to the full responsibility. There is hardly a person I know who is truly present with their children and is their loving life facilitator in a truly mothering or fathering way.
Well said Rachel – something to truly ponder for us all. I’d also like to add that no matter if we are mothers or fathers or not, we are all equally responsible to offer children a true reflection, we shouldn’t so easily look the other direction and go ‘it’s none of my business’ if it is not our children.
I know that too Eva, the tendency to not involve myself in what I see that is happening with children in other families as it is not my business. But as you say, we all are equally responsible to be a reflection for anyone to see, the reflection of true responsibility for our own life, and with that we reflect equally care for all human life on earth.
Absolutely agree Eva, it is not only the parents responsibility to support children in growing up in their fullness, but it is everybody’s around them to be equally responsible to be a true reflection, very well said.
As a woman in my thirties I am deeply inspired by many older women I know who have chosen not to have children. Without their inspiration and reflection I would feel less for not having kids, if I didn’t have these role models to show me another way and how amazing life can be regardless of what you chose.
It is so powerful reading this especially the part where you said ‘For the first time in my life, EVER, did I realize that I had a choice. I actually had a choice to become a mother or not.’ I feel that is the case in many things that we forget we do have a choice, it is ours to take and use whether it be to end an abusive relationship or love ourselves and others more deeply. We ALWAYS have a choice. It sounds silly but I grew up not fully feeling or understanding this, it was like I had to be and do what everyone else wanted, that what I chose didn’t matter! I know now this is a complete illusion and also with thanks to Miranda and Serge Benhayon I make so many more loving choices now than I did before.
Just goes to show how we can embed ourselves in patterns of disregard from a very young age.
I have read this blog a few times now and each time I am struck by the fact that you were able to know that you did not want to have children in this life when it actually became possible for you to have them. This is big for me because I have a sense that I often set my life up in a way that leaves me with ‘no choice’ in order to avoid ‘making a choice’ about something that may be controversial.
That is a big thing to realise Leonne, in your second sentence, and it is a very relevant point, not only in relation to having children but in many other area’s where we women have the opportunity to step out from the socially acceptable way.
I’m getting a sense of how often we as women do that; a lot! The busy-ness we get into as women demonstrates that I feel.
These discussions are pertinent to have in our society where women can so easily can think that something is wrong with them if they do not have children. There are many expressions that we can have as a woman whether that includes being a mother or not. What is important is to build a relationship with ourselves as the woman first, develop self-love and build a firm foundation of knowing who we are, then it doesn’t matter what we choose, we are ourselves ahead of any role that we may take on.
Yes agree Donna, a loving relationship with our selves as women without the need to meet any of our own, or society’s expectations is what truly is important because this is the quality we then take into every expression we choose in life.
It is a massive drain to live from the belief of reproductive functioning of the female body as it puts the human frame before our divine essence.
For myself, I had not yet chosen to be a woman before I chose to be a mother.
Yes, likewise for me, Shami. I can now appreciate the importance of connecting to my body and living as a woman that is true to herself first and foremost, because otherwise we are just living from beliefs and ideals of what we should be.
We can impose our wishes on our children in many ways, and wanting grandchildren can be one of them, so pressure to have children can come from parents.
Well said Carmel the need to live the image of a mother is extended in the demands to be a grandmother and that way we are reproducing the cycle forever getting deeper and deeper into the creation of a human existence instead of living our divinity and the true purpose of being here. As Serge Benhayon said “we are the cause of evolution, not the result of it” and that should be lived with full responsibility.
From a very young age we are imposed upon with the belief that we as girls will become woman when we have children. We are even told that having our first period means that we can now have children and are not explained the truth that in fact it is an opportunity to deepen who we are as young woman through becoming aware of the cycles we are part of that allow us to connect to and know the beauty and wisdom of who we are within.
Just reading what you have shared with us Carola brought up an old memory of the list of to do’s and not to do’s when my periods started as a young teenager. The download of ideals/beliefs coming in from all angles particularly teachers at school and family regarding periods, motherhood and babies. No surprise when feeling so vulnerable at that time and then being bombarded with negative dialogue the monthly period became an ordeal and a dread and the thought of being a mother so young really gripped me. We are offered so much more clarity and support now, being so much more aware of our cycles, our connection to our inner sacredness “and to know the beauty and wisdom of who we are within” now that is something celebrate.
Natalie, I can feel the absolute power in the choice you made to not have children and joy of claiming who you are as a woman. You are re-defining what it means to be a woman, as simply being a mother does not make you a woman. We are woman first and cherishing our essence, our sacredness, our tenderness, our cycles and the Divine beauty within is how we live as claimed woman in our power which we can then share the gift of who we are, through reflecting the true quality of a woman, with any child in the world.
Yes, we as women in essence are sacred, and will always be.
Great blog Nathalie, I also don’t have children of my own and I can relate to the process you have been through. I am 43 years old now and I feel better than ever. I don’t feel like I am missing out on anything and I feel very fulfilled. That is because I have a relationship with myself and I have fully accepted that in this life, I won’t be a mother. That said, I am a mother for all those children around me.
Mariette I too do not have children of my own. I made this choice throughout my life but had occasionally doubted my decision from the pressure I felt around me. Now I feel the same as you, I love how I feel as a woman, I feel more of a woman today than ever before. Knowing and loving who I am in essence is the woman I share with all those around me and all the children in my life through which our relationship is deeply honoring, respectful and completely loving.
I feel we are all responsible for this pressure and it would be great if we show the younger generations that having children is a choice and that you are no less of a woman when you are not a mother. We are first and foremost a woman, the rest is extra big present ( ;
I agree Carola and Mariette, the choice to not have children has been a huge decision and I too doubted that choice along the way. But with the connection that feel with myself, who I am as a women, how much I enjoy building relationships with many children in my life, feels true and deeply honouring.
I agree Katie, there is something very powerful about women who embrace the fact that they are a woman first and foremost well before their roles and titles. I’ve always found Natalie Benhayon a great example of a woman who knows exactly who she is, and doesn’t lessen herself to become a ‘daughter’, ‘friend’, ‘co-worker’ or anything.
True Susie. Living in our truth as women, we are too great to be ‘boxed’ into any title or limitation. Natalie and Miranda Benhayon are both perfect examples of this.
‘I feel complete and whole as a woman and not the least less amazing for not having children. I share the whole of me with all the children I meet on my path.’ Such a powerful and claimed statement Nathalie which shows how you have worked through your assumptions and fully claimed your choice to not have children. My choice to become a mother was an active choice that I continue to learn hugely from but I can feel that it also came from a need in me to conform and also a fear of missing out so it is really supportive to explore this subject and the ideals and beliefs that are still lurking around being a mother.
In coming to the understanding that the innate feeling I have for children is not actually determined by having my own, I broke the restrictive mould that I’d otherwise still have myself held by. I agree Nathalie an incredibly freeing realisation to have.
Great point and beautifully said Giselle. It is so true that the love we feel for children is always present and always available to share in full, whether we have our own children or not.
It’s as though we say that parenting, and truly loving children is off limits unless they are your own. How much this diminishes the richness that is available for us all; when we could instead express naturally, as we used to, when an entire community would raise the children, and not just the ‘parents’.
Thank you Nathalie for sharing your story, it has left me pondering how many women actually don’t ask themselves the question of ‘do I really want to be a mother?’ How many women in todays society have without question assumed the image of what a woman looks like to her? Has there been those vital stops in our life where we feel into what it means to honour the woman we are and respond accordingly?
“It’s quite ridiculous to now look at how oblivious I was in regards to my own body and my own life, and to what extent I had taken on a belief from outside of myself. ” As you say we naturally know what is true for us in this life, to have a partner or not, to have kids or not, what kind of work we want, how to exercise and so on it is all known in our bodies. From young and with the intensity of growing up in modern society we often loose touch with our bodies and then instead of our innate knowing start to depend on ideals and beliefs like every body around us is doing. These ideals and beliefs are not what is true to us so will always be causing dis-ease in the body at some point. Letting go of these ideals and beliefs and starting to listen to our bodies again is a blessing to do. Life gets so much more enjoyable if we allow ourselves to just be us.
So powerful to read this Nathalie, your words ‘I came to realize that I am a woman first and foremost’ stood out so clearly to me as they dispel the belief that we buy into that we have to be something other than this. We believe we have to have these many roles to define ourselves as women rather than seeing our true worth comes from loving who we are as women first. So freeing when all we have to be is be who we are and not live to a picture, image or ideal.
How wonderful for all those children in your life now Nathalie to have such a solid self loving woman to be part of their lives. What a beautiful role model, and loving reflection for them.
I agree. We all need this. Sometimes our greatest support and reflection comes from someone who is not our parent by blood.
A gorgeously expansive blog – thank you Natalie. It feels truly emancipating to read about women allowing themselves the freedom of choice as they connect to their own truth and let go of outside impositions. I felt I was doing my duty as a mother by protecting my children from the world and I now realise it was a form of abuse, and an imposition that would have the opposite effect. Like you ‘I did everything I could at the time to try to prevent my brothers from feeling the way I felt – not met, seen or loved’.
This is a very inspiring blog Natalie and one that is important for all women to appreciate themselves as a women first complete as they are . A very empowering journey to feel what is really you for yourself and the love of children that is so present always as they are amazing whose so ever they are. Contentment inside is a beautiful thing and the honouring of yourself says everything.
This is an amazing article Nathalie, thank you for sharing. It’s very confirming of the fact that you don’t have to be a mother in order to be a true ‘woman’ or fulfil a woman’s ‘duty’ during her lifetime. I think what you’ve written here is super important; ‘I came to realise that I am a woman first and foremost, and to become a mother is a choice for each and every one to make on their own’. Some women forget that having children is a CHOICE, and not every woman has to or wants to have kids. It’s about doing what truly supports us and the community, not about meeting certain expectations or ideals.
I agree Susie, motherhood is a choice not an obligation or duty. It carries an immense responsibility that should never be undertaken lightly and every woman has a right to feel if motherhood is the correct choice for her. As you say, there are many factors to consider in terms of what truly supports us and the community we live in and expressing all our gorgeous nurturing, warm and womanly qualities is the number one factor and that we can do whether we have children or not to the benefit of everyone in our communities.
Absolutely Susie, ‘It’s about doing what truly supports us and the community, not about meeting certain expectations or ideals.’
And honouring ourselves, naturally supports the community and provides inspiration for those around us to deeply honour themselves.
We are caught in a cycle of momentum around all kinds of ideals and beliefs that we have as women (as men for that matter), so blogs like Nathalie’s, and the many others on this site are to be applauded because they are ground-breaking, and continue to break the myths which surround us on a daily basis. So thank you Nathalie for setting the ball-rolling. And what I love, is the fact that men are sharing their experiences too, now isn’t that just awesome!
I never realised I had a choice to not have children either. I always assumed I would because that’s what women did. When I came to the same understanding as you Nathalie I felt completely liberated and I love the fact that I don’t have children. I still adore being with them and have made my career from it, but equally feel steady and complete in myself without having my own. Surely this is something that all girls and women could consider as an option?
I also carried the belief that as women, you become a mother. And then a grandmother….I had my life all pictured out. Like you, I love the fact that I don’t have children and the beauty is, I absolutely love children. I have so many gorgeous children in my life and I feel that one day, I will also be working with children. They don’t have to be my own, the love is there for all.
Such an important topic, the pressure on women to mother their own child is so strong, that picture of life that we create that makes us believe we are only complete if we choose to do this or that. There is no one way to live and to become identified with being a mother or father surely takes us away from being ourselves, which is who we must be before we are anything else to anyone else.
I agree what you are saying Stephen, that there is sometimes pressure put on women to have children. But not always, little girls often naturally begin to play with dolls at a young age, tucking them up into prams and cuddling them as if they were old hands at it. So it is as if we are born with a mothering nature already strong inside of us and the only way to express this mothering energy is through playing with dolls and pretending as have real babies. There are of course, some girls who prefer to climb trees and play with fire engines instead… so maybe we have an inner knowing when we’re born whether we will have children or not, and along the way we feel the pressure from others and get caught up in their ideals and beliefs, losing ourselves in the process.
I agree Sandra perhaps the truth is we buy into these ideals and beliefs and rather than honour what we naturally feel, shift who we are to live up to these false beliefs as you say ‘losing ourselves in the process’. What Nathalie shares offers us another way, to be and claim who we really are and follow what is true for us as women to live what we innately feel is true.
So true Stephen. How can we inspire and guide our children to be who they are if we ourselves are not connected to and appreciate all that we already are.
This is where the need and expectation comes in for children to become something, and tick the boxes we have set from our own emptiness…
And yet we wonder why our youth are literally screaming to be met for they really are.
So true Stephen and it is often connection with ourselves many of us are avoiding by becoming identified as a mother. that is exactly how it was for me.
Nathalie, this is so gorgeous to read, ‘I feel complete and whole as a woman and not the least less amazing for not having children. I share the whole of me with all the children I meet on my path.’ Wow, this exposes all of the beliefs that we need children and a family to be complete, when as you write Nathalie we are complete and whole by simply being us – this feels revolutionary, so rarely do we hear this said and yet it feels absolutely true, i feel a sense of claiming of me as a woman when I read this, knowing that I am enough being me and that I do not need children and a husband to feel complete.
There is so much stigma around motherhood and becoming a mother, especially those who don’t want to become one – the inevitable judgement and questions – there is nothing better than having a child, I feel so much more like a woman, why wouldn’t you want a child go your own, what wrong with you. Even those women who have children but hold down full time successful jobs can be judged as not being enough of a mother. And a lot is unspoken judgement or expectation, but it is felt. We really need to address this idea we have around women and motherhood and its necessity to become a true woman.
Very well said Rebecca. We do not have to have kids to be a true women, we are women just by nature of we are born as a woman! All the ideals and beliefs keep us short of the amazingness that it is to simply be a woman.
I agree, and this really needs to be passed on to young girls growing up – that you do not become a woman when you start wearing makeup, for pretty clothes, or when you get married or have kids. All that it is to be a woman is already inside you, ready to develop and grow and be expressed as you grow.
Absolutely Rebecca, what a blessing it would be to know this when growing up. The whole world is basically telling us that it is the make up, wearing a bra, being a mother etc. that makes us into a woman. Yet I can’t stretch it enough and as you so beautifully said: “All that it is to be a woman is already inside you, ready to develop and grow and be expressed as you grow.”
I love how you explain that although children spark joy for you, you do not have to have your own. This ‘ownership’ is a common trap for us as humans and it takes away the true essence of what we feel. Definitely something to look at…
“This ‘ownership’ is a common trap for us as humans and it takes away the true essence of what we feel”… this is so true Jenny, women absolutely, more often than not, fall in love with their own baby, but it appears that some of us appear indifferent to other womens’ children, why is that? After all, if we are part of one big family should we not love, and take responsibility for, honouring all children equally…. so I guess this would reflect the lack of love we have for ourselves because if we were connected to our true essence this issue would not ever come up, we would just accept all children as our own, but honour the responsibility of their birth parents.
Well said Jenny. Children are naturally ‘sparks of joy’, but we cannot try to own this or use it to ignite our own spark – we have to develop it ourselves so we can burn just as brightly and appreciate their fire as our own.
It’s no wonder there are so many mothers that are exhausted, run down and overwhelmed by parenting. If ‘ownership’ and duty is running the show, we are missing out on so much that children offer us, whether we have given birth to them or not.
It is so important to raise our children to understand that little girls don’t have to grow up and have children they are a woman first and foremost. All woman should have the choice whether or not to become a mother and not giving birth does not mean they cannot support in the mothering of all children. If a woman chooses not to birth children of her own that does not make her a lesser woman.
I agree Margaret, but all these ideals and beliefs around motherhood seem to be born with us and have been around for a very long time, and I feel it will take more than just words to come back to the truth – that women have a choice, and that choice is to re-connect to their divinity and then make choices from a place of true love and not succumb to the pressure and opinions of others which are coming from that place of non-truth.
Absolutely Sandra it will take more than just a few words it will take for Women to feel complete and whole as woman first and foremost.
I agree Margaret, I have not presumed that my daughters will automatically want to become mothers. I had that presumption of myself but it is interesting to feel how much I have become aware of the potential to fill my lack of self worth with being a mother and how it is a very unstable footing to raise and support another soul into this world.
Having children was defiantly something I did without really even thinking about it let alone feeling into why I wanted to have then it was just the expected thing I had grown up thinking I would automatically do without any questioning. It is lovely to see so many in my children generation and your children’s generation growing up with a greater awareness of what it is to live as a true woman.
Natalie it’s wonderful to see that you are honouring yourself as a woman first before the need to mother; and that can be other people’s children, and not necessarily your own to feel complete.
A woman’s worth should never be based on whether she chooses to become a mother or not. Simply being a woman is it, the foundational point. Being a mother is secondary to this, it’s just another role, albeit a big one to take up, but no more important then any other role a woman may take on, the responsibility is all the same.
How important are women who have claimed the woman they are without having kids, like Nathalie is saying ‘I feel complete and whole as a woman and not the least less amazing for not having children. I share the whole of me with all the children I meet on my path.’ True role models for everyone.
Well said Anna. Being a mother, daughter, sister, wife or any other role comes SECOND to being a woman. We cannot put the duties and expectations of motherhood ahead of our fundamental responsibility to look after ourselves as women.
Agreed Susie, I have first hand experience of what happens when we do this. Its like taking something so grand and vastly beautiful, shaking it around, forcing it this way and that, and although the grandness and beauty can never be tarnished, it can feel a long way from us….we would save ourselves a lot of hurt if we chose not to lose ourselves as women first and foremost.
Women who do not have children still have the mothering ability in their being and I have observed this in women that I have met. I agree, Anna, that having children is not a measure of our worth and does not detract from the gorgeousness of our female expression.
“I am forever grateful to Miranda and Serge Benhayon who supported me during the time I felt most confused and lost. They put things in perspective for me and it allowed me a deeper understanding of the way that I needed.”….how much incredible light have Miranda and Serge Benhayon (and the rest of the incredible Universal Medicine Practitioners) shown on so many people who have been (and are) confused and lost. The Ageless Wisdom that they connect to (that we all can) supports us and brings so much into perspective – that no matter what your issue – you can find a way to the truth.
“Who will I be if I am not a mother? Who will I be and what will I do with myself?” Yep, know that one. I used to try to imagine life without children and it seemed so. well, long is the word that springs to mind! Long and empty. Very exposing of my relationship with myself (or more pertinently, lack thereof). But now, as this relationship is becoming more stable and deepening, the future feels full. This is cause for celebration indeed 🙂
Beautiful sharing Lucy, thank you. When we do choose to become a mother we can still be left with questions. For me it was ‘who am I?’ as I realised I had chosen to have children from a need to fill what was missing in myself. Of course this didn’t work and it was only since developing a loving relationship with myself that those needs have begun to drop away.
Many women (people) equate the question ‘who am I?’ with roles, and mothering is one of them, but also countless others. Lovely to know that when we develop a loving relationship with self, the need to be identified with by what we do is no longer relevant, and as you say ‘drops away.’
Life is full Lucy, with or without children, when we connect to our own preciousness. ‘The grass is always greener..’ syndrome simply reflects our unhappiness with now, and feeling if I have ‘that’ all will be well. Whereas finding ‘that’ in the now is what life offers and the place to start is always ourselves. We’re celebrating with you!
A very powerful sharing Lucy – how many women have babies because they feel empty? It takes courage to open up a honest discussion about this.
What a terrible feeling to have the one thing you thought would complete you and realise that it in fact cannot and will not ever complete you.
I sit here nodding my head in response to your sharing Susan and Mary,
I found it most difficult at times having once given birth and raising our children it was the pressure of not only my high expectations I had of myself as a new mother but also having to work with the loaded pressure of others views on how to do this. (ideals and beliefs) Great description Mary ‘traversing a mine field of opposing opinions”. This did not at all ease any self-doubt issues that would creep in through the exhaustion and tiredness that followed.
The one that got me was the only real purpose in life was to have a child. Now I know my purpose is to be all of me each day, children or not!
Well said Heather.
This is awesome to read Nathalie. At 47 I can pretty safely say that I won’t have children now, but for me it has not been a choice I could make for myself. I feel accepting of the fact that I have not become pregnant, which feels great in itself, but I didn’t shut the door on the possibility and can feel this as a drain of energy – a constant ‘what if?’ which set me up for disappointment when my period came.
that is such a good comment Lucy because you are not alone at all. The realisation it is not happening and the disappointment when the period comes is such a drain, it can be an all consuming preoccupation. I am finding the support that is available in the community to talk about what lies underneath the motherhood ideal when it is not possible to have children is vital to address this longing and re-engage with who we really are and life.
Great sharing Lucy which exposes the false belief behind being a mother. I can relate to your experience as I decided not to become a biological mother from a knowing, but not from a body feeling as the images were too ingrained in me and it took me a long time to let go of them and listen to what my body was communicating to me. The images are so strong that we totally override the bodies messages.
Great point rachelandras, those images and influences are so strong, and it’s only from the body that we can connect to whether it is really a true calling to give birth or not.
The images are very strong rachelandras, especially the ones about women and motherhood.
Oh yes, feeling a failure for not becoming pregnant. I have felt this too. Its another clear marker of how far we have turned from the truth. It’s an incredibly reductionist and bastardised version of the truth that we are absolutely full to the brim by being ourselves. Nothing to prove in order to be accepted as a woman. We are born women and we are divine.
What I find interesting about all of this that many women are desperate to have children but then get stressed out or don’t cope too well when they do become mothers, really keen to get them off to school and “off their hands”. This begs the question why women want children in the first place and what ideals and needs they feel are being met when pregnancy occurs. Do you remember the slogan ” a puppy is for life, not just for christmas”? Well I feel the same way about babies!! When we enter into motherhood are we really prepared not just for the babyhood and toddlerhood years, but the long haul – the teenage years and beyond? Are we prepared to acknowledge that as a parent we are responsible for supporting our children to know themselves in full, to accept themselves in full and to love themselves in full for all that they are and all that they bring. If we can’t do this for ourselves then we can’t do if for them and are only adding to the disconnection and discord that we are so in reaction to ourselves.
This is a great point Lucy. I would say there are many women who do not have children due to circumstance, rather than choice. That is, living in the ‘what if’ and waiting for the right relationship, timing, conditions etc. to make the decision, rather than a knowing of whether it is actually true for you or not.
“waiting for the right relationship, timing, conditions etc…” rather than feeling what is true for ourselves is yet another way we allow the dictates of society to being the driving force in our lives. I know it was what I did, so when it came to being the ‘right time’ my body and soul had other plans.
I used to believe this for myself too that circumstances didn’t permit me to have children because no man ‘had chosen me,’ so therefore it wasn’t my choice to have kids, however, I have learnt that I created these circumstances and kept people out so this was my choice.
Wow, reading these comments I’m realising at a deeper level how all these ideals about what a woman has to be and do, and how we can think ourselves as failures if we don’t do these things…. all set up so the we do not connect to what a woman is here to bring: mothering energy is for all, not just for one or two in one’s pack as it were. Whether a woman has chosen to give birth or not, makes no difference to her quality as a woman and to her natural connection to mothering. Women have so much to bring to humanity, and these ideals that women themselves take on, keep them — i.e. us — in constant distraction from our true purpose and power.
Yes Mary, we women need to support each other and collectively work on breaking the consciousness that women are born to have babies and therefore are failing as a woman when they have not. I am also just now realizing that it is absurd that in all of this we are leaving men out in the equation of having a child.
I love your honest sharing Lucy, thank you.
I had the same experience Mary, and now as a woman with no children of my own, I can see that the love and joy I have for the children that are in my life is an immense blessing. It is irrelevant if they are “my children”, for actually true love is equal for all.
“I am a woman first and foremost”. This sentence is gold and relevant for all women! For me this was a life-changing concept especially when being a mother. It is still an important reminder to never identify with any role, being it daughter, mother, employee and others.
I love this line also Monika, though I feel how important it is that we claim this from a deep knowing tenderness within and not in any reaction to the awareness that we have left ourselves for these roles, and the hurt we feel from this.
I love what you write here, Anna “claim this from a deep knowing tenderness within”. Everything from a reaction or hurt is harming and doesn’t honour our innate divinity.
I love that “claim this from a deep knowing tenderness within” I just realized that I am still falling in the reaction. Well in general lately I am aware of how much reaction there is – luckily there is my body that is so supportive and yesterday after self sabotaging acts observed later there was this deep inner knowing that I am love anyway no matter what and yes it is a choice and that I can chose which energy is expressed through me and take deeper responsability in a loving way and as you write in this sentence with absolute tenderness. It’s like to live again and trust, also my body that I am not judged and do not have to be punished from the outside nor from myself if I did something wrong. Recognise a mistake and then hold myself lovingly. I appreciate that even though I allowed this energy in that at the same time I could observe it and this I truly appreciate now – it is uncomfortable to expose all these believes and ideals and knowing that I still hang onto them knowing that they are harming, blaming others instead of taking responsability myself. I felt yesterday, that this just does not work anymore and feel my level of awareness and honesty is growing so I feel that it’s just a game which I can chose to stop expressing and that feels power-full.
It is great to read this blog to support myself in the process of choosing from a deep inner knowing of tenderness and love whether to have my own children or not and claiming that no matter – I am equally so an amazing woman and I am already amazing in mothering. I also read how healing – if healed and clear within us and connected to the woman within – it is for children to then be around women like that. As they can just be. I lived that so many times and then people said you gonna be an amazing mum which shows how deeply ingrained this is that you have to have own children. Before being a student of the Way of the Livingness I enjoyed hearing that and now going deeper and being honest – no not at all – it would have just been lovely if they confirm ME or just tell me wow how amazing are you now, right in that moment with the children and the details and what makes it so amazing and tell this instead of this above really common – empty sentence. I do not judge that as for them in saying this they are not aware and actually want to express exactly that and its just their lack of awareness and expression why then this other sentence comes out. So I can understand as it happened and happens to me also with other sentences.
So true Anna, for me it has only been through accessing the hurts I’ve carried and carry that has allowed myself the precious space to appreciate what it is they cover up – a deeply sensitive, gorgeous woman.
Beautiful Anna. What you have added is another dimension here to accepting oneself. In claiming who we are first and foremost with the loving tenderness we are made of is one very potent combination! There is nothing then in the way of our natural loving expression which is a healing for all we come into contact with. Gorgeous.
Great point Monica. Having children is the number one classic role for a woman that, along side being a wife, we have been born into assuming or buying outright, yet in truth any role is but an image that can actually have nothing to do with what we are each here for this time around.
Exactly, Giselle, identifying with a role we have leave us of who we are in full. Images influence our behavior, our thoughts and the choices we make. Images always set us up for failure and disappointment and they make us forget how magnificent and glorious we actually are.
Yes to bring the woman to mothering or to bring the woman to a relationship is a huge blessing.
Yes Monika and it is so widely misunderstood. We are told we are selfish or inconsiderate if we put ourselves before another but how can we truly care for another if we have not cared for ourselves first?
As much as we would like to pretend we are a man, particularly at work, we are women. Our muscles are inherently smaller, our nurturing ability is exquisite, and our expression is from a place of stillness. These and many other qualities are to be honoured.
I was reminded of that myself today – not that I need reminding these days. In fact not that long ago I almost wanted to be a man. I was doing something today and I could just feel how tender I was and that if I had have pushed harder I would have lost that feeling of such delicacy. Way to precious to let go of.
Children adore women that are not imposing on them, but allow them to simple be who they are. This gives them space and trust that there is not something they have to do or give
Absolutely and this reflection can be crucial if it is in contrast to the expectations that they often feel from parents or other adults in their lives.
Children feel the difference and experience the truth of real love.
Parents can often feel like their children are a reflection of them so there is a want/need for their children to be a certain way- the less invested we are the more we are truly able to connect with who they are, what they need and learn how to support this.
I agree MW the more we are able to see them who they are and let go of our expectations, investments and sympathy for them the more they are able to feel and express in their natural way.
Absolutely spot on. I grew up with an army of au pair girls and I loved them all! They accepted me for who I was and simply enjoyed hanging out with me. I could just be myself. This was the case with my Grandmother and a Great Aunt too.
What a healing for all of you, Michelle, simple enjoying hanging out with each other and being yourselves. That must have effected every one in the house and those around you all as well.
I know it would have brought some joy to the house (growing up we were quite an empty and tense household). The au pairs would support us (my sisters and I) and my twin and I would support them simply by being open and loving. Many of them told us they stayed on because of me and my twin. What with the au pairs and our 3 dogs there was a lot of light and connection, despite the difficulties – a lot to appreciate!
True mothering is an energy and has nothing to do with whether you birthed a child or not.
True. I am not a mother in the biological sense of the word, but I love being around and with children and be there for them as someone to play with, as a support and a reflection. Energetically I am with many other women a ‘mother’ to them.
What I love about what you are sharing here is that everyone is responsible for raising children and for supporting one another. To reduce “mothering” into its conventional meaning reduces our openness to one another and negates our responsibility within our communities to all.
I can relate to what you have shared here Caroline. I am also not a mother but I provide much nurturing and support to many children and because I am not invested I can feel there are many times where I am able to be able to provide the clarity and support they need without having pictures of what I want them to be which can come in when we have investments with others.
Yes Caroline, I can feel the same. It feels so gorgeous to mother children that are not our own, play with them and support them whether we are the biological parent or not. I was at the swimming pool yesterday and there was a mother with a young daughter and twin girls of about 18 months. I instinctively felt to help to dry the hair of the twins. It was a beautiful moment of connection with her and her children and felt so innately natural to support her.
Beautifully expressed MW so much more clarity is available when we are not invested in the outcome.
Said in one Monika R. And begins with ourselves.
Simply said and so true. It is an innate quality within.
Absolutely Monika. Every woman knows innately how to mother, and when mothering in its true sense, is what is needed. It is an expression, not who we are.
This is so true, young children can very quickly call nanny’s mummy, which is right because as a nanny you are looking after, keeping safe and nurturing the young child by mothering it even though you did not birth the child.
Gorgeous example, Fiona. Children pick this mothering energy up instantly and respond to it with saying ‘mummy’. Sometimes their mum freak out over another woman being called mummy, because there can be an identification with being a mum.
“Who will I be if I am not a mother? Who will I be and what will I do with myself?” All the questions we ask ourselves that aren’t supporting us to feel and commit to the truth of our lives. What the outside world thinks of us can feel very important in the beginning. Our bodies know the truth, just like you share in this blog, Nathalie, a weight lifted of your shoulders when you decided not to want to become a mother by giving birth.
“Who will I be if I am not a mother? Who will I be and what will I do with myself?” , I know that when I made the choice to have a baby I couldn’t wait to give up work and stay at home…. and when the baby was around two years old I couldn’t wait to go back to work! And when she was four years old I couldn’t wait for her to go to school… and so it goes on, the grass is always greener and all because we have lost that feeling of love with ourselves when we are connected to our divinity because if we still had it EVERY moment would be a treasure, and that means whether we have children or not.
Gosh what a process to go through! When my first child was born I struggled not being at work because I had built up an identification through what I did and to suddenly change and then to identify as a “mother” was a battle. I see that this is something many women experience. However rather than identify with what I do it is important that I connect to myself and accept myself in full for all that I am. In this way all of me is taken into everything I do with no identification needed!
This just shows how so much in life we are always looking ahead to the next thing never fully present and content with where we are at. Its the illusion we have been sold that we have to get somewhere in life, however when we get there it is just then replaced with new pictures of where we need to get too next forever leaving a feeling of dissatisfaction and emptiness.
Beautiful examples SH. If we can surrender to what each of us it here to bring on earth, the form or role in which we do that doesn’t matter anymore. Children can be part of our lives in so many different ways, we narrow it down by having to give birth as being the only way.
We are always racing ahead of ourselves, sometimes not completing one task or chapter of our lives, and already we have our sights set on what’s next. In this state of constant motion and action trying to fulfill the images and picture that we are fed about how our lives should look, we avoid the stillness, joy and true purpose of what we are here to do.
It feels such a relief to let go more and more of the identifications in my life the idea’s and images that I have been fed and taken on as mine, never questioning if they are true. As I connect more and more to my body and its tenderness and allowing that in my movements, a different sense of purpose arises in my life, that not so much about creating the pictures but more what is needed for all others.
All the ideals imposed and perpetrated by society, such as to become a mother because that’s what you have to do to be a successful woman of sorts, get married etc etc serve to smother and take out of sight the true purpose every woman holds in her body. By virtue of being a woman we naturally can mother not just one child or two, but an entire planet of human beings, we can nurture so deeply, not just our own family but everyone around us. A woman’s purpose is to be a woman, first and foremost and always, to reflect back to all those in her sphere that the stillness and fragility that is held in every woman’s body is for all — and this has to underpin humanity’s way if it is to become true.
“the stillness and fragility that is held in every woman’s body is for all”, so true and beautifully put. Every woman has a responsibility in connecting to these qualities and share them with everyone.
What an awesome responsibility! To be still and full of love in our full power!
Yes Vanessa, it’s an amazing responsibility and it brings so much joy just to feel it… and at the same time we avoid it and ‘forget’ about it, buying into false ideals and a big massive lie about who we are and what we are here to do…. crazy to consider why and how we set ourselves up like this.
Beautifully said Katerina, it really is the role of each women to be a women first and foremost, not to wear all the hats that tend to come with being a woman. But to reconnect to the stillness that is innately within us all.
Absolutely I agree Katarina, as men we need to honor and support women in this super important role that they have, the stillness and nurturing is something men have strayed afar from, and desperately need this reflection from women to re-ignite it in ourselves. Its important that women don’t aspire to the same competitive way of driving themselves in the work force and that men don’t demand that of them, rather bring deep understanding of the sacredness that women bring, and without that reflection we as men are lost.
“Our bodies know the truth”, a very powerful and simple truth.
Yes, our bodies know the truth always, it is us who sometimes don’t listen and override the messages. We have such a profound and accurate compass in our bodies. It makes me realize more and more the importance of treasuring my body.
They speak so loudly when we are eating unwell or not exercising, it is clear they do know the truth. The time has come for humanity to recognise the wisdom of the body.
That is so key your last sentence “decided not to want to become a mother by giving birth.” we are all able to express with mothering energy without giving birth, often they are able to be truer parents as their is not the emotional investments with the children.
Well said Vanessa and this exposes the fact that reducing ourselves to human beings and to “blood lines” is not true. We all express with mothering energy when needed we just use the biological connection as an excuse to be emotional, which only comes from our own need to be loved. Deciding to be a biological mother is therefore a question of responsibility and not ownership.
Nathalie, if you had made the choice to be a mother when you could feel that wasn’t for you to do in this life, you would then have closed the door on other opportunities you could otherwise have be offered to bring your qualities and your unique flavour to life.
Motherhood is a true calling for some women and others it isn’t. Yet, there is a stigma and culture that girls are indoctrinated into from a young age. Women who buy into this consciousness will often make decisions about whether or not to have children from the beliefs this culture feeds them, such as ‘you’ll never know fulfilment as a woman without children.’ How many preschools are full of the children of women who knew deep down that being a mother wasn’t truly for them but followed the dictates of he culture they had bought into in their own childhoods.
What is the effect on the children of mothers who didn’t become mothers from their own truth? By and large, if a woman has had a baby under the influence of a consciousness such as the one surrounding mothering, do they go into motherhood bringing their true selves or do they go in playing a role they have grown up to aspire to?
The point you have raised is of great importance Kate, as the consciousness that we allow then dictates what our future generations will be, if a woman has a child from these strongly held ideals and beliefs, then from the start there in a un-truth or even dishonesty about mothering, as its coming from an image and not a loving impulse of bringing a child into this world.
Although it might seem like a small difference, the point of making it clear that to be a mother is a choice second to being who you already are is so important – from girls having baby dolls when they are themselves only babies, to being asked how many kids they want and what their marriage will look like, it is time we started to give them the space to chose for themselves what feels right.
Nathalie, even this title feels huge, ‘A Woman’s Choice: To Become a Mother, or Not’ It is rare that this choice is respected with women, it is very expected that women will want to have children and if they don’t have children then there must be something wrong, whereas we are women first and having children is a choice, how often do people have children because this is the ‘norm’, and expected thing to do, how often do we question this and feel into whether having children is actually true for us, I love what you are sharing here Nathalie, this feels very empowering for women.
Dear Nathalie,
I actually voiced today for the first time how my life up to now has felt like it was predestined and mapped out for me from what I thought was expected of a woman. Grow up, get married, have children and then stay with my marriage til death. Whilst I did all of these things, and loved many aspects of my life, there were others in which I felt my choice is not important and hense a deep unrest was present as an undercurrent in my life.
Then I made the choice to break this pattern and seperate. For the first time I now feel like my life is a blank canvas that through my choices I am going to paint. I too Nathalie am learning about choice.
I have noticed this as well with people close to me: thinking whether to have children or not but no real sense of the responsibility that comes with it, more all about their own expectations and needs.
We are not all born to be a mother this life, I knew my life this time round was about learning to know me and learning to honour my feelings and knowing what true love is. I never felt a strong impulse to have children, and chose animals as the ‘safer’ option, but I absolutely love children and enjoy other people’s children no different to them being my own.
So many women feel that they can only be complete when they have children. It is a huge picture that we carry. There was a time when women could not even speak up about not wanting to have children as it was seen as something shameful and unnatural. It is great that this is no longer the case.
Yes and what about the women who physically couldn’t have children or weren’t able to find a husband before the ubiquitous body clock expired? This was something that was feared by women for the stigma that it attracted.
Many of us get trapped in ideals and beliefs of all kinds, and do not even realise we actually do have a choice, and when we think we are making a choice it is still within the confinement of the ideals and beliefs and we have not quite surpassed that. We need to come off the battle ground to see how big the actual damage is.
Yes the trap of ideals and beliefs is so strong that it is only when we are able to question and step outside them that we can claim the freedom to choose what feels true for us which this blog so beautifully illustrates.
In no way does true beauty ever come from what we do without first and foremost coming from a place within us known as our essence. Our essences are all the same, woman or man, mother or not, it never changes and hence our true definition of who we are is not based on what roles we play or what ideals we fall for. But rather it is based on the true love within us
Thank you Nathalie, it is true that we are never asked if we want to become a mother or a father of our own children. I too cannot remember being told that there is a choice you can make whether to become one or not. It was just a casualness in a humans life, al the other, the people that where without children, where actually marked as odd.
It is wonderful to know there is a choice,( there always has been,) but it is more acceptable in society today to decide not to have children and to know you are not missing out or going to change your mind at a later date . Many women have very fulfilling lives without children of their own and as you say Nathalie, you have a lovely connection with many children of family and friends and that is beautiful.
Thank you Natalie and what an amazing feeling that must be to realise that you actually have a choice and that in choosing to not have children you are no lesser a real and gorgeous woman as a result. And this does not make you any less of a mother either, all it means is that you do not have your own personal kids to look after, but you can still connect with, care for, cherish and support all the other children in your life, regardless of whose family they belong to. When we connect with this truth, it empowers us to connect with the deeper truth that we are all one family and therefore we all have a responsibility and duty of care to all our children, regardless of race, nationality or indeed family bonds. Expressing our qualities as a woman and as a mother is equally available to all women, it is not reliant on physically having our own kids.
Nathalie, this is gorgeous what you have shared! I can relate in so many ways, though my situation has been somewhat different. Growing up, from age 12 onwards (and even before that) I was always very keen to babysit and landed myself with the most amazing child minding jobs jobs you could imagine – aside from the ‘normal’ baby sitting jobs, of which there was no shortage of, I also had times when I would look after 3 young children, the dog, house, car etc all for over a week whilst the parents went away overseas. Parents trusted me fully with their kids, and I loved being there are caring for them and running the house and home (as well as studying and part time working too). Because of my amazing connection with kids (who always loved me and kept asking their parents to have me back), I always thought that I would have at least 3 children of ‘my own’. I mean at least 3! When I finally felt ready to have children of my own and was in a stable and established relationship, as soon as we made the decision to have a child, within 2 months I was pregnant. But then things changed as my pregnancy was not a pleasant one and then when my son was born he was the worst sleeper you can imagine. So for 2 years I barely slept and was a zombie and my relationship with my husband was on the rocks. Though for some strange reason I would still have loved to have more children, and I still had this image of having at least 3 kids, my husband and I made the decision that our relationship was more important than having more children, and that we needed to focus on us. And so we made the decision that 1 child was enough. Though this felt like the right decision, I found so much sadness come up from letting go of the image of having a large family. I got some amazing support from Miranda Benhayon, who helped me understand and feel that our family was already complete, that no more children were ‘needed’ and that what was presenting for me was an opportunity to develop my relationship with myself first and foremost! And this has been amazing to take on board. Interestingly, my son never wanted any siblings, and each time we asked him if he would have wanted a brother or sister he would just shake his head and say no very clearly.
Funnily enough though, our house is always full of children as half the neighbourhood kids get drawn to hanging out with my son at our place. So in effect we have a very big family anyways, only I did not give birth to them all.
The key thing in all this is that I always had this image of needing to ‘make’ a large family with lots of kids, and always thought that they had to be birthed by me. And there was this sadness that was overwhelming at times, which I though was from missing having more children – until I realised the sadness was from missing my relationship with me and was not from the absence of kids. In fact I feel that if I would have insisted on having more children, this would have just been a distraction from the sadness and hence I would never have allowed myself to feel it and grow from it by connecting deeper to the woman I am.
Pictures and images of how our life should be and look like are all distractions for us to not live the fullness and in the glory of who we really are.
And those images take away that self responsibility we al have in life, to make our own conscious choice that what we fits in our life and not to blindly follow the ‘commonly accepted standard’ as portrayed by the images provided.
Spot on, Donna, so many distractions for us women to sidetrack us from the stillness we are and the nurturing energy we emanate. Without images and pictures we are the goddesses God made us to be.
The ideals and beliefs surrounding having children, or not, or the fascination some people seem to have with anyone who has only one child, is so ingrained that I found myself biting my tongue on more than one occasion with my daughter recently, who has just had her first baby, saying that maybe the next one would be easier and she hasn’t even left hospital yet with the first one!!!
Talk about relief – I think there are many of these ideals that we live with without even noticing it, it’s only when the path of these ideals and the path of what is true to us deviate too much that we realise something’s not right.
Nathalie, a huge thank you for writing this article! It gave me much to ponder on as I hadn’t realised that I was holding onto quite a few ideas about being a woman and having children – i’d just pushed them down because I haven’t been in a relationship for a while so the topic had not “come up” so to speak.
This is a great blog Nathalie that will help in breaking down the consciousness surrounding the expectation for women to have babies lest their life be left unfulfilled and I love that you were able to break this down for yourself and see your true value as a woman.
It’s a really valid point you make Mary and I feel partly because we can be looking to fill the void of the lack of connection to ourselves as women and hoping to gain recognition and a sense of self worth through the children.
I still feel awkward at times when people ask me if I have children, as if “No” is possibly the wrong answer. There almost seems to be an expectation that “Yes” is a happier answer or somehow better. However after many years, as much as I love children I feel strongly it’s not my expression in this life to be a mother. Yet, I have mothering issues! And I adore and love kids. Life doesn’t have to make sense to idealised pictures, it’s just about living our truth.
Once we embrace the woman, the choice is clear to see, its not about the induvial but about the whole, if we are all mothers then who will be reflecting mothering without having children?
Nathalie, this is amazing to read, it is so refreshing, i can feel how strong the idea that women need to have children is and how freeing to realise that it is a choice, that we are no less as women if we do not have children, I feel the same pressure with having a second child, it is like there is something wrong with me if I only have one child – this is crazy but is a very set idea in society.
Spot on Rebecca, I can also relate to the expectation to have a second child, and how people assume that you perhaps are unable to have a child, have fertility issues, etc. It is hard for some to accept that one child might be just perfect for your family.
When I worked as a Reflexologist I had many women come to me for treatments who were trying to get pregnant. There was a common theme. They were women in their late 30’s who were obviously strong women in their own right who were suddenly desperate to have a child before it was too late. For some it was something they really wanted, but for others it was the pressure from their families that was making them act in a way that did not make sense or feel true for those particular women. It felt awful to witness these powerful women reduced to wanting something so badly in order to do the right thing and please others. As a society we really do need to take a good look at the effects of our expectations and beliefs.
Rebecca I met an elder lady a few years back when walking, she shared that she never wanted kids but it was expected of her, so she had children. It was obvious the strain and suffering she had lived by not being able to freely express herself as the woman she truly is. It’s great that Nathalie got to the realisation she has a choice, but many knew what was right but we’re still expected to be mothers. This is definitely a topic we can support many women on.
I agree, there is much support needed for woman on this subject.
This blog to me isn’t about wether we are mothers or not, it’s actually about CHOICE and wether we are willing to embrace being woman first and fore most, which sounds simple but often we choose to hide behind roles and pictures, so this simple task can be challenging for us at the best of times.
Yes, it is the realisation that we have a choice that is the important part. Many women feel they do not have a choice because of the pressure and expectations placed on them. It is important that women, even when under pressure from the people around them, know that they have a choice.
Reading your blog I remembered when I was younger I really wanted a younger or baby brother (I am the youngest of four girls). Reflecting on this now though what I can see is that I knew I was loving and good at caring and so wanted to provide this for another. However, with high insight and the reflections given by Natalie Benhayon and Esoteric Women’s Health what I know now is that love and care should have first and foremost been given to me by me, something which I bypassed as self-love and self-care is not something we are currently taught. Although I would say it’s pretty good now 😀 .. although there is always room for improvement 💕
Well said Vicky – In my experience I felt much sadness at the decision to not have another child. But this sadness was not from ‘missing’ a second child, it was more of the sadness in realising how much I was and had neglected my relationship with myself. We can easily re-interpret the sadness and feel we ‘need’ a child to fullfill ourselves as women, but as you have said, first and foremost we can give that love and care and deep nurturing to ourselves and develop that relationship with self first. And then the rest unfolds from there with far greater clarity.
What I really love about this blog by Nathalie Sterk, is how she has chosen Joy over misery, and by this I mean that she has chosen to take responsibility for her life and choose her life, which has brought not only great joy to herself, but to all of us as well because we get to read about it.
This is totally inspiring Nathalie, to all those women out there who have been in the same spot you were and are and that is, not impulsed to have children. To come to a point with yourself where you can feel completely at ease and accepting of your choice is difficult with the way the world is at this time, but one day that will change and little girls will know that they always have a choice to whether they decide to have children or not when they get older.
How beautiful Natalie that you have been able to feel the truth underneath all the ideals and beliefs around woman needing to have children otherwise they are incomplete and lesser. Such an imposing belief held by many. I too had believed this. Thanks to Serge Benhayon, Miranda,and Natalie Benhayon I now know this is not necessary.
We choose to have babies for many reasons, to hide, to fulfil, societal pressure, biological clock etc but I’m also wondering if the baby to be has a choice. We are more than a single choice to have or not have a child so I’m contemplating all the facets that bring a child into this world or not as sometimes when we choose not to we can also fall pregnant.
I was not able to have children through the choices i had inadvertently made but I also struggled with the ideal and belief that you are not a women unless you have children. I love what you have expressed here ‘I feel complete and whole as a woman and not the least less amazing for not having children. I share the whole of me with all the children I meet on my path.’We are all amazing and beautiful women, no matter what our choices are. Lovely blog.
The presumption to have ‘a baby’ as a female has shifted now as not all women choose to partner with the opposite sex. We have many gay women in relationships that either through choices decide to have a child or not. So presuming that a women is ‘born to bare a child’ is no longer an assumption I would impose on another, and I feel I am part of a growing number of people that appreciate the women’s choices whatever they be.
I love your point but in my opinion it has only really shifted slightly. Gay woman might have a little more leeway but what I realised after reading this blog is that I may have unintentionally pressured woman into “mothering”. From what i see, there is still a strong belief of the biological clock ticking and an unawareness when giving what is perceived as a compliments to woman by saying things like, “You will make a great mother one day”.
This is a great blog that supports so many women who still carry the guilt or angst of “thinking” that they need to be mothers rather than understanding that this is choice each women has the right to make. We can choose the clothes we wear, the car we drive, the house we live in and the country we work in. How can this be any different?
This is beautiful – “I came to realize that I am a woman first and foremost, and to become a mother is a choice for each and every one to make on their own.” you could apply that to so many situations
This is true Jessica, being a woman first and what is true for our body should be in our foundation for every choice we make.
The thing is, that as women we pursue the need for children and then lose ourselves in mothering. It is very easy to identify with being a mother and to check out in the all the images that we are supposed to do with our children. When women connect to the divine sacredness we are and bring that in expression to humanity, we are so deeply powerful and have so much to bring. If this is brought with having children, that’s awesome, but for me the alternative is no longer an option.
I love your point emmadanchin “When women connect to the divine sacredness we are and bring that in expression to humanity” we will have a powerful foundation for having and raising the next generation.
I have had a similar such awakening Nathalie and indeed it is quite a moment, to realize the richness and depth of life available to us a woman without needing to have children. Whatever choice we do make, just knowing this fully in our bodies, changes everything. I have a nearly 8 yo daughter that I share with her Dad so she is not with me all of the time and I have noticed that the more I embody and embrace my divine qualities as a woman, the less need and attachment I have of her. It’s amazing. And now being 38, the question of another child still lingers but it is incredible to know that there is a choice and it would not be a loss to choose not to.
Any decision in life, when based on a strong foundation of love and what feels true has the right to be followed through free from Societal dictation and judgement. Any thing that falls outside ‘the Norm’, a ‘Norm’ that has been setup by a Society disconnected from who they truly are needs to be challenged. Re-connecting to truth via the Love we are will bring the harmony, joy and stillness the world so desperately needs.
Yes Christine, our foundations as women and as a society generally are not based on love, so we are seeing the results of a loveless society an indeed re- connecting to truth via love is our first step in changing the direction society is choosing.
What a beautiful healing you have experienced Natalie and thank you so much for sharing this with us all. I feel many women have this belief you speak of, about being a mother, that somehow we are not complete if we do not fulfill this role. As you say, we are women first and foremost, and then to choose to be a mother is separate to this, but it does not make us more or less a woman.
What a gorgeous blog Nathalie. I also grew up without the slightest thought that I would not be a mother one day. At that time it seemed the only women who didn’t have kids were ones who ‘couldn’t or remained single. Both of these options were viewed as being somehow incomplete as a woman. Now that I am a mother, I can very clearly feel that being a mum can be a great way to avoid being a woman in my own right (ironic to say the least!)
Fiona I relate to your point, ” I can very clearly feel that being a mum can be a great way to avoid being a woman in my own right.” I didn’t choose to loose myself in motherhood but did, because I didn’t value myself as a woman first. So to choose to have a child from a position of knowing yourself as a women first, puts a different emphasis on the pregnancy and possibly the choices along the way.
“I can very clearly feel that being a mum can be a great way to avoid being a woman in my own right” I completely relate to this and felt quite sad when I realised this a few years ago. I used becoming a mother as my purpose in life and completely immersed and identified myself in this role to make myself feel worthy. It was after developing breast cancer that I have had the opportunity to readdress my choices and how I care for and regard myself as a woman first.
I agree Nathalie – there is much we get caught up in regarding ideals and beliefs about birthing our own children. My experience was different in the way I chose not to have children. Not as clear and fully claimed as your choice – more from reaction to parenting. It is awesome to look at the truth “to be or not to be”.
Thank you for sharing your experience of ‘choice’ in this beautiful blog Nathalie. So many ideas, ideals, thoughts and images stand like pillars around us, casting shadows, blocking the light that brings true intelligence to us.
I just find it fascinating how an idea can be lodged so carefully, so artfully into our heads that it feels like it is a part of us – to be a mother, to be clever, to be successful etc etc. All these things become a focus, a goal to work towards or to feel unhappy about yet none of them are allowing us to just be who and what we naturally are. The healing is palpable in your blog Nathalie, to let that ideal go, and enjoy you and the world for what they are already.
Absolutely agreed – “an idea can be lodged so carefully, so artfully into our heads that it feels like it is a part of us”. For me it is being clever, at least it has been – but I can see how is that pressure in society to get married and have kids and how that could affect people very strongly
Yes it’s amazing how those carefully lodged ideas can take over and become such a focus that all else is forgotten, and most of all, us and actually feeling we can choose. What I love about Nathalie’s sharing is how tangible it is and how when she came to knowing it was a choice there was a huge letting go, and an understanding that it’s always been a choice, a gorgeous reminder for us when we get stuck on anything.
I am a mother, but I did go through a time when I really felt that I had to have another child for so many pictures were in my head, for example, I needed a big family, it was important for the children to have siblings etc etc and the list goes on. Similar to you, the time went on and I met many men but not the right one and the pressure was there from my daughter too to have a sister or brother but one day I realised that I actually didn’t want another one and that I could let go of that ideal. It was so freeing to realise that I actually had a choice and didn’t need to be stuck by what I thought I needed instead of feeling and knowing what was right for me at the time.
I am still old enough or young enough to change my mind if I wanted to, but there is no longer any push and drive or need and that is awesome.
That’s brilliant Rosie – I think everyone’s situation is different in life, and if we have these ‘pictures’ we have to live up to then we are always imprisoned by them – but if we realise that we are not a ‘failure’ if we don’t tick a box, then that can set you free
I agree, I have known woman whom think children are the answer to completing their life and worried that if they don’t have them they will feel incomplete.
The reality to having kids is they all feel like yours and none of them feel like yours at the same time. Mothering it doesn’t really make you feel any different,or deliver a completeness. With mothering comes more work, defiantly more to do and more reflection but equally so when you don’t have kids and you are committed to life and service, more work and more reflection still happens.
Good point Sarah – I don’t know whether it will work out with me having kids or not (being young!) – but I can say that I love all the kids that I teach & know
Before I had children, Like you, I always had a special connection and love for kids I met and interacted with.I thought I wanted to be a teacher when I was young. I had a picture that having my own children would be like that. What I discovered is the refection that is offered when you have kids can be more intense, if you have buried or chosen not to deal with something in your life. If you have kids like mine, nothing can be swept under the carpet and you simply have to sort out your crap and fast. Luckily I got with the program so I now really enjoy every moment with my kids, the love is so strong for them, they are my teachers as I am theirs.
I love this: “they are my teachers as I am theirs”
Thank Jessica and to expand on this, I will add that coming from this disposition is not easy, as you have to drop the idea that you are somehow bringing some great lessons to people that are “your children”. In saying that though, in my experience you must also hold your children so has they feel a solidarity in your approach, as they will only respect you, if you know yourself very well. Its important to not give your power away, thinking that they may know more than you. My mother regretfully admits to walking this path with me and my siblings and it becomes a slippery down ward slope when they become teenagers if they think that they are steering the ship.
Rosie, the beliefs are all around, have children or not, have one or more and so on and what I feel in this blog and your comment is how much we buy into pictures and do not truly feel what we is needed by us in our bodies and when we stop and get honest about it and let it go, it’s such a weight off. There is no right or wrong but what we feel and know supports us in our bodies and no picture or ideal can do this for us.
Such a gorgeous sharing Nathalie. Thank you. There are so many ideals and beliefs around becoming a mother or not but as you so beautifully expressed not being a mother makes us not less a woman and vice versa.
When I was growing up the conditioning to have children was huge, that’s what you were expected to do, and I did, not once ever considering that it was actually a choice. I also lost myself in motherhood until one day I realised that I knew myself as a mother and a wife but had no idea who Ingrid was. It has been long process to re-claim who I am as a woman but it has been so worth the commitment not just for me but for everyone around me.
Yes Ingrid it came as a bit of a shock to me once my children had started to become more independent just how far away from myself I was to the point I didn’t even know what my likes and dislikes were anymore and I found this very confronting. But I agree – it really is well worth the commitment to claim ourselves back.
The power of realising we have choices never ceases to delight me. There are so many things we believe that hold us back or narrow down what we think we can or cannot do. So fabulous Natalie that you can share this blog and inspire others to realise they too can choose.
I always had an issue or shame in being in my thirties and being single, I have been a bit awkward about it and when people ask there has been a shame about being single. After having a relationship and realising this wasn’t for me at this point in time and that I wasn’t prepared to settle for something that was less than the quality I knew it could be, I feel much more solid now in my choice to be single. When I feel pressure from others to be in a relationship I just look at where that is coming from and bring understanding to that so that I don’t take it on.
Beautiful Debra – is it delightful every time we stop to appreciate that we can choose and by feeling the choice within first – it is always the right choice for us.
It feels very empowering that a lot of women have realised we can make these choices. Finding our own journey in life that is right for us and making the correct choices for ourselves means that there’s no one way that’s perfect for all, but there’s more respect now for us to be able to decide those choices.
“Am I a failure as a woman?” I wonder how often this is felt by women if they don’t have children, that some how they have failed as a woman? It just shows how far removed we are as a society that there are so many ideals and beliefs around having children that not having them means we have failed in some way. Knowing we are a woman first before we are ever a mother is massively healing, and for me, changes our whole perception of what having children is about.
If you are open to societal pressure the feeling of failure as a woman could be quite devastating. I have spoken with some women who say the conversation stops when other women find they don’t have a partner or kids. It is only through appreciating the women without the usual roles as Nathalie has done, that these social pressures cannot get in to cause harm to a woman’s self-worth.
Isn’t it strange that we pose so much presure on one another, from woman to woman or man to woman just in order to fit in a certain category ?
You make some great points Alison. In the past when I have wanted children it has all been to fulfil my desires and not really considering the responsibility of what parenting is about and whether it is true for me to bring a child into the world and raise them.
Is it not ridiculous that we have created an image of the woman needing to become a mother to be a complete woman…..it is absolutely crazy. We do need to unravel this ideal so that all women are free to choose for themselves.
This is definitely a much needed conversation! Thanks particularly to Natalie Benhayon’s presentations and being involved with Esoteric Women’s Health in the last few years, I have begun to unravel my attachment and identification to being a mother – and to begin to unfold and expand myself as a woman first and foremost, who in this life, has chosen to birth children…
I agree Angela, Natalie Benhayon’s ground breaking presentations and Esoteric Women’s Health have been key to start unraveling the deeply cemented ideals and beliefs around what it is to be a woman.
I agree Angela, Natalie Benhayon and Miranda Benhayon have been a great support in exposing so many ideals and beliefs that we as women hold as far as mothering. Very inspiring indeed.
Beautiful Angela, I am going through much the same process, and only now seeing that I am simply a guide and role model for 3 young souls in smaller physical bodies….but in truth they are equal to me in every way.
I love that Anna. The equality is so honouring of you all.
Yes, it is very healing to see our children in this light, and very freeing for them also.
I would have to agree that it was only when I met Serge Benhayon and later from Natalie Benhayon’s presentations, that I even questioned the self-sacrificing, empty woman I was as a mother. I find the unravelling is ongoing as there are layers of ways that I have used being a mum to have a safe and acceptable image to present to the world and avoid being all I am as a woman.
Thankyou Fiona for your comment, your words “to have a safe and acceptable image to present to the world” is exactly what I am aware of when I answer “No” to the question “Do you have kids?” It’s almost like people don’t feel safe by being in the presence of a woman who doesn’t fit the image or defined roles, yet I am fully and beautifully a woman. I almost feel like the question is at times an interrogation to justify my existence as a woman.
Yes, I would have loved to have had this understanding when I was raising my children – that I wasn’t doing them any favours by being self-sacrificing and to have also been more aware of the importance of caring for and nurturing myself as a woman.
So true Fiona. There is a definite uncomfortable silence that often comes after my answer ‘no’ to the question of children, which exposes the pictures so very many of us hold of what it means to be a real woman in this world – what is acceptable. Thanks to Universal Medicine and Esoteric Women’s Health, I am able to answer this question without any need for the sympathy to come my way. I am no longer attached to the picture, so i releasing my attachment to it and answering the question freely, I am offering the other person to opportunity to do the same.
‘I have used being a mum to have a safe and acceptable image to present to the world and avoid being all I am as a woman’. I’m sure many can relate to these words Fiona. I have definitely used the mother to hide the woman and now I feel whatever for, why would I have ever wanted to hide the absolute purity, warmth and love I am as a woman first and foremost. Its madness, and I say that of course in a very playful way.
I agree, Angela. Never before had I seen and questioned my life as a woman as something I could be making choices from the place of knowing and honouring myself or not until I heard Natalie Benhayon’s presentations. I have been aware of the ideals and beliefs of society but the only choice I thought I had in the face of it was to go against them from the place of reaction, or submit. I did not know the true power within me, and anger was often the substitute for that. Esoteric Women’s Health for me feels like an invitation for all women to come back into the place of simple honesty where we can disarm ourselves, and begin to feel and appreciate what it is like to truly be ourselves in the world.
Yes, Fumiyo. We diminish ourselves when we submit and we diminish ourselves when we rebel.
Ah, I love this pearl of wisdom Christoph.
I agree Angela, I have found Natalie and Miranda’s presentations an incredible support to actually let go off all the pictures, pressures and beliefs and actually start to work out how I actually feel about having children or not.
I can very much relate Angela. Esoteric Women’s Health has been life changing for me, and Natalie Benhayon blows me away with her beauty, wisdom and power and how she is as a woman. She is mesmerising to watch….the way she moves about a room or when presenting…..For many years i found it difficult to really feel this as I was constantly putting myself as less and comparing with Natalie, feeling jealous of her a lot of the time and not wanting to acknowledge this, but now as I am starting to feel and live my own true worth, I can appreciate and celebrate the absolute beauty of Natalie.
It sure is a much needed conversation and should be presented to children as part of their personal development classes in schools.
Yes Angela the presentations of Natalie Benhayon but also Serge Benhayon has made such a huge difference in the way I live as a woman, as before I lived as the mother although deep down I knew there was so much more, I found it hard to let go of the mothering. What you say I experience too I am beginning to open up to being a woman first and foremost with three beautiful grown up children which I do not own but I love dearly.
“I came to realize that I am a woman first and foremost, and to become a mother is a choice for each and every one to make on their own.” Thank you Nathalie, a great claiming for yourself and any woman deciding to have children or not. If more women came to this I am sure that parenting would be approached with more responsibility, love and understanding than it is.
Claiming ourselves as women first before children, work, relationships etc needs to be our foundation, one that begins from the start of our life. As more women like Nathalie become aware that this is the first and most important choice we need to make, there will be more fullness in all we do as women.
I agree Fiona and jsnelgrove36, I am sure claiming ourselves as women first would have an effect on the many young girls who get pregnant every year at a young age, believing that they can have a baby to love and that the emptiness they feel inside will disappear.
Nathalie, it is great that during that time of confusion that you sought the counsel of those that you trust. I am sure that there are many women in the world that are not aware that they have a choice, or like me, they just felt to have a baby and did it, and never really gave it another thought, it just seemed like the natural thing to do. I was never under any pressure from my friends and family to have a child so when the time felt right it happened. If I had of known then what I know now, maybe things would have been different, but the important thing is that we realise that, yes we are women first, and we DO have a choice, and if we choose not to have children there should be no stigma attached to it. That is why I love blogs like yours because they bring awareness to things that have been buried for so long and not necessarily talked about in the open for fear of ridicule or unpopularity.
Choice is the big thing – when something is so expected whether that be by family, friends, society, the burden of all that expectation can make you feel like there is no choice at all. To lift that weight off of our shoulders allows us to feel ourselves, to breathe our own breath again.
I also notice that there is pressure on parents to be grand parents too and there can be competition that plays out between their friendship groups over who has grandchildren, who doesn’t etc. This pressure can then be passed down and put pressure on the children to ‘provide’ grand children so they can justify to their friends that their kids are ‘successful’.
It’s true MW – which is so completely insane! It’s just another way we can play the one-upmanship game with each other – “I’m better than you because my child has provided me with grandchildren and yours hasn’t.”. This is a total denial of the truth that becoming a parent is a choice which is nothing to do with anyone else (except perhaps the one we choose to bring a child into this world with – although not always).
The pressures are huge and they start at such a young age with all the comments of how little girls are with the dolls not a bit of wonder young girls grow up with so many pictures of how they will have to be as a woman. There are so many comment when young woman have a steady boyfriend the questions start when are you getting engaged, married having a baby having the next baby. Thankfully that is all changing with more and people re-connecting with their authentic selves and feeling into their true life path.
Thank you Sandra, it is vital that we realise that we do have a choice and that choosing not to be a mother does not make us a lesser woman. I made the decision not to have children at a young age, a decision that I really appreciate now as it has enabled to me to sort out many issues that I know would have hindered my being a loving mother. However, for years I believed that I was not a real woman because I was always comparing myself to women who were mothers and thinking that somehow they had something inside them that I had not, because they had given birth. Today, thanks to the wise counsel of Serge Benhayon, Natalie and Miranda Benhayon, I know this is not true. Women every where, self included have just as much to offer this world with our rich and nurturing love regardless of whether we are mums or not.
It’s amazing that even though you made the choice not to have children this time around, there was still that consciousness niggling away at you bringing self-doubt and comparison into you life. The belief that we are less of a woman, or missing out when we don’t have kids, is so destabilising, that even a sliver of unhealed hurts around this will prevent us from feel rock solid in our foundation.
It is s joy to read your blog Nathalie. I too made a choice not to have children. I actually knew from a very early age that this was not for me. At the age of 17 I knew that I would not have them. People did not believe me and they tried to convince me otherwise, and they told me that I would miss out on life’s greatest experience. But I knew that for me it would not be a great experience. Because I didn’t want it. We do have a choice. And it is important that our choice as women is respected by others and not judged against commonly held ideals or beliefs.
I would love to hear more of your story Rebecca as I have met other young women who have been clear on this but undermined by others saying ‘you’ll change your mind’. It would be great to have your story told to support others who know and feel the same.
It is different for a man or, at least in my case. I don’t remember anybody ever asking me “when will you have children?”.
Exactly Christoph and yet there are other equivalent expectations based on roles imposed on men and boys from a very young age.
We are all imposed on by imposing expectations, even our children. The only way to escape this cycle is to make choices that honour you inner-heart even if they go against the so called ‘norm’, just as Nathalie has about not feeling impulsed to have children despite all the pressures to do so.
I agree. When we don’t make our own choices we are vulnerable of allowing other people’s preferences to be imposed upon us.
Rebecca I also made this choice after creating some space to just be with myself, connect deeply, and feel what was true for me. I remember a feeling of absolute joy to go forward knowing and accepting I didn’t want to be a mother. I chose to be relatively quiet about it because I sensed the possibility of pressure coming my way. I also observed how much society seemed to think they owned women’s bodies by telling them to have kids, have a certain body shape, don’t have abortions etc. I felt that not only did I own my body but also the being inside who had feelings, and because having children involved more than just me, I had a responsibility to honour how I felt and not involve kids in a choice that would not be true for me.
Great sharing Rebecca and to stay true to yourself is a lesson to us all. I also didn’t have feelings to have children, but in my thirties went into self doubt, began to over-ride this and think I did. I recognise the ‘weight being lifted from my shoulders’ and relief that Nathalie described, when a tumour and hysterectomy took the choice away.
I’m interested in the relief you mention here Kehinde. I haven’t made the choice not to have children but my body has made the decision for me. Although there have been times I have been upset by this in the past, there was also a relief hidden away in the drama of my emotions. it’s showing me that my desire to have a child was not fully claimed, which to me also contributes to my understanding of why I have not become pregnant.
Lucy your honesty casts light on the inner contradictions and tensions women carry about having children. And it’s true if there’s any indecision or doubt, the body knows. In my case deep relief came from releasing tensions held in my body for years. Surgery simply confirmed a ‘choice’ I’d already made years earlier
Ah yes! I can feel how the relief for you was a confirmation of a previous choice that wasn’t fully claimed. It’s interesting to ponder on this for myself and I can feel that perhaps I did make the choice but simply wasn’t being honest with myself about it. I remember in my 20’s being adamant I didn’t want children, but then as the feeling of emptiness grew and along with it the question “what am I going to do with my life if I don’t have kids?” gained more traction, I started to think that having a child would fix things. This then became what I thought was a solution to my issues so I then became invested in this ideal. Amazing how dishonest with ourselves we an be.
Yes Lucy great reflection on what happens when we don’t fully claim our choices. Both or examples show how dishonesty creates a merry-go-round that takes us nowhere!
I agree wholeheartedly – I mentioned it to my mother once when I was still a teenager and she got quite furious that I was so sure I didn’t want children.
Good for you Rebecca listening to your heart and following through with your decision not having children. It surprises me that in this day and age there is still so much pleasure and an expectation that all females will have children. I have 3 daughters and I have always suggested to them that if they don’t want children don’t have them just because you were born female does not mean you have to re produce.
Thank you Margaret. It was probably easier for me than for some women as my parents never put me under pressure to have children. I felt the pressure more from others around me including friends who chose to have a family. It has been an interesting journey of claiming what I felt to be true for myself.
Rebecca I’m sure your reflection will support your friends and family to understand you are a woman first and foremost and you are complete without having children.
I also found that the friends of mine who chose to have families tended to look at me with sympathy because it was obvious I was not going to have children. Because they wanted children so badly they could not understand why I might not want them, so the way they dealt with this was to feel sorry for me. I find that this attitude can still slip in at times so I have to claim again and again that it was the right choice for me.
I have felt this sympathy too Rebecca. That this is even an option just shows how bought into the ideals of having a family many in our society are. There are the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’, with many in neither group honouring the choices of each other. Live and let live would bring us into a one unified group without the well-intentioned but patronising sympathy and the defensive reaction to it.
Thank you for the encouragement. I will attempt to write my story about this subject as I can feel how supportive it would be.
Nathalie – this is a brilliant blog and really shows that who we are is so important underneath the roles we take on. Your experience of ‘being seen as a mother’ is great to read and really made me consider that I have a friend who I see this way – she is always brilliant around kids, and my immediate thought has been ‘what a great mum she would be’ – so reading this has really made me appreciate that it is her care she takes with people that I truly value, not a role I should expect her to play. How beautiful to see this 🙂 Thank you.
Beautifully said and shared hvmorden. Our appreciation of the qualities in people is what truly counts isn’t it… We are so much more than we’ve led ourselves to believe.
Yes – we are so much more than the roles we try to show people 🙂 Its awesome to get to the point where we can see and appreciate each other for who we are – where we see that women are very powerful and bring such a quality and balance to everything.
The power of deciding to have children or not is something that belong to the women. When they do exercise this power, not all women walk in the same direction (some say yes and some say no). What this blog invites is to go deeper with this matter. When they say yes, it is clear that it is not just a yes to the isolated fact of having a child. It is also a yes to the image of how natural and expected is for a woman to become a mother; it is a yes to the expectations derived from that image that comes from every angle (ourselves, our partners, families, etc). This is so intense that perhaps the true desire to have a kid is less important compared to become the image and appease the expectations of others. There is an obscure part to it that is never brought up because the person just goes where most women go. f so, why bother to raise questions? The blog brings up another element that belongs to the darkness in this matter: do the woman needs the child or not? And if she does, what does the child represents in terms of her own hurts?
There is nothing wrong with having children. A women’s body is built for the miracle of reproduction. That is not to say that ALL women should have children, but the point is to ask ourselves why we want children and be honest with the trust reason behind our motives. Do we have children to appease others… to have something to love and cherish when we are not doing that for ourselves… to try to keep a relationship ‘together’…I know of women who keep having babies to fill their own feelings of emptiness… there are may reasons, but the one thing that Nathalie has highlighted in her blog is that women DO have a choice and they should be free to make it without imposition and judgement from others, and there is nothing shameful or sad about being a woman without children.
You have a really important point here Eduardo that so often the image outweighs the feeling in truth to become a mother. I know from my own experiences the images I held around motherhood played a great part in ‘when’ to start a family, let alone whether to become a mother. And the pictures went on..it was not only about whether to have them or not but also how many – and not to mention the subsequent needs that this was fulfilling. As you say Eduardo the expectations of others and self have a huge sway if we are not in the understanding Nathalie has come to, here in this article.
It takes a great deal of honesty with oneself to truly come to this point you have raised Eduardo, i.e. as a woman, do I need to have a child? Will having a child fill a void, in any way, that I feel the need to fill?
For is not a relationship with a child, as intimate, powerful and deeply committed as it can be, still a ‘relationship’ no less – and thereby, in what way do we choose to define this relationship? For if it is based upon need, then both parent and child are withheld from truly being all that they naturally are. If it is a relationship truly inspired by love, then we have a different quality all together, and the opportunity for true evolution and growth…
“I was totally confused. I thought “Who will I be if I am not a mother? Who will I be and what will I do with myself? Isn’t that a ‘mission’ all women have? Everyone is expecting me to become a mother. What will I say? What will people think? Am I a failure as a woman?” The thoughts went on and on…” Its amazing how we hold motherhood as the benchmark of womanly success and that women still feel so cast by this identity. I can see how easily this can take hold at a young age, i have an 8 year old daughter who loves to role play; mummy, daddy and baby with her friends. Advertising and literature for young girls today promotes a heightened sexuality, the glorification of the outer appearance and finding a handsome prince and living happily ever after. Shrouded in an false disneyesque world, no wonder there is confusion when we meet the real one.
The mothering/family role is for growing girls, the same that the violent character if for growing boys. It is an open invitation that forever awaits them. Something that seemingly makes life easier. You only have to choose it, because it has already chosen you because you are a girl or a boy. The pictures of our seeming future come to each of us early on and we start relating to them in one way or another. They taint the way we walk in life to the point that it feels like we carry them along.
This feels really beautiful Nathalie “I feel complete and whole as a woman and not the least less amazing for not having children. I share the whole of me with all the children I meet on my path”. What a joy for those children who get to meet ‘all’ of you in this way you get to feel the gorgeousness of ‘all’ of them too.
That’s probably a key statement here Marion “I feel complete and whole as a woman and not the least less amazing for not having children”… how many women, even though they may not realise it, have children because they crave something that will give them the love that they are not feeling in themselves, therefore expecting a child to fulfil their own needs. If a woman can connect to her own beauty, love and sacredness first, and then reflect that to a child, then there would be no expectations or imposing on them, just an acceptance and allowing the child to be itself.
Reading this today reminds me as a younger woman I was most definitely not getting married and certainly not planning to have children! How wrong was I. One husband and 3 gorgeous children years later, proved that mental prediction completely false. I recognise Nathalie as to the pressure you speak of that weighed you down. Pressures of others expectations of us providing the next generation of children and also the pressure we put upon ourselves. I have come to understand and appreciate that it was a choice to birth children this lifetime with the many lessons (still) I and they are re-learning/re-imprinting in this natural process. Feeling deeply in my body and realizing “I am woman first and foremost, and to become a mother is a choice” This lifetime I very much working with realising that I am woman first. Thank you Nathalie.
Marion my experience was similar to yourself, I had made the decision to not have children at a young age more as a rebellion to my family than anything else, but then went onto have a husband and two daughters. So to everyones surprise I started a family but it still felt like I was conforming – it just goes to show how much pressure there is around the belief that because we are women we should naturally want to be married and have children.
Even though I enjoy children and can spend hours with them, I do not pressure my two daughters and there has been no talk of when you get married or when you have babies – I see that it is up to them, it is their decision if they feel to be in a relationship or not.
The important thing is not the answer regarding having kids, but the fact that your body feels really at ease with it whatever the answer was.
Absolutely Eduardo, the body will not fail to show any holding or investment we have chosen along the way.
Reading about you being naturally great with children and others commenting how you would be a wonderful mother – I see how we associate and reduce the expression of our natural greatness to a role and almost brush off that and I wonder whether there might be a hint of jealousy in such comments we make in observation of others’ greatness, like we are trying to limit their potential into and within a confinement of what we are familiar and comfortable with, instead of just appreciating it so that it can take its natural course of development. In this case, a concept of a woman who is naturally great with children yet does not choose to have her own children will be too much and too exposing for those who buy into and/or have chosen for themselves the idea of being a mother as an ideal.
Your comment Fumiyo introduces an important point: the perspective you look at the matter. From the human being, having a child feels expansive (the belly expands, the family expands, the woman expands -now is a woman and a mother). Mothering becomes the card I bet all my money to expand. Yet, if you look at the same from the perspective of mothering being just a possible expression of a woman, mothering feels more like a desirable garden women can only access by becoming a mother, where they learn and exercise confining themselves by identifying themselves first and foremost as a mother; what allowed them in there in the first place.
Brilliant point Fumiyo, its so common to hear these kinds of comments directed at children “like we are trying to limit their potential into and within a confinement of what we are familiar and comfortable with, instead of just appreciating it so that it can take its natural course of development.” Once again, snatching away the magic of absoluteness and bringing all back to matter.
The appreciation of natural qualities such as mothering – whether via a woman who is an actual ‘mother’ or not – is so important Fumiyo. Thank-you for raising this. If a quality is so natural to express, it deserves to be celebrated and cherished.
“For the first time in my life, EVER, did I realize that I had a choice.”
Before Universal medicine, there were plenty of aspects of my life that were unquestioned; much that i had rolled over and accepted as a given; undressing the depth to which I was holding these ideals and tracking the source of their fuel was an uncomfortable but key energetic revelation for me.
Your blog Nathalie, highlights the immensity of society expectation and pressure upon women to ‘bear children’. As you’ve so well outlined, and with such deep honesty from your own experience, how many women truly can feel so deeply and joyfully complete in themselves, without a child? It’s so vital that whatever our life has been and whatever our choices, that we take the opportunity that is here offered, to have such a relationship with ourselves – are we truly ‘complete’ with or without children? Are we ‘enough’ – either way? Can we still celebrate the joy we have in connecting with children, even if they are not our own? I know I most certainly can – I love being with children, I love teaching children (part of my work) and treasure every one of these relationships. And I most certainly can express a natural and true mothering energy to the children I know, regardless of not having children of my own.
This is a great blog that deserves to be shared far and wide – most of all, for the truth in which you stand, a woman rare indeed (who by all rights should be our ‘normal’) who knows who she is and is not caught in feeling lesser by virtue of the choice to not have a child.
The image of completeness is a very powerful one and a tricky one. It is very easy to attribute our not feeling of completeness to the fact that we did not have children. It is very tempting do so do. And, it has a relatively easy solution. Yet, it is easy to discover down the road, that was not the real reason of our feeling incomplete in the first place. The tragic thing is that this discovery lead many women to give up on their pursue of completion.
What you have raised her Eduardo is key. For if, as a woman, I feel ‘incomplete’ through not having had children, is this the true source of my lack of completeness, my lack of feeling whole in myself? Or do I focus my attention on this as my problem and my pain, whilst in effect masking something deeper – such as my denial of a rich and nurtured relationship with myself, that could readily be there at the waiting, offering a fullness and consistency of joy that is there to be embraced and lived if I so choose?
Nathalie, the joy in you owning the fact that you have a choice in the matter can be felt in your every word. A woman truly claimed – not more or less with or without a child/children. Thank-you for sharing this.
Absolutely agree Victoria, it is incredibly supportive to read the words of a woman who totally owns the fact that she has a choice whether or not she has a child – it really cracks through those long-held beliefs about what it is to be a woman that we often don’t even realise we are carrying.
And so deeply ingrained such beliefs are Hannah… which we’ve all allowed to be so. It’s totally crazy that we still by and large see the choice ‘to not have a child’ as a secondary thing to the choice ‘to have a child’. And as though there’s a ‘missing out’ in the former. There is no honouring of a woman as a being in her own right in this imbedded culture whatsoever.
Exactly Victoria, it is a perpetuation of the ill-held belief that we are defined by what we do, by our functionality, as opposed to who we are.
“For the first time in my life, EVER, did I realize that I had a choice” This is so powerful. How many things do we do- almost on automatic pilot – because we have been conditioned to think in a certain way – from careers to motherhood etc. No true choice then…..
I agree sueq2012, realising we have a choice is super empowering, no longer do things become a ‘duty’, they become a joy if a true choice is made and not one that may be imposed upon us.
I agree Sueq2012 this realising we have a choice is applicable to many areas of our lives particularly in regards to what we take on as beliefs around being a woman.
Gorgeous sharing Natalie, thankyou. “I feel complete and whole as a woman and not the least less amazing for not having children. I share the whole of me with all the children I meet on my path”. So many women still don’t feel complete – whether they have had children or not. Huge gratitude to Serge Benhayon who has shown so many of us there is another way.
‘For the first time in my life, EVER, did I realize that I had a choice.’ This shows how conditioned we can be by taking on the beliefs of the expected ‘norm’. That surely a woman isn’t ‘normal’ if she doesn’t want to have children of her own. I fell for this one and loved and love my children and being a mother but now when I am with children I realise I love them equally to my own. We are all God’s children.
There was a time where I lived a life coming from the ideals and beliefs I had in my head. It was totally run by what I was used to. The only people I knew that didn’t have children were women who had never found the right man and women who were unable to have children but who longed for them. Childlessness was always considered a sad state. I did not ever consider that anyone could truly choose not to have children. I could not imagine what life, what career that would be worth that.
Yet, now I can. I can see and feel the richness of a life as a claimed woman no matter what choices she makes.
However I see and feel the pressure that my blindly buying into this ideal must have caused. All of those people believing this and the weight of that expectation on the shoulders of anyone who didn’t feel that having a child was the choice for them. The weight of the sympathy, the buying into the idea that childlessness is a sad state must have felt like a huge force.
I am so grateful that I can now feel this differently and that I am no longer part of this group sadness.
I have three children with ten years between the first and second. It was ten years of pressure, questions and probing from so many people. Some who I did know and even some that I didn’t. Some would say things like. ‘How could you only have one child’ ‘It is not fair to the child to only have one’ There many ideals and beliefs out there about having children.
Heidi, and how people just love to impose their own ideals and beliefs on others, and feel they have a right to judge or criticise another, even if it is ‘well meaning’, based on them…
“I had held onto the belief that becoming a mother was as ‘natural’ as the fact that I had a left arm. It was such a strong, profound and cemented belief in me, which I had never questioned. When I realized that I had a choice, it was a huge relief for me and a lot of tears were shed.” There is such a strong belief still in society that to be a true woman is to have children, so we are brought up with the expectation that we will marry and have children. Or at least it definitely was when I was growing up. In my case, I never questioned it when I was in my late teens and early twenties. It was just something that was expected of me, I would provide grandchildren for each set of parents of myself and my husband. But now I can see that this is such a momentous decision to be making, and comes with huge responsibilities, and is something that should never be rushed into. Since I met Serge Benhayon and attended presentations, I have come to realise just how important it is to bring up our children to be responsible adults in all facets of their lives, including their understanding of the energetic responsibilities that we all need for the sake of true harmony in our world. For us to decide to have children, we need to have taken all this into account. And not everyone is willing or even able to provide what is needed. We need to be honest about this.
Thank you for sharing Nathalie, your story needs to be shared as it is not often spoken about. I grew up in a family that considered you were not a real women until you became a mother yourself. I knew this not to be true but it is lovely to read what you share about it.
Great blog Nathalie, it reveals that loving choices are about what feels true for us and not based on what society, family or friends expect of us. Your blog is deeply inspiring. It is shocking when we look at how many people make choices based on expectations from others which disempowers us. Your blog shows we have the power to not succumb to other people’s expectations but to stay true to what we feel honours who we are.
Nathalie, how truly beautiful this sharing is and how inspirational it is for all women. We as women often identify ourselves through either feeling we need to have children or once we have them, through the roles we take on with them. Either way feels like an imposition on ourselves and the children. I am learning much from what you have shared.
What you have shared here Nathalie resonates with me greatly. There is always this pressure from society for women and an expectation to have children, it’s just what you do? But what is lacking today is that all women have the choice to make for themselves to have children or to not have children. We are all naturally nurturing as women and all have children in our lives that we can help guide, love and share our wisdom with. If we are all indeed one family then all children are apart of that and we can all care and nurture all children, without having to have given birth to them. That is truly a beautiful gift we can offer all.
In many countries and continents, we’re increasingly aware of our right to choose motherhood – or not – and yet the images we’re constantly presented with and have been down the centuries would seem to suggest there is only one avenue. What if, when we were little girls, we were taught that there are choices as a woman and that mothering children is but one of them? Sounds controversial, but only because our current norm says so. What if the norm were actually for more differentiation in how women were able to live out their felt purpose? Would that not increase the opportunities and choices open to us to express our individuality and uniqueness? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with motherhood, but nor is there in not choosing it.
And why does mothering have to be restricted to one’s own children. If we were encouraged to love equally, rather than this strange ideal of ‘blood is thicker than water’ then one’s choices expand further, as a society we are more, and the love just gets bigger.
I agree, before I became an actual mother, I was a mother and knew parenting well, mothering is an energy that we can access whenever we feel it is needed, if we are connected to ourselves, it’s not blood or giving birth or a title. I love that I feel so connected to all the kids in this world that I am blessed to parent!
Absolutely stunning Nathalie… “Living my life as the woman I am, choosing not to be a mother, feels joyful and complete.” This needs to be frontline news and in all womens magazines!
Once we realise we have a choice it is absurd to even think we didnt know we had a choice, and yet the world is so set up for women to believe from very young that because we are female, we are meant to have children.
In all honesty, often women without children can offer them far more than the mother who is run ragged playing a role she perhaps never truly wanted!
I enjoyed reading your blog Nathalie and can feel the beauty of your wisdom and truth coming through your words as you express the revelation of ‘having a choice’ whether to bring children into the world or not. For me, yes, there was always the realization that this indeed was the expectation from society in general, especially ones parents and extended family. I remember once when away on a holiday I was asked by farmer that we met, why it was that after one year of marriage I had not produced a child – indeed was there something wrong with me. My own belief at that time was that I needed, and yes, the word is ‘needed’ to produce a baby, so that I would have someone who really ‘needed’ me, and this is another story of needing to be met, loved and validated. I too have had my eyes opened and my own innate wisdom revealed with the loving presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
This blog is so powerful Nathalie. Your experience is very different to my own but there are many things that are the same. My younger sister loved everything about babies and was rarely seen without a baby doll in her arms and I was always into Barbies and other things. People often commented that my sister was the ‘maternal one’ the one my mum could expect Grandkids from etc. I was off the hook so it seemed.
What I relate to in what you have shared is the way that we are bombarded with messages from outside ourselves to a degree that makes it difficult to know if we are making a true choice or simply rebelling against or doing what is expected of us. Your story shows that everything becomes clear once we connect to ourselves and get honest.
Your sharing Nathalie exposes the images and beliefs Humanity carry around what a ‘successful’ life contains. Mothering is one of these images along with being married, holding a well paying job, being in demand etc. What I feel to be true is to live from the deep inner knowing that we are complete just as we are, that we are love and loving self deeply comes first and then our responsibility is to answer the call of Humanity. Thank you for challenging the long held myth that if you are a woman then you are to be a mother to your own children – great blog
Knowing the depth of worth we are as women and expressing it, is the best medicine a woman can live.
A woman who knows she is a woman first and foremost before any of the roles she take on is a woman who knows her self-worth in a world where a lack of self-worth is the accepted norm.
What is a Woman? What is a Man? These might seem ridiculous questions to consider, surely we should know?! But life is indicating persistently that our current definitions and job descriptions are super short of the mark. What if we considered a woman to be, a multi-dimensional being here to reflect and live with stillness and care, move with a deeply nurturing grace, with every step, in every hair. How different this is to the ‘woman is a mother’ definition you have seen through Natalie. How many ways have we settled for a reduced version of what we are here for?
‘How many ways have we settled for a reduced version of what we are here for?’ Indeed Joseph – there is no end to the demands we put on ourselves – “When only I become ‘good enough’ ‘smart enough’ ‘slim enough’ ‘pretty enough’ and the list goes on.. will I fulfil the perfect picture of being a woman”. Sad, when truth is that women are here to reflect the absolute grace and stillness that we all naturally and innately are. A deeply nurturing quality to behold.
Thank you, Natalie, it is so good for women to let go of the ‘Must do’ expectations and to know they have a choice. Pressure can come from Parents as well as friends and society in general, and the more we can allow women to choose for themselves if they have children or not, making those choices will be simpler and true.
We need more role models in the world of women who feel absolutely at ease in their own bodies at not having children. It is not having children that makes us be the woman but so much of society will make us think that if we don’t have children, we’ve failed somewhere along the way in ticking all the necessary boxes. When a woman comes our way who is completely at ease with her choice to not have children and is vibrant and joyful in herself it’s an amazing reflection, of freeing ourselves of all sorts of imposed on beliefs of what we should and should not be.
Such a beautiful story Nathalie. We are women first even if we have children, this is something that has been lost today. We are women first makes such a difference to how we see things and how we lovingly look after ourselves.
Like you Nathalie, I grew up assuming that I would have children and that that was what women just did. The only ones who didn’t have children were women who couldn’t due to medical reasons or who were ‘unfortunate’ enough to not find someone to have children with them. However, while I have had children and I don’t regret that, what I have found over the years was that women everywhere are trapped with the pressure to have at least one child. In my work with families I am speaking with women everyday who say that they had thought they were ‘born to be mothers’ only to find that when they pushed ahead and had a child, their life had turned upside down and the emptiness still remained. But now there was an added complication in that they had responsibility for their child. Often women tell me that in some shape or form they feel like they have been tricked and feel stupid for having fallen for the myths that abound around motherhood. We desperately need more conversation around the whole subject of motherhood so people have the opportunity to consider, just as you have Nathalie, firstly that they have a choice; secondly taking the time to ask themselves what is the right choice for them and thirdly how women everywhere can support other women, regardless of their choice.
A woman is a woman first and foremost and what she chooses to do thereafter makes her no more or no less a woman.
Donna, that is an absolute truth. Thank You.
A great sharing Nathalie for all women, as it is so easy to get caught in societal pressures of thinking that we must have children to be a whole and complete woman. I too have decided that I do not want to have children. Initially this decision came due to circumstances of not being in a relationship and my age, however over the past couple of years, I have come to realise that in actual fact, regardless of my relationship status, that having children in this life time is not for me. It feels amazing to claim this and not hold back expressing this. I feel no less a woman for this choice and feels empowering to know this as my truth.
Our belief systems can run very deep and until we question them, we see them as ‘normal’. It is only through opening up to and feeling what is true for us individually can we ascertain what our path is as a woman in this life and that there is in fact a choice.
Thank you Nathalie for this blog. We always have a choice to be who we are before we do anything. And what others before us have done or believed doesn’t automatically mean that we have to follow in their footsteps. We always have the choice to feel our own path to follow.
Feeling we always have the choice to feel what is true and to follow our own path, is the beauty of not subscribing to the beliefs of others.
Even just reminding myself that I have a choice in certain situations, like when I am feeling wobbly, it’s like the body knows this to be true, that we can choose our quality in every moment.
I always knew I would not have children this life. I started saying it when I was about 12 and every one said “oh you will feel differently when you are older”. It never changed and I never had or wanted children. I also met and married a gorgeous man who felt exactly the same which was helpful! Interestingly children seem to like me a lot and I have become something of a mother to a lot of adults who are young enough to be my children. I am so glad I didn’t have children this life as it was not about that for me. I have never experienced it as any pressure whatsoever. I also feel that in my next life I will have at least two children and be a great parent, thanks to so much I have learnt from Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine combined of course with my own awareness and observations.
What a great myth busting blog Nathalie. Having children does not make us a woman, it is not our God given duty. We are first and foremost a woman and that is one beautiful, powerful role. That is enough.
Choice, what a word that has lost it’s true and deep meaning – that choice is fundamental to life – and it is our first choice or the responsibility we have to make a true choice that determines how we live from that moment. Whether it’s to become a mother or not is just another choice that is derived from the first choice we make because the first choice is the one that determines free will or giving our authority and power away to another from living with ideals and beliefs.
Since my early 20’s I knew that I had a choice as to whether I would have children or not that that I didn’t have to succumb to the pressures of societies expectations. As a teenager or young adult I would often say to people in response to their comments, “well I may not have kids or I don’t want to have kids” and I would observe their reaction because I knew I was going against the mould. More recently I’ve come to realise that my choice to say I was not having kids was just coming from a reaction of feeling societies pressure and wanting to make it clear that I was going to make my own choice, but the whole time the choice was never coming from my body. It’s only more recently that I have realised that for such a choice to be true it must come from deep in our body, feeling and honouring what is felt in there and not coming from a mental analysis and justification or calculation, thinking we are choosing based on what we want but the whole time it’s a mental activity.
That’s such a good point to raise Danielle, wow… how often do we make choices based on what we think we should do as opposed to what truly feels right from deep within our bodies.
The worst part is that we think we are being free to make a choice because we are not conforming to the so called pressures or expectations of society, but the whole time we are being controlled by our own ideals and images of how life should be, so never truly free to make a truly inspired choice unless we connect to and read energy and our body.
“…. I have realised that for such a choice to be true it must come from deep in our body, feeling and honouring what is felt in there and not coming from a mental analysis and justification or calculation, thinking we are choosing based on what we want but the whole time it’s a mental activity.” We are brought-up with so many images and expectations of how we should be, so coming to this realisation and untangling our true choices from the images and expectations is huge.
This is a great point Jonathan Stewart, reading energy and true feelings in our body is one of the only ways to truly shatter images that we may be attached to and not even realise. Otherwise the images or ideals drive our choices.
Thank you Nathalie, such a beautiful blog and realisation to come to!
‘For the first time in my life, EVER, did I realize that I had a choice.’ – It’s a great point you’re making here Nathalie – how often in our lives do we repeat behaviours and stay in the same patterns without realising that we actually have a choice! And that with this awareness we can choose what feels true to us as opposed to what is being expected of us by ourselves or others.
I completely agree Eva. This is one of the wonderful and evolutionary things that Serge Benhayon offers. Through attending his workshops and presentations I have discovered more and more how whatever happens to me is as a consequence of my choices and how indeed I can change my choices. It has been tremendously liberating and empowering because how do you change your choices if you are not even aware you are making them!?
“how do you change your choices if you are not even aware you are making them!?” For me this was the crux, the moment where i could no longer deny energy, ignore the thoughts that i was mentally/physically aligned and conditioned to.
So true Nicola, Serge Benhayon’s teachings are offering a significant awareness about life and choices, an awareness that for countless people is truly life changing.
Well said Eva & Nicola, the awareness of the choice is gold as then we can really consider what feels true rather than just following what we think is pre-ordained for us.
Allowing ourselves to be run by the expectations of others is such hard work and usually full of great disappointments when we don’t fulfill those expectations. When I was growing up there always felt like an expectation that you would get married and have children and those I know who didn’t struggled hugely under the judgment of those around them, weighed down with the feeling that they were a failure.
True Ingrid – to be run by the expectations of others is hard work, and to me that makes much sense because we are overriding and working against what is true to ourselves. It is a path to overwhelm and exhaustion.
I love your comment Mary, as I know you to be an inquisitive and highly intelligent woman, and yet your comment exposes how it can be for all of us when we take on an ideal and then feel duty bound to live it out. By being suckered into that way of thinking we dumb our selves down, and play out a role that is not us… only to wake up years later and actually start asking the the right questions – giving us the freedom what we have always had!
Or we may choose something different on the outside but the energy underneath is still the same. I realised I didn’t date because I didn’t feel I was enough but then also went into dating to also feel like I was enough and to be confirmed by a man- it was the same energy underneath just looked different on the surface- this was all to avoid taking the steps to deeply love myself.
It’s so true Mary, we fall into many things without question. Nathalie’s realisation she had a choice seem almost obvious after she realised it, but that’s how many of us live, convinced we don’t have a choice that we’re honour bound to do something or be something until one day we stop and question and see that maybe there is another way. We can get so trapped in our behaviours and fail to understand and see the choices we have and we can also hide in that apparent lack of choice using it as a way to avoid the responsibility we all carry (it doesn’t work, even in our non-choice we’ve chosen, and there are consequences we live with as a result) We always have choice but the question is are we ready to see that and are we ready to own the responsibilities of those choices, and to fully embrace the power of the choices we face, ultimately the choice is to be love or not. It’s the basis of everything.
Nathalie, such an honest portrayal of how expectations can become a weight we do not question, especially if we’re seen as being very competent in those areas. Your question ‘I was never posed the question whether I wanted to become a mother or not; the comments were laced with predetermination, like a fact’ is so pertinent for all women and girls – we are seen as predestined to be mothers and are judged as somehow lacking if we’re not, it’s time we more clearly celebrated and discussed that not all women have children (and to do so is not abhorrent or does not mean you don’t like children), and that’s absolutely fine. We do not all have to be mothers in the physical sense to mother in our lives and in fact society and children as a whole benefit from seeing and knowing women in their lives who are not mothers. There are a myriad of choices we can make, and being a mother is one of them, let’s ensure that it’s presented to all as a choice. Thanks for writing this and bringing a much needed awareness to this area.
Hear, hear Monica. The fact that we are seen as ‘less’ for not being mothers is horrendous. I have experienced such judgement from other women… How awful we can be to each other, and the arrogance we can impose. When if we truly owned our own choices, and the uniqueness of each and every woman’s life path and the amazing ‘all’ that she is, we could never lose ourselves to such ways. We would cherish each other and celebrate all the qualities that a woman holds, regardless.
What a trap it is to imprison ourself in living a life that was only chosen because others have directly or indirectly told us that is the way it needs to be. Natalie I love the way that even when you thought you were confused, you did not bow down to any pressure from society and that you are now finding that you can appreciate and celebrate it. Very inspiring.
Yes Golnaz, it takes courage to stand up against deeply embedded ideals and beliefs, but there really is no better choice than to honour the truth in your inner-heart than to surrender to societal impositions.
To be able to do so you really need to know and love yourself- truly nurturing and supporting yourself to then be able to access and hold your truth not the pictures of what you think you need to be.
Yes, Nathalie’s strength is very inspiring. So many people I have seen give into this pressure because it is what is expected but to step away from these imposing ideals and beliefs is rare. But the more woman stand firm and make loving choices that are honouring who they are, this will inspire other women to know that they too have the power to make their own choices.
Unfortunately, Golnaz, we can make most of our choices from the pressures that we feel from others, there are so many ideals and beliefs out there in society for us to choose from. I certainly did until the past few years, where I have come to question the validity of all these ideals and beliefs. I have come to the point where I regard all ideals and beliefs as absolute poison to our bodies, we bury them deep in the body, and they can own us, make us feel guilty if we do not live by them.
Well said Beverley. All of what you have shared is well worth our honest view, that we may discard what has never truly been ‘us’, and live from the richness of our inner-heart, the truth of who we are – beyond all the expected roles and submissions. And so what has been deeply imbedded, commences its journey of breaking down, for all. There is an amazing richness here for us all to live, as both women and men, there for the re-claiming, if we choose.
I agree. Beliefs can be absolutely imprisoning, so to not bow down to their conditions and live what is true for you and no other, is deeply inspiring.
I realised that in reading this I was still holding onto a perspective “that some women may choose to not have children” which comes from a starting point that all women will have children but some may opt out of this rather than starting from neutral position where we are all women first and we have the option of a considered and loving choice about whether they will or won’t have children.
What an excellent point Nicole. It appears quite subtle at first but is extremely powerful. This way of thinking must apply in virtually every other area of life as well and control us in many more ways than we care to admit or consider.
Yes, Nicola, “This way of thinking must apply in virtually every other area of life as well and control us in many more ways than we care to admit or consider.” This is a huge thing to acknowledge yet so true. If we do acknowledge it and free ourselves from the subtle control we live under, life is transformation as beautifully shown by Natalie.
These subtleties are the little but powerful clues that can expose so much. I agree Nicola the transformations come from a commitment to exposing this is all areas of our lives. What else have I let run on automatic from generation to generation?
Wow I agree this is a strong belief for many, as I read your comment Nicole I realised that I had these thoughts too. Being a woman in my mid thirties and currently not having children I find at times I don’t know what I want. I’m not in a situation to have children at the moment and at times feel less for this or have thoughts of what if time goes by and I don’t have kids and there can be a bit of anxiousness I go into. Then when I question, if I was in a situation to have kids right now, would I actually want them? I am not sure that I would. I can feel I have more pictures to let go off before I know with certainty how I actually feel. More love to build with myself so I don’t feel less for not having them.
Great exposure nicolesjardin of how intricately these beliefs dwell.
Awesome point Nicole – super exposing!
Nicole, what a fantastic point, it reveals so clearly what we perceive as the norm, and that while we may allow that people will deviate from that, by viewing a choice as a norm rather than what it is, a choice we are setting any alternate choice to be seen as an aborration and less. This applies to so many areas of life, and has me considering how I view those choices made which are outside of what is perceived as ‘the norm’ both for myself and others. It is subtle but huge and colours our approach to any decision we make as those pressures exist in the background where any choice is seen a given or strongly preferred. It’s those assumed biases we need to catch and call out in order to get to a point where we approach all choices free of ideals, images or any preference of seeing one as better over another no matter now little. Thank you for shining a light on this.
The pressure we put on ourselves and others to things in a way the “should “be done is so harmful.
These subtle messages we have swallowed are restricting us in ways we can hardly imagine. They shape society, and provide us with ways of living that seem to answer the imponderable questions of why we are here, our purpose… but ultimately they take away our freedom to choose, and they are exhausting to live up to.
What you’ve shared Nicole is so important in breaking down the belief systems that have stymied us as women, and therefore our societies also.
To even consider that I woman who chooses not to have a child is ‘opting out’ of something reveals so much, doesn’t it, about the strength given to these attitudes and expectations upon the roles we ‘should’ play as women.
What if, it’s all actually about ‘opting in’ – opting ‘in’ to ourselves, and a depth of relationship with the woman within, and living in celebration of this relationship with who we are. That we are truly impulsed by our own inner knowing as to the choices we make, rather than the impositions such societal/cultural attitudes impose upon us (and all of that which comes from outside of ourselves and seeks to override our inner knowing)…
Whether our choices be about ‘to mother’, ‘not to mother’, ‘to marry’, ‘not to marry’, ‘to work’, ‘not to work’, or any other role in life, we are grievously diminished as women when our choices our made by the pressures that come from without, rather than from the rich resource of love and knowing that is ever within.
Beautifully written Victoria opting in to all that we are not the just the roles we have diminished ourselves to.
Making and claiming our own absolute choices in the matter, that we needn’t be hamstrung by the plethora of constraints that would have us unshackled as women….
The work of Esoteric Women’s Health has been invaluable in truly understanding and coming to live this, that life can be lived – we can marry, have children or not, and make a myriad of other choices as women, but it can all be lived from a depth of knowing in our own heart that we make our choices and say ‘yes’ to ‘opting in’ to whatever aspects of life they encompass.
We are so, so much the richer as a result, aren’t we Nicole… And it can be felt by those around us when we truly know ourselves in such depth.
Great point Nicole showing how insipid the belief is that it can pervade our thinking like this. For me choosing to not have children is quite normal but I can’t express the amount of times I have been made to not feel that I am due to my choice.
It highlights the harm of some of these beliefs we hold onto and the division and separation that they create.
It’s always a woman’s choice what happens in her life and to her body, as you have beautifully expressed. I always find it inspiring and super empowering when a woman makes this claim.
Yes Meg, I second this. The term ‘ a woman’s choice’ has been uttered a lot, in terms of birth control, abortion, consent to sex etc. But it extends to so much more than this, and the pressures on women to conform in certain ways is enormous. For a woman to let herself truly feel what it is she wants to do, whether she wants to have children or not, without being influenced in any way by what society expects and wants, is enormous.
I also find this with relationships. I always had these thoughts that I was less as a woman or not worthy because I wasn’t in a relationship. It was very strong picture of myself that I held, now I am learning how I set this up and that I actually wasn’t open to a relationship and I used to keep men out and I set up this pattern of rejection. As I am opening up more I have many amazing men in my life and am newly in a relationship and am learning how much these thoughts weren’t true as nothing changes when you are in a relationship- no-one can make you feel better or you don’t suddenly change how you feel about yourself- when you don’t love yourself no-one else in the world can give this to you.
Even as a woman who is a mother, I can feel how enormous the pressure is to do what is expected and normal, and have children. I wonder what choice I and many other women would have made if there was no societal expectation and we knew that being a woman first was what really mattered.
Yes, it is a powerful way to live, by connecting to what we know is true and not let anything get in the way or distract us from living in our power.
I absolutely agree with you, Meg, “it’s always a woman’s choice what happens in her life and to her body” as shared by Nathalie in her great blog.
Thank you for sharing your experience Natalie. It is amazing how much we are conditioned from early age to have children, without realising we actually have a choice. Knowing we are a woman first, and then a mother is not something that is really talked about either at home or school, but to know this really does make a difference to the choices we make.
Awesome comment Alison. It certainly is empowering to know we have a choice.
I agree Alison, and already in school the often subtle ideal is laid how to be a woman in the world. Mostly it is in accordance with ideals and belifefs within society concerning the image of women, seldom women are aware about the rootcause of their choices.
That is true, Kerstin, the subtle ideal is laid very early and we end up indentifying ourselves with it, unless we stop and feel what is true for us.