For many of us, when we imagine our future selves, that image often involves kids.
Procreation is a key component of being human after all. Being any organism in fact. To breed or NOT to breed is rightly a question as old as mankind itself. Cos if we didn’t, none of us would be here, right?!
But increasingly, many of us are finally recognising that parenthood is and should be a question, not a given, and certainly not an assumption.
Listen to Madeleine West on Restart speaking about her life with six kids and how motherhood changed her.
It’s an occurrence we still have plenty of questions about, and too few answers. Because it’s so ‘common’, everyone has an opinion on what it means to parent.
We all know parents, have parents, are parents, or are all three.
Having kids, deciding not to, or discovering you can’t, can be a seismic restart in itself.
It’s only made more daunting by the fact that though it is YOUR body going through the motions, whether it’s avoiding the whole process, yearning to yet finding your body can’t, or actively making tiny fingers, toes and eyebrows, everyone has an opinion on it they feel they have the right to voice.
Everyone thinks they know best because, simply put, we’ve all been through it by the simple act of being born.
As a young woman, parenthood was never really on my to-do list... yet I ended up a mother of six. Go figure!