(Part 2) Choosing Not To Be A Mother & Old Feelings Of Gender Failure As A Fat Woman

Turning my back on the biggest sign of "successful femininity" was a big deal after a lifetime of feeling like I didn't measure up.

Image by Katelyn of Katelyn Scott Boudoir

There are two kinds of freedom. Freedom from (this is called “negative freedom”) and freedom to (this is called “positive freedom”).

On the eve of my 40th birthday, I had gone from enjoying my freedom from kids to having my freedom to have kids threatened by a narrowing reproductive window. There’s an unmistakable magnetism and allure that pregnancy and motherhood have in our culture. I feel it. Sometimes it reads as jealousy, the physical pain of longing. So many other markers of successful cisgender femininity are not available to me as a fat brown woman, but this one is. It’s right there. 

This essay is about the complexity of choice, how the right choice doesn’t always feel obvious, and how the “freedom to” can feel so intoxicating after a lifetime of being told that your options are limited, that it can cloud your judgment. 

For almost five years, from 35 to 40, I had a recurring nightmare. In the dream I was having an intimate conversation with a heavily pregnant woman who was deeply disappointed with me. She was beautiful, and besides her engorged belly, she was