Women and the inability to have children
I think one of the most painful things a woman has to face is the inability to have her own children. It’s innate for us to want to look after, take care, nurture another human being; we thrive on being ‘needed’. This is why we marry, to have someone, not just to love but to serve and support, and nothing fulfills that need more than a child completely dependent on us.
Though we know the perils of childbirth, we go ahead and make a fist at death. We’re designed and built for it so when that natural ability is lost, whether it’s because of a medical condition, untoward incident or late marriage, it can be very painful, unfulfilling and at times may cause feelings of failure as a woman.
But God has provided ways for us to express this need to nurture. There are new medical ways to conceive now through artificial insemination, through a surrogate mother etc. We can choose to adopt, raise a younger sibling, a nephew, a niece OR teach Sunday school where we can be second moms to a bunch of rowdy kids.
Womanhood and life doesn’t end in infertility. Besides, the world is already over populated. And I’ve known men who’ve married (and stayed faithful to) women who couldn’t bear them children and loved them just as they would ones who could.
Though we know the perils of childbirth, we go ahead and make a fist at death. We’re designed and built for it so when that natural ability is lost, whether it’s because of a medical condition, untoward incident or late marriage, it can be very painful, unfulfilling and at times may cause feelings of failure as a woman.
But God has provided ways for us to express this need to nurture. There are new medical ways to conceive now through artificial insemination, through a surrogate mother etc. We can choose to adopt, raise a younger sibling, a nephew, a niece OR teach Sunday school where we can be second moms to a bunch of rowdy kids.
Womanhood and life doesn’t end in infertility. Besides, the world is already over populated. And I’ve known men who’ve married (and stayed faithful to) women who couldn’t bear them children and loved them just as they would ones who could.
Comments
I have met some women who have expressed that they do not want to have children; the thought of being a mother is too much a commitment or too frightening for them.
Maybe they are in denial with their true feelings. Maybe these are the exception to what you have described.
Nowadays, some doesn't want to have kids early in life but later on, sometimes when it's already too late, that's when they want to.