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Beeld: Detail from The Three Ages of Woman, Gustav Klimt
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Last june I posted an article on not being a mother by choice. I received many reactions, mainly via Facebook and e-mail, and one of the reactions was “I would love to send this article to some of my friends abroad but they don’t read dutch. Your article is really worthwhile reading. Everyone (I know) should be able to read it. Why not post this article in English?” Yes, why not. A bit anxious, English is not my 'Mother' tongue, I started translating my ‘MotherAltar#Altar.for.Life’. It took a lot longer than planned – but hopefully with the result again of an article worthwhile reading for all of you women: 'not-mothers' and mothers.
MotherAltar#Altar.for.Life
Everywhere I go, everwhere I am I set up altars for the woman in me who will not be with child and will not give birth to a child. A choice. My choice. Every day I take a little bow to this choice and to the woman that I am today. And every day I check with myself if this choice still feels right, making sure that this is my path - that this is my life I need and want to live. Than I take a deep look in my husband’s eyes – he is inextricably linked to the choice that I made – and I know it’s right. I won’t wake up one day regretting this choice and blame him or myself for it.
Honouring the importance of this choice I decided to make this choice every single day all over again. But it is since a little while that it feels different. It's not just a choice anymore. It's changed into the realization that I will not become a mother for sure. Not only because it's my choice, but also because I am a woman of 39 and I truly feel that I am too old to become a mother
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Beeld: Trees of life, Gustav Klimt
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So for this 'bigger than life'-choice and for everything that comes along with it I set up and create altars and shrines everywhere I go. Also here on this blog and this story is one of them. An altar for the woman I am and all the women with me who will not become mothers. With the new realization that in this life I don't give life, I realize also something else. I may not
There is something growing inside of me, seeking the light of day and wanting to come alive. My blog is the ultimate proof of me giving life all the time – here for over six years already.
Note1:
I hope you forgive me if occasionally my english and therefor this translation isn't perfect. But I hope that you nonetheless feel what I mean to express.
Note2:
...why I choose not to have kids, someone asked me. Here is my 'why'.
Before I met my husband, I never really thought well and hard on the matter. Well that isn’t really true, before I met hem I thought that of course I would become a mum – like every woman (yes, I did think that). He immediately said to me ‘Look you need to know now, I really don’t want to have kids.’ We spoke often about it. For me at that moment I didn’t know if it was a yes – so I also didn’t know if it was a no. I had to figure it out for myself and needed to be on my onw in order to find out. So I broke of our relationship....twice.
After lot’s and lot's of thinking and feeling, this was my conclusion: I only want to have a child with the love of my life. And I knew that the man who said to me that he didn’t want to have kids, was and still is the love of my life. So than I asked myself what is more important – becoming a mother or be with the love of my life. To me the answer was ‘to be with the love of my life’(I meditated for three months on this - it was a 'hell' of a (silent) ride). It is a choice that I didn’t make overnight. And it is still a choice I have to feel ok with. In every vain of my sentient being I'm so aware that ‘becoming a mother is a choice for the rest of your life, as is the choice of not becoming a mother.’
Note1:
I hope you forgive me if occasionally my english and therefor this translation isn't perfect. But I hope that you nonetheless feel what I mean to express.
Note2:
...why I choose not to have kids, someone asked me. Here is my 'why'.
Before I met my husband, I never really thought well and hard on the matter. Well that isn’t really true, before I met hem I thought that of course I would become a mum – like every woman (yes, I did think that). He immediately said to me ‘Look you need to know now, I really don’t want to have kids.’ We spoke often about it. For me at that moment I didn’t know if it was a yes – so I also didn’t know if it was a no. I had to figure it out for myself and needed to be on my onw in order to find out. So I broke of our relationship....twice.
After lot’s and lot's of thinking and feeling, this was my conclusion: I only want to have a child with the love of my life. And I knew that the man who said to me that he didn’t want to have kids, was and still is the love of my life. So than I asked myself what is more important – becoming a mother or be with the love of my life. To me the answer was ‘to be with the love of my life’(I meditated for three months on this - it was a 'hell' of a (silent) ride). It is a choice that I didn’t make overnight. And it is still a choice I have to feel ok with. In every vain of my sentient being I'm so aware that ‘becoming a mother is a choice for the rest of your life, as is the choice of not becoming a mother.’
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