Birth rates may be plummeting in these economic times, but it's not stopping a phenomenon that happens to women in particular -- the time that comes in every woman's life when an uncontrollable "urge" comes over her and she feels a calling from deep within to become a mother.
This phenomenon has commonly been called the "biological urge," and it's seen as part of women's biological instinct to have children. We're taught that it's something that's supposed to happen to women at some point in their lives, but what do we really know about the biology at work that creates this "urge"?
We know that biology is at play when women are pregnant. Estrogen and progesterone kick in at conception and continue through pregnancy, along with the neurohormone oxytocin, which fires at the time of delivery. Research also tells us that biology is at work once the baby is born, including how the mother's brain responds differently to different baby behaviors.
While we typically don't talk about men having the same kind of "urge," there are biological factors at work for them as well. According to Dr. Ethylin Jabs at Johns Hopkins, we do know that "the bottom line is as men age, the percentage of damaged sperm they carry in their testes tend to increase," and the greater the risk of having a baby with a birth defect.
But for both sexes, what are the hard-wired biological processes that create the desire for a child?
Here's the truth that's not talked about -- For women, there is no real evidence to support the notion that there is a biological process that creates that deep longing for a child. And the same for men; there's no real evidence linking biology to the creation of parental desire.
So what's behind the "urge" if it's not biological?
Similar to the origins of what I call "Fulfillment Assumption" in The Baby Matrix , the answer first goes back to pronatalist notions that were created about parenthood generations ago, when society needed to encourage people to have lots of children. In addition to pushing the idea that parenthood was "the" path to fulfillment in life, another had to do with the idea that "normal" women experience an instinctual longing from within to have a child, and if they didn't there was something wrong with them. This belief is part of the larger pronatal "Destiny Assumption" that was created many years ago, that, like the Fulfillment Assumption, has stuck long after its usefulness.
The deep feelings of wanting to have a child have their roots in a learned desire from strong, long-standing social and cultural pronatal influences -- not biological ones. And we've been influenced so strongly for so long that it just feels "innate."
Early feminist Lena Hollingsworth gets to the heart of why it isn't: If the "urge" was actually innate or instinctual, we would all feel it, she argues -- and we don't. If it were instinctive, there would have been no need to introduce social messaging to encourage and influence reproduction. If it were instinctive, there would be no need for social and cultural pressures to have children.
When it comes to the "biological urge," it's time to shift our thinking to reflect what is real. Realizing that the "longing" is not something that will automatically descend upon us allows us to better explore its origins within us. Researcher and psychoanalyst Frederick Wyatt puts it this way: "When a woman says with feeling she craved her baby from within, she is putting biological language to what is psychological."
When we can't just chalk up the longing to biological instinct, we can better reflect on the craving from within and ask ourselves questions like, "What is at the essence of this feeling of longing? Is it truly to raise a child, or is it another yearning I think a child will fill for me in my life?"
Realizing that a yearning for parenthood is not a biological imperative allows us to look harder at why we think we want children and ferret out how much of it comes from external conditioning. Seeing the truth about the "biological urge" ultimately helps us make the best parenthood choices for ourselves, our families and our world.
Laura is the author of The Baby Matrix: Why Freeing Our Minds From Outmoded Thinking About Parenthood & Reproduction Will Create a Better World.
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Years later I came to understand how much we're influenced by pronatal beliefs. As I came to believe in my own ability to make choices I became convinced I could live a full life without raising children.
In my book, "Confessions of a Childless Woman" I address the often asked question if I have any regrets! Menopause was challenging! Not because I regretted not having them but because I saw my choice taken away with my body's definitive answer.
Even now, trying to get a book published I'm face with agents and publishers under the pronatal myth who feel choice is available and therefore nobody needs to read my story!
If we took parenting as the important career it is, with preparation and training ...maybe the tide of child abuse or unhappy parents would stop. If we valued a man and a woman by how they connect to this planet and what they do for their own families, neighbors and friends, maybe the childless and childfree would be given the kudos and respect they deserve.
It's interesting how a few commenters are pushing the BIOLOGY!!!! argument, Mr. Gilbert even saying that a commenter wasn't normal for not having the urge. it was biology, why is it wrong to not want kids? We argued homosexuality was wrong and against nature. Pfft. We had two unneutered dogs that we had to neuter because they kept humping eachother. We go against biology all the time, as we garner an understanding for it and learn to use it in our favor. Look at contraception. But if the urge is truly social, then it supports the fear expressed by the commenters and Laura's argument for their need of validation. Look at modern examples. Western birth rates are declining. Japan and western countries are pushing people to have kids as the patriotic thing to do, or for SOCIAL reasons. We have reached 7 billion people worldwide, other animal populations regulate themselves according to predator populations/food availability. Where is ours? Perhaps our declining rates are a form of self preservation but the social pressure keeps us from seeing that.
Well I began painting and the urge went away. Resisting the urge and deciding not to have kids and was the best choice giving so many factors in my life.
In my estimation really weighing what is required to raise a healthy kid against what my needs and capabilities to do this the decision to opt out was the soundest choice. Women however are deemed selfish in so choosing yet time and again I am aghast at what passes for parenting. I have seen parents systematically destroy kids' self esteem and weigh them down with crap.Thing is no one ever stops being a selfish adult but some of us draw the line as to who we will burden with that .
Children deserve more than that.
They deserve a stable, emotionally mature, nurturing, caregiver(s) who is aware of what they are taking on, willing to take it on and CAPABLE of taking it on.
A biological "urge," even IF it were real, would be no excuse for bringing another life into the world and, oops, finding out you're a $hitty, cold, withdrawn, uninterested parent.
Today's society is incredibly pro-natalist - the comments here are certainly indicative of that. Women (and men) who don't want children are seen as 'defective', 'selfish' and 'kid-haters' - all negative terms. Society also helps to perpetuate that myth - women who give birth are seen more favorably in society. Many women (not all) are taught from an early age that marriage and children are the proper goal in life. This sounds like 'conditioning' and not an urge to me. Then, there is what I like to call the "Cult of Mommyhood" - women who LOVE to declare how WONDERFUL it is being a parent, how life-fulfilling it is - but conveniently forget to tell about the struggles, pain and sacrifice it entails. Then God forbid if a Mom expresses frustration or anger, or dares to say that they hate being a Mom, they are attacked and vilified by the Mom masses.
It's funny how the pro-natalists get all defensive when articles like this are written. They are so INVESTED in what a women's role/purpose is in society, to add evidence to contradict that would mean that their whole raison d'etre would vanish.
Think of it by going way back to the cave-man hunter-gatherers with no control over conception and no tendencies one way or another as individuals or small groups. Let any tendencies to the individuals or the tribe just occur, assigned randomly (nurturing, to non-nurturing, reinforcing social forces to none, including no positive social response of strangers to any children’s presence in the tribe). Once children were born the first phase of selection favors responses that are protective, nurturing, and so on. Randomly assigned genetic tendencies to the contrary are quickly reduced, almost gone, from the gene pool, as lacking those tendencies you quickly got out-bred. Before you know it, and some millennia pass, the “during” and “after” birth chemical and emotional tendencies are dominant traits.
Then throw in a societal “super-organism” factor, with selective pressures again, at that “social” level. Who are we the descendants of? Possibly that combination of individual genes that had those chemical responses during pregnancy, and after child birth, together with social traits (memes) once children were in the group, combined with individuals again (genes) susceptible to the pressure of the societal memes.
A curious model explaining a lot.
I like children, but I do not want any of my own. Even if I did, I would prefer to adopt a child (over age 3) when give birth.