I went into motherhood an oblivious idiot – and I don’t regret it

Can you know too much to have kids? The overload of brutally honest information about the rollback of reproductive rights, rising maternal mortality, the childcare crisis and the motherhood penalty has left many people deeply ambivalent. Recent reports on birth trauma and grave failings in maternity care here in the UK make it sensible to ask whether you’re ready to put your physical integrity, finances or mental health on the line; even the news that pregnant women “shed grey matter” wouldn’t win over someone who is already on the fence.

I went the other way. When I got deliberately pregnant at 26, the biggest thing I had cared for was a rabbit, and I knew nothing about birth, babies, child development or the economic and emotional demands of motherhood. My guide was the prehistoric internet, a few books and one hospital antenatal class whose main retained memory was a woman bragging about holding a sister’s water birth “sieve.” I went into motherhood an oblivious idiot; the birth itself was fine, but the real shock came afterwards.

United Kingdom

motherhood, maternal mortality, reproductive rights, childcare crisis, motherhood penalty, maternity care, birth trauma, antenatal class, postpartum, united kingdom