![](http://www.geocities.com/saruharu13/gif/abnormal.gif)
at the tender age of 9, my mother and i had a conversation about sex. she did all the talking and i did all of the listening. the conversation went like this:
"if you mess around with a boy and get pregnant, you will be sent away to California and never see me again."
can you imagine the look on my 9 yr old face? i was scared to death! California had just become a Vietnamese POW camp. from that day on my greatest fear in life has been the miracle of birth. unlike my teenage counterparts, i waited to lose my virginity mostly because of my mother's damning message. so now that i am in my 30's, i still hear my mother's voice but now she is asking for grandkids. i do want children, but i told myself that i wanted to be married before i did that. i know you don't have to be married to have kids, but it is what i want for me and my future children. so when i heard the men on the radio say that a woman with no kids and not married in her mid to late 30's was abnormal, i was angry.
on my favorite morning show (The Bert Show), they have guys come in and answer the questions of women callers. the men are told to be honest because the women want the truth. i do not even recall what the young ladies question was but i do remember the answer.
"if she is around 30 and has no kids and never been married, that is cool. if she is closer to 39 and doesn't have kids and never been married, that sends up all kinds of red flags."
"she must be doing something wrong if no one wants to marry her."
"that is just abnormal, ya know?"
don't we women have enough to deal with? now you are telling me that i am on the way to being less appealing to men? i know that all men don't subscribe to this notion, but what type of message are we sending to young women. it's back to the "old maid" adage that has plagued women for centuries.
my mother was married at 19 and had me by 24. at 19 i was a sophomore in college and at 24, i was drinking and partying to my hearts content. nowhere in my equation could i squeeze in a kid or husband. times have changed greatly, but to put a 1950's philosophy on a 2009 woman is unrealistic and unfair. in my mind, i was being told that if i had no husband or children that i was not fulfilling my life's purpose.
my mother always stressed to me as a child that education comes first, so that meant a family had to wait. so now that i have a career and no husband or kids, should i feel like something is wrong with my life? if i am healthy and happy with my life, why would you look at me differently because i am unmarried and childless? it is unnecessary for you to project your views and prejudices on me. think about the stigma this concept places on women who cannot physically have children? i know women in that situation and it has always effected their security in relationships. what ever happened to getting to know people before you place them in a category? i always looked at men that were did not have a wife and kids as single. i get to miss out on the baby mama drama or the ex-wife stalker. so why are women with the same characteristics looked at in a negative light? i guess my window to nab a man and baby is closing quickly. men must not know that women over 32 get this message everyday from their mothers.
i have decided to disregard the conversation i heard on the radio and chock it up as fodder for the shallow and ignorant. i am going to get off my soapbox now and get back to my soon to be abnormal life. let me know what you think about this particular topic.