eve was a companion, not a mother

Children have always been on my mind.

As a woman, it’s hard for that not to be on my mind. Every month, I’m reminded that I don’t have children. Tiktok shows me babies everyday. I get something akin to “baby fever,” the closest thing I’ll get to wanting them.

I don’t want them. I decided that in college.

I don’t want kids.

Gasp!

What’s the point of my uterus now, right?

(Really, what is the point of it?)

When I was in grade school, I fancied myself being a good mother. Reading Wattpad religiously, I understood happiness to mean taming a man, settling down, and becoming a mother.

I mean, if girls taken by werewolves and vampires could become mothers, it’d be easy, right?

Right?

Werewolves and vampires don’t exist but I could still be a good mother.

Like that Adrianne Lenker song:

I could be a good mother…

I probably could, if I wanted to be.

I'm good with children. I could do it, if I had to.

But, I don’t have to. And, optimistically speaking, I will continue to not have to.

Maturity showed me the realities of motherhood.

I watched my mom, run ragged by an inattentive husband. She made sure we had everything we needed. She went without. That was motherhood.

Is it selfish of me to say I don’t want to go without?

That I don’t want to alter my body for the possibility of the result to steal my breath, my life, my soul?

Isn’t that the point of parents? To give their children better? To make sure that they have a better life? Selfishness is a privilege that I hold dear. It’s one of the only things I can truly call mine.

I went through a time where I was determined to have children to spite my parents. To do it better than them.

Every time he says this, every time she does that, I’m filing it away. I won’t do that. I will do better.

Who cares?

Not my parents.

Certainly not this nameless child.

I do many things out of spite. I won’t bring a life into a dying world from spite.

When I tell my mom I don’t want children, I wonder if it’s a slap in the face. To her sacrifice, her trauma.

But why, as her child, am I inherently bound to sacrifice as well?

The point of sacrifice is life, better times. I want those better times.

She says that I’ll want children once I meet the right man. Sure, maybe. As my first primal instinct. We’re all animals.

I’m only 23. Maybe I’m wrong. But I know that I’m valid.

Before the Original Sin, Eve was made as a companion for a lonely Adam. She knew no pain. Only life given to her by the Lord. And companionship.

I want companionship without the pressure of a third. There are other ways to become a threesome.

Imagine frolicking in the brush. Knowing nothing of your nakedness, of only the person beside you. No worries, no guilt, no shame. No knowledge of bad things and nothing tying you to the land but love and wonder.

Now imagine being cast out, covered, impregnated. Shamed for your sins, abandoned for your childlike wonder.

Even if this is not exactly how the story went down, it’s the story I stick with. It’s what I think about when I think of children. Not the story in its entirety, but a shadow of it.

And I love children. I love their cherubic cheeks, the ring around their wrists that make their hands look puffy, their eyes.

But if we’re all God’s children, why have children of our own?

Philosophically-speaking, of course.

To worship? To bear witness? To spiritually labor?

Only upon her and Adam’s sin did Eve bear sons. I’d like to think of her children as farm hands. God knew they would need more labor. That’s all they were at the time.

Is it heretical to say? Maybe.

Is it valid? I believe so.

Could I be a good mother? Maybe.

Is my mind made up about not having them? I believe so.

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Til next time!

Lauryn :)