There’s a stigma around pregnancy that most mothers have felt personally. The pressure from society to have a baby, but not too many babies. To have your baby under a list of appropriately checked boxes but to do so only once or twice and heaven forbid you miss a checked box or your checked box crumbles.
We raise our daughters under the shame of pregnancy and then pressure them to have children once they’re married as though we haven’t imposed this negative thought around it. Then once baby is here we begin telling them to shut it back down. That this is plenty and anymore children is not okay.
Lack of Sex Ed Leads to Stigma Around Pregnancy
Instead of sex ed in the U.S. we have shame. We shame children in having genitals, giving them nicknames and acting as though “penis” or “vagina” are bad words and not body parts.
Instead of guidance in navigating their natural feelings and urges and how to prevent pregnancy as teenagers we offer up judgments and accusations of “You better not” and “don’t you dare.” Teaching our girls to be ashamed of their bodies by telling them to “cover up” as though that in itself solves everything.
We tell them not to get pregnant until they are married and stable without providing any advice on how to accomplish that. Expecting them to remain abstinent, as though any of us have full self control 100% of the time in anything. Denying them birth control methods because we think it encourages promiscuity and honestly, setting them up to have very unhealthy sexual relationships in their adult years.
So much shame is placed on girls around pregnancy that many grow up still feeling the crushing weight of this stigma. It doesn’t just go away once they reach an appropriate age or status. It’s a battle that they have to overcome.
I was raised to believe pregnancy was a bad thing. I spent my entire life hiding the fact that the only thing I desired was to be a mother. Terrified to tell anyone I was pregnant all 3 times I became so even though I was grown, married and had checked all of the boxes to make it “acceptable”.
Stigma Around Pregnancy Grants and Then Retracts Approval
When our girls are born, we give them baby dolls and coo over them with praise for being such a good “little mama”. As they near their teenage years we begin to tell them how horrible becoming pregnant and having children is. They hear us gossip behind closed doors about mothers and their choices in having children.
When they grow up we pressure them to get married and have babies. Make women older than 25 who don’t have children feel as though their lives are passing them by if they don’t hurry up and reproduce. Dismissing women that don’t want children with “You’ll change your mind” as though we haven’t imposed this negative stigma. Badgering married women with questions of “When? When? When?” as though reproducing is the only thing they should be concerned with.
The first time a mother becomes pregnant, most people praise her. They ask her how she is and what she plans for the baby. She’s fussed over and taken care of and generally treated beautifully. Something that she rarely experiences before pregnancy or the second or third time she becomes pregnant.
By baby three (or even two) everyone’s demeanor changes completely. She begins hearing and seeing people’s disapproval.
- “Two is plenty”
- “You know what causes that don’t you?”
- “We don’t want/need anymore”
- “I hope you don’t need assistance in feeding them all”
As though it’s anyone’s business to how many children someone chooses to have.
In a society that is constantly granting and revoking approval of a women’s reproductive rights, mother’s are stuck. Ashamed of the children they want, shamed for the children they have, restricted and stuck with the options available to them and what they desire. Confused at navigating the approval of society.
I couldn’t be excited any of the three times I became pregnant because I was ashamed that I wanted this. Grown as a child listening to disapproving gossip around pregnancy. “Can you believe she’s pregnant again?”
Navigating the Stigma Around Pregnancy
The availability of birth control over recent decades has led to these stigmas. Whereas our great grandmothers (and even grandmothers) had no options for controlling reproduction, we have various things available to us these days.
Unfortunately, the lack of education around these methods has created even more unrest for those who can’t use birth control or for those whom birth control methods have failed them.
I have watched various methods of birth control fail this person and then that one. I watched it ruin lives, reputations and happiness as women who had done their very best brought another child into the world under scowls and glares.
I’ve seen IUD’s disappear, condoms break, vasectomies fail, tubal ligations denied and everything in between. Married women are told to “keep their legs closed” and the rape victims are asked how they were dressed.
You better not accidentally get pregnant and you better not have an abortion if you do. You better not expect any help if you choose to have ANOTHER baby and you better not get rid of it.
You can always put it up for adoption in the overcrowded foster care system where it may or may not have a good life. So that you may be forever guilty that you didn’t keep it. So that your friends and family can forever judge you over not keeping it.
What are women supposed to do under these mixed messages? Where we’re terrible no matter what choices we make? Where we still feel ashamed when we’ve done everything “right”?
I never got the chance to truly be excited about any of my pregnancies because I was too crushed under the judgement of others. I live in fear every day of accidentally becoming pregnant again because of others judgments.
Terrified my methods may fail me. Terrified of a choice I may have to make because my mental health won’t allow for any more. Terrified that I may not have the choice available to me at all.
Other Articles You May Enjoy:
- Common Pregnancy Myths & Fear Mongering Misinformation as Told By a Midwife
- Birthing From Within; a book review for new parents
- Your Beliefs Around Birth Can Make Labor Easier or Harder
- Expecting Trouble; Prenatal Care in America (A Book Review)
- The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding; a book review for new parents
Author
S.S.Blake; Spiritual Life Coach, Yoga + Meditation Teacher and Founder of Earth and Water
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