Recently there was an article in Time magazine titled "Having it All without Having Children." It was about people choosing to live their life childfree–not to be confused with childless, as childless suggests a lacking of something. Childfree is a decision to not have children or more importantly to not become a parent. It's a choice not an affliction.
The childfree life is supposed to mean happiness via way of making the choice not to be a mother/father/parent. While I think this is a perfectly valid lifestyle and I think people can choose to be or not be parents and it makes no difference to me. I think this is not a Latino person's problem. Not that we are all sexed up baby makers as stereotypes might have you believe and though a lot of us are Catholic we know about birth control and we use it.
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What I mean is, I am a Latina and I come from a family of six children. My dad was born in Mexico and comes from a family of nine brothers and sister plus three more older sisters from his father's first marriage; 12 children in total. All of my aunts and uncles have no less than five kids each. We were always raised that family is the highest valued treasure we could have, love is our currency and for all of the craziness and chaos, it is ingrained in our DNA to have families; families to care for, families to care for us, people to lift us up in times of need.
This concept of childfree as a choice and path to happiness is not one that I would ever have imagined for myself. Motherhood and having children were just a natural evolution to my life plan. Having kids was as certain to me as birth, taxes, and death.
My husband is not Latino and at one point early in our marriage, he wasn't sure if he wanted kids. This was a foreign concept to me and came as quite a shock because I just assumed everyone viewed children, parenthood and family as I did, as my entire family did. That was my point of reference.
My husband came from a small upper middle class family of European descent. When he nonchalantly voiced his uncertainty about children, I was honestly afraid that we would divorce because I needed to be a mom. It was a natural instinct for me. I craved to nurture children and love them unconditionally. I would have been miserable if I had missed out on that experience.
Motherhood was something I knew that eventually I would need to feel fulfilled. Sure, it is exhausting and it seems like we never have enough money to do all that we want, but I wouldn't trade any child for any amount of money because while money can fill your life with stuff, my children fill my life with meaning.
I am not saying that people need to be a parent to feel fulfilled or be happy. I am saying that, personally, I have never met a Latino who didn't think that family was the most important thing in life because without it, everything else is meaningless.
Image via The TRUTH about Motherhood
