Mum's (Not) the Word

If you believe that all women are born with the maternal instinct and are really all just waiting to experience the glorious miracle of childbirth, then this blog post is absolutely not for you.

There are two types of people in this world: baby people and puppy people. I most certainly and totally belong to the latter. Show me a puppy (or a dog) and I'm pretty much willing to do anything for it. Scoop poop, mop pee, you name it. As for a baby? I'd rather gauge my own eye ball out with my bare hands than go within 100 miles of a dirty diaper, a wailing baby, a precariously dangling snot bubble, or a mound of semi-digested Cerelac that just sloshed its way onto the dining table.

I know some folks are going to blame this lack of maternal instincts on the 'evolution of the modern woman': a woman who has lost her innate (and most important) instinct to reproduce and nurture. However, that is not the case. There are just some of us women who would rather skip the wondrous experience of pushing a watermelon out of a keyhole (as someone once described childbirth). And if that isn't enough, spend the next N number of years in baby hell, surrounded by the stench of soiled clothes and baby barf, screaming tantrums, sore nipples and broken china. All this after 9 months of wobbling around gracefully like a walrus in stilettos.

"But don't you feel the urge to continue your lineage?", I've been asked. Eh? Call me selfish, but I really just want to get through this one life focusing on me, and don't particularly care about leaving behind any bawling legacies. Is that a cardinal sin? Pardon me if I haven't realized that the sole reason I am on this planet is to be the vessel for new life in one of the world's most populous countries. "To create another person in one's own likeness" - that's what God wanted when he created man, I believe, not what I dream about.

I really couldn't care for putting pictures of myself on the net, holding up a young squealer like a competition trophy. Don't get me wrong. I am not against anyone who loves kids or is dying to have one. They are just born like that. I just resent the ones who act supercilious about less-maternally-inclined women.

It is just that popping one out doesn't really figure on my list of life's ambitions. For those women who share my sentiment, there is nothing wrong with us. Just like there are tea drinkers and coffee drinkers, homosexuals and heterosexuals, Einsteins and George Bush Jr, and Ferrari fans and McLaren fans, there are pro-procreating women and the non. Let's just reconcile ourselves to stark reality, accept our differences and move on already.

{This post is a general opinion piece and does not in any way reflect the goings-on in Basically Blah's personal life. This means that those of you trawling this blog for hints of gossip: stop trying to read between the lines!}