In an era of DINKs and child-free Filipinas, I still want to be a mom
Every week, PhilSTAR L!fe explores issues and topics from the perspectives of different age groups, encouraging healthy but meaningful conversations on why they matter. This is Generations by our Gen Z columnist Angel Martinez.
To this day, there are people who assume that all women are conditioned to want motherhood. Never mind the unreasonable commands society places on us to center our entire lives around our children, their unrealistic expectations that we no longer have an identity outside of it all. According to them, lofty dreams and aspirations are reserved for our male counterparts, and that all we're made for are homemaking and child-rearing. My maternal grandmother was 20 when she became a mom; my paternal grandmother, 24. Just as old as I am now. I can’t possibly imagine.
Thankfully, this is an era of evolving social scripts. In the past five years, the country’s birth rate has fallen from 2.8 per woman to 1.88—a trend we might attribute to the rise of Double Income No Kids (DINK) couples who insist on their independence and financial freedom, as well as a new generation of empowered Filipinas who crave self-sufficiency before settling down.
And yet, despite the allure of such an unencumbered life, I’d rather be a mother.
Frankly, I didn’t always think this way. While my parents refused to raise me as a spoiled only child, I was naturally predisposed to catching Main Character Syndrome. Meanwhile, my mother traded in a corporate career for what she says was a far more fulfilling opportunity: being a full-time mom. Naturally nurturing, effortlessly on top of everything, she was there for every single one of my milestones and all the mundane moments in between. Under her watchful eye, there was no room to question if I was seen, heard, or loved. I didn’t know if I had it in me to do the same, and I was in no hurry to make up my mind.
But, something shifted as I grew older. I can’t pinpoint when exactly, but I can reference a series of tangential events. Finishing How I Met Your Mother and feeling this inexplicable urge to document my early twenties, for my future kids. Finding a stray miniature dress on the sales rack of a clothing store, and imagining how cute it would look on a potential mini-me. Running into a problem and instinctively reframing it as an inspirational anecdote that I would one day tell my child to shield them from the pain I had felt. Suddenly, my favorite fictional characters were future baby names, and my favorite books became bedtime story material.
I struggled with these feelings for a bit, which seemed antithetical to my firm feminist beliefs. Out of all the job titles women were free to take on, I'm choosing "mother," "mama," "mom"? But to subscribe to this antiquated ideal was to assume that every mother is somehow less of a woman; that giving birth eats away at the visions, values, and principles they hold until they’ve become a mere husk in someone else’s home.
Sure, it requires a considerable amount of self-sacrifice, but it doesn’t mean that everyone who chooses this life falls victim to some form of conservative propaganda. Of course, my mother would be my go-to example. I know no one more assured of who she is and what she wants—a trait I fervently hope she transmitted to me. Even in the absence of a conventional career, she was never just Mrs. Martinez or my mom. She was and will always be her own person.
In fact, I think motherhood can be a rather freeing project in itself. In a 1990 interview with Bill Moyers, novelist Toni Morrison said that it was the "most liberating thing that ever happened to me," because "the demands children make are not the demands of a normal 'other.' They were not interested in all the things that other people were interested in, like what I was wearing or if I were sensual." Rather, all they need is a mother that is there, a mother that is ready to love them. And I have so much love to give.
Of course, it’s a privilege to frame parenthood as an aspiration in these dismal conditions. Prices of basic goods are still high despite the ease of inflation in April, some politicians seem intent on benefiting from an ever-broken system, and the climate crisis accelerates the world’s inevitable collapse. Add to that the generational trauma or mental strife that keep even the kindest souls I know on the fence about procreation. I couldn’t possibly judge anyone who isn’t ready for this lifelong commitment.
I have no guarantee that I will weather these storms when they come, just as my parents had no guarantee they could. But I’m grateful to have been a witness to them trying and trying and trying. I’d like to think I can do that, too. It might just be naivete talking, but the possible fruits of my labor can withstand the fear of bringing them into a world this withered.
For now, I’ll focus on the things I can control. I’ll wait for a partner that will make my kids wonder why every man isn’t as great as their dad. I’ll make a name for myself and achieve what I can, while I can. I’ll nurture the parts of my mom that I see within me, so when my turn finally comes along, my children will have a mother that is there, a mother that is ready to love them.
Generations by Angel Martinez appears weekly at PhilSTAR L!fe.
