soos_mite_ah

The first post in this page is from 9/17/2022. It's now 9/19/2023. I can't believe I have captured pretty much an entire year within this page. On one hand I like how I can get a birds eye view on my growth without having to be clicking through different pages. I'm also excited that I was able to grow and improve my life greatly without having to pour everything into self development. And by that I mean that I no longer feel like I have a long laundry list of things that I have to deal with and really have a lazer focus on. The foundation has already been set. At the same time, on the other hand I think this is coming from how I didn't journal as much this year as I would previously. So while I'm glad I don't have to get into the dirt and put in a fuck ton of work, I still want to make sure I'm putting effort towards myself and that I always have things to aim for, no matter how big or small.

How I see my life in a year or so: Basically, in a year or so I hope to be more focused careerwise now that I know what direction I'm heading in and I hope to implement habits that really supports all of that. Habits to Implement More Regularly: Reading the News Journalling Reading 1 book a week Working Out (just temporarily fell out of the habit) Taking Notes at my Job + helping my team + career dev + doing things that will help me get a promotion Studying up on desired career paths ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I also hope to tackle various materialistic itches that I have. I'm just going to list thing out here: Materialistic Things I Want: Physical Looks Buy some nicer clothes that suit your life style Take care of your hair: deep condition regularly, get a hair cut maybe, figure this out lol Continue the skincare regimine your dermatologist put you on Continue exercising + get a walking pad Have more of a self maintence routine Add finishing touches to your place: art work, seasonal stuff, etc. Save for big ticket items on your spread sheet Learn to cook more meals so that I'm not solely living off of various girl dinners. Look into more ways of making money for an additional source of income Travel a couple of times ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ There are also some less materialistic things for self improvment that I have on my list Non-Materialistic Things I Want: Figure out how to deal with family relationships Have better body image Figure out if you want to have kids Deal with the issue of Misery Pollution Have more specific details on my dream career I wrote in my main journal about how I am seeing myself going into a more materialistic phase of my life and how that's coming from a healthy place rather than me abandoning my values and more spiritual goals. That's a whole thing that I'm not going to get into here since I try to be more succinct in this journal but yeah.... I'm focusing on the more materialistic aspects of my life at this time for my self development.

Aging I have been thinking more about aging as I'm observing my parents get older and as I'm seeing the first signs of me aging. I know I'm like 23, almost 24 years old and the stuff that I'm going to describe is trivial. Just felt like I had to give that disclaimer. I have been getting the occasional gray hair since I was 18. I think I have a total of 2 or 3 gray hairs now. The first one I saw was during my 18th birthday. I was hoping I was one of those people who would go completely gray at an early age since I have family members like that. But no, unfortunately, it was stress. Same with the other two strands. Lately I noticed my boobs sagging a little. It isn't to the point where anyone else would notice but it is something that I notice since I'm around myself all the time and because it is affecting the weight distribution on my chest and back. And honestly, I'm not upset about it. Honestly, the fact that my tits were perky at all instead of saggy from the beggining was a blessing given on how big they are lol. I'm ok with retiring that and now wearing a bra since I need more support now. I'm glad that I enjoyed my nice titty years by being braless from like the ages of 17 to 23. It was a good run lol. As for changes in my face and other traditional forms of aging, honestly they don't bother me too much. I'm not seeing anything now and knowing my genetics and knowing the way my mom has aged since I look so much like her, I know I'm more or less going to have the same face for the most part for another 25 years. That's so long as I don't do drugs or marry a toxic man and pop out too many kids that will run my body down due to stress. And speaking of stress, I genuninely feel like I look more lively and a bit younger because I'm not nearly as stressed as I was while I was in school / living with my parents. I also used the aging filter on TikTok out of curiousity. I saw a lot of people trying it and it seemed pretty accurate since they used the filter on younger photos of older celebrities to see the prediction and compare it to how the celebrity looks like now. I put on the filter and honestly, I found it to be comforting. I hope I get to see her one day. The image staring back at me reminded me of my grandmother who was always really warm towards me. I also looked so full of life as an old woman. I feel like my general view on aging is pretty positive and I don't think that everyone can relate to that, especially when it comes to some women. I think I have a more positive outlook because I was surrounded by a lot of old people growing up. My dad and Aunt was 41 when I was born. My uncle was 51. My mom was 33. My grandmother was 81. By the time I was 10, well you can do the math as to how old the people around me were. I think that this normalized aging for me and made it something I wasn't ever scared of. My dad and uncle specifically I think really modeled healthy aging for me. They have always been vibrant even at their current ages, 65 and 75. I talked about this with my dad more in depth and he told me that he never felt older than 40 or 45. I think he's also very with the times and continues to learn new things and update his world view. Sometimes we both laugh about boomers together, despite the fact that's his age group, because it's weird for him to see his peers be so out of touch from reality. It's also weird to him in the way that people his age also use age as such a limitting belief mainly because he can't relate since again, he has only felt at most 45. My uncle on the other hand, though he is more of the stereotypical boomer with his poltical and world views, he is still fairly social and physically active. Sure, he's not my favorite person, but I can't deny the fact that he has aged vibrantly and that he wears his years well. He's also still fairly energetic. My grandmother lived to age 98. And during the years I was alive, she never had any major health problems. She had a little bit of high blood pressure that was controlled with a minimum amount of medication and she was also pretty anxious and took anxiety meds. Other than that, she didn't have any other health concerns. She still had a good degree of mobility and didn't need help getting around. She ultimately passed away from pneumonia after being in the hospital for 2 weeks. It was sudden but also peaceful. She didn't suffer much. I cannot give a similar account when it comes to my mother though. Watching her age has been pretty sad so far. In the last couple of years, her eating disorder has gotton worse. I think that controlling food is how she copes with aging and her anxieties around health. Things got worse during the pandemic because it hit her common anxieties. She lost a significant amount of weight, much of which was muscle. Mentally, she's not okay and she projects onto me and my dad a lot. I've had friends and my friends' parents comment on her state, how distraught and on edge she looks all the time, how she barely eats in social settings. I find her to be pretty triggering to be around considering my own issues with food and body image issues. But most of all, I feel very helpless. I have tried to address my concerns but she is in denial she has a problem and if anything, thinks everyone else is unhealthy because they don't follow her strict dietary constraints. And of course, there is only so much I can do in this situation. She has also mentioned that she feels like her life is done now that I've grown up and the only thing she has left to see is me get married. She doesn't include having kids because she gets the feeling that she'll die before then, that she has less than 10 years left in her. Knowing what she went through, her life story, and the context she grew up in, her life has only been defined as being a wife and mother. And before she was those things, she was seen as a future wife and mother. She never got the chance to figure out who she was and what she wanted. She never had the opportunity to be independent and have autonomy. She has limitted herself to that and continue to limit herself. She keeps saying how certain things aren't suitable for someone her age even though she's only 57, how she can't wear vibrant colors and how she needs to be quieter because her time is up since she is "no longer beautiful". And I think she feels that since I have grown up that her life is basically over and that all there is left to do is veg out on her ipad watching right wing media. She has really become a shell of herself in recent years. All her free time is spent watching YouTube and praying for 2+ hours a day which is pretty concerning for both me and my dad. Her obsessive tendencies around politics, food, and God has been affecting him a lot. It hurts me to see her like this as her daughter and as any human being with basic empathy. She's not going on a good path. But more than anything, her past and present serves as a cautionary tale of what happens when you don't work on yourself, you don't have any sort of self awareness, and you don't do things that will make you independent and actualized in your life or hell even know what any of those things look like. I know she has had a very different life compared to my dad and uncle in terms of what she could expect out of life and what your roles were. I can acknowledge that part of the reason that my dad and uncle aged well was partly due to their privilege. And that's something that I keep thinking of, what would have my mother's life have looked like if she was born in different circumstances. Because the reality is just depressing. I don't ever want to age like that.

TLDR So Far: I feel like I could really envision myself having a kid if I had the following gurantees: They won't have severe disabilities and won't get into a freak accident I have a partner that will be supporting me through the process of child rearing financially, emotionally, and in terms of putting in the same amount of work I have a partner whom I have a healthy, loving relationship with and who is compatible with my life goals, parenting styles, and general life style My partner and I make enough money to where we can easily support a family and give the child a live they deserve Postpartum won't be absolute hell I have the time and energy to be a good mother and maintain my own sense of identity. But even then, I still have the following questions: Is motherhood for me? How badly do I want this? How do I feel about being in a care role for the baby years? How would my partner and I handle that situation? Can I handle something like preganancy and giving birth?

Common Reasons to Have Children that Rub Me the Wrong Way Category One: Wanting Little People Like Yourself to Preserve Your Idenity Wanting a Mini Version of Yourself or Your Partner: This is honestly the worst in my opnion. I just think it's weird to want to have that much control over someone and I think you're bound to be disappointed because your children will grow up to be their own people and likely not carbon copies of you and your partner, even if they resemble you guys looks wise. I just find it funny that someone people with children claim that child free people are selfish and then site reasons like this when people ask why they wanted kids. Not funny haha, funny weird. I think that wanting to have children is inherently a selfish act because the kids never asked to be here and it's up to you going forward to pay that selfish act forward with a life time of selflessness. Again, your kids never asked to be here so you better treat them well. To Carry on the Family Name and Values: I feel like the family name bit is kind of ridiculous unless you have a weird lastname. Like I have heard this line from people whose last names are Martinez, Khan, Smith, Chowdhury.... like bffr. That last name isn't going to die just because a couple people decided to not have kids. As for values, this goes back to the whole you can't choose what your kids are going to be like and the values they will hold. Sure, you as a parent have some influence, but the child's values will be determined by other factors like their peers, environments, and life experiences as well. And as a child of immigrants who has had a very different life compared to my parents, I can tell you that your kid having the same values as you is not a gurantee. To Have a Legacy: I feel like men are more likely to state this reason and I find it to be weird in a comical way. Like sir, you are not in Succession or an episode of The Crown. You are a regular, everyday civilian... act like it. To Mold A Life: Again, weird and kind of controlling. I think it makes more sense and seems healthier to want to guide someone as opposed to going into the experience with the intention to mold. Again, this isn't everyone but I feel like there are a lot of narcissists that insist on having kids (and a lot of them) because they like the idea of molding someone into their own image and also having absolute control over a baby that has no agency and has to depend on you for everything. To Give the Gift of Existance: I feel like this is tangentially related to the category title and I didn't know where to put this tbh. I put this reason in Category One because I feel like it goes along with this notion of control and almost playing god in a way. I don't think existance itself is inherently a gift and that you need to make it a gift for your child, because again, they never asked to be here and you don't want them to hate their existance lol. This reason also reminds me of the pro-life people that try to get you by saying "if your mom aborted you, you wouldn't be here right now" to which a lot of people respond with "I don't care to be here my guy and I wouldn't want my mom to suffer if it came down to it. Category Two: Having a Hole in Your Life To Feel Unconditional Love: It rubs me so weird when people cite this reason because it really make me think that they never experienced unconditional love in other areas of their lives which makes you think if they are capable of showing that kind of love. I have felt that kind of love with my friends and family, with animals, with myself to a certain extent. And it's like, if someone has to be your child for you to experince that kind of love, I'm sorry, that's not unconditional love. For a Sense of Fulfillment: I think fulfillment can be a valid reason but I think it's how you go about it. If you are dependent on having a child to have a sense of fulfillment, that's a little weird because a child comes into the world not knowing how to basic things like walk. I think putting your sense of fulfillment on a baby is a pretty big ask and a burden. Your fulfillment is your responsibility. That said, I think kids can enhance whatever sense of fulfillment or lack of fulfillment you have. I think it can be a beautiful to share your sense of fulfillment and pour that into someone else to help them grow and develop into their own person. To Make You Happy: Again, that's a pretty big ask to someone who just got here and doesn't know how to even talk and just a pretty big ask to anyone. I don't think it's wise to put the burden of your happiness on anyone especially child. I think this can also yield to some people to put their mood dependent on their children and that's not a healthy dynamic because of how it clashes with self regulation and responsibility when it comes to emotional reactions. To Fix Your Marriage: I have personal beef with this one. I was the baby my parents had to fix the marriage. And I spend many years having to play therapist with my parents from my childhood which I had to unpack. Plus, if you have a chaotic marriage, what makes you think a baby is going to make that any calmer? If anything, people struggle with their marriage the most, even those with healthy relationships, for the first 3 years of a child's life because of how big the life transition is. On top of that, if you get through those 3 years, that kid will be subject to whatever chaos you guys have in your household and trust me, that doesn't yield to well adjusted results. To Re-experience Childhood: I feel like this can come in one of two ways. There are people who approach this in a healthy way where it's like they want to broaden their life experiences by watching a tiny person learn how to navigate life from literally the first steps and onwards. But then there are those people who want to live through their kids for whatever reason (insert the Disney cliche where the Dad says "Son, you're giving up on your dream" and the son is like "I'm not giving up on my dreams, Dad, I'm giving up on YOURS.") A Sense of Meaning: This goes along with what I said about a sense of fulfillment. I think it's important to have a sense of meaning before having kids and share that with your family rather than having your family determine your sense of meaning. I feel like this is especially true for women because we're pushed to have kids and have that be what defines us and it's so important to have other life experiences and have a well rounded life and idenity outside of motherhood regardless of whether you decide to have kids or not. To Give a Better Childhood than the One You Experienced: I'm going to be honest, I do see part of myself in this and I'm trying to be careful in the extent that this is the reason why I want to have a child. I think this can come from a lot of trauma and can come from an unhealthy place, causing you to create a differnent kind of fuck up compared to the kind of fuck up you were raised as. Please don't project your trauma to your kids. Category Three: External Influences Social Pressure: This can include anything from gender roles to your annoying aunt who keeps asking you and your spouse when a baby will be on the way. And nearlly all of the people who put this pressure on you have the least at stake when it comes to you deciding to have a kid or not. Some people are really nosey, have no sense, and are judgemental af towards people who may want to be childless because of whatever insecurities they way have in their life decisions. Also, in some cases, misery loves company. It' s just such a personal I feel like generally speaking this is doesn't end well when people have kids because they are pressured to do so. To Repopulate the Earth: I feel like this mainly applies to the pronatalist of the world like Elon Musk or Nick Cannon who basically have a fetish around having a bunch of baby mamas and spreading their seed. While the pronatalists are a small percent of the population, I do think some people still think that if you don't have kids that humans will cease to exist. And while I'm not someone who thinks that overpopulation is a threat we face, I think it will take quite a bit for 8 billion people to just go extinct. The pro-natalist are worried about underpopulation and I feel like a lot of it has to do with having enough bodies to exploit for capitalism to keep going which honestly, fuck that. Honestly, I also think that anti-natalists are also fucking weird because of how black pilled and doomer they can be. I don't think overpopulation is the problem rather making sure that everyone has food to eat and shit has more to do with resource allocation/ wealth distribution rather than us not having enough resources to support people. To "Go Forth and Multiply" / Religious Fundamentalism: Idk, maybe I encountered quite a few of these kinds of people because I live in Texas or because I discovered the Morman family blogger side of YouTube. I think this can be wrapped up in the social pressure point but I think it needs a bullet for itself. I honestly feel like having more than like 4 kids usually yields to neglect and the parentification of the older kids because there is no way that you as a parent can take the time to give every kid what they need emotionally and in terms of time. Plus, how tf are you doing this in THIS economy. I have questions lol. Someone to Look After You When You're Old: Again, another reason that I didn't know what category to put it at. It's kind of like the very first point I made in Category One where people claim that having kids is selfless but then cite really selfish reasons. First of all, even if you have kids, there is no gurantee that they will want to care for you in your old age or if they will be able to (i.e. they could be disabled, have other burdens, they could die before you get old etc.). Second, the money that you save as a childfree person and likely help you to have a more comfortable retirment so that you don't have to rely on relatives as much. And then there is the whole lonliness argument and honestly, I don't think a nuclear family is the solution to that problem. You can still have friends and have a sense of community with the involvement you have with your surroundings. Popping people out of you pussy is probably not the best way to create a sense of community nor is it definitately not the only way to have community and a sense of belonging.

A Good Past Another common reason why I feel like people are hesitant to bring children into this world is because how much of a wreck this world is. You have climate change that the people in power are not taking seriously, the rise of far right leaders and media figures, anti-gay and trans hatred, and women's rights being rolled back. It's understandable that many are hesitant of the future globally as well as in the U.S and as a result, it's understandable to be concerned about whether bringing life into this world is even the right thing to do. Not to mention that the country feels like a toxic boyfriend who keeps you around in the relationship because he keeps saying that "I'll change, I promise." I was talking to a friend about this who is about to get married. She's about 4 years older than me. She told me something along the lines of this: You never know what the future is going to look like in 20 ish years. Sure things are awful now, but a lot of things can improve in time. Just think, you and I were born in the 90s. The economy was great, the Cold War ended, 9/11 had not occured yet, and people were dubbing this as the end of history. If you go by your logic now, the 90s would have been a good time to have kids. But do you think our parents could have predicted the kind of world we would have stepped into in our adulthood and the chaos that we have to deal with to where in some cases it's hard to get up on our feet due to student loans, shitty house prices and wages not keeping up with inflation? No, and similarly, we don't know what kind of world our children will step into and sure things are rough now and it feels like it's not going to end based on prior experiences in recent times, but things don't move in an even tragectory. I thought of this and I think a point was made. I also think about this post that I saw a while back that said that we cannot gurantee a solid future for our individual children but we do have control to a certain extent over the present and how these future adults will look back at their past. We can't gurantee the state of the world or that they will have a better standard of living compared to their parents but we can do our best to give them a good childhood so that they have the tools to handle the challenges that will meet them in adulthood. Sure there is the climate crisis looming in the air and in the uncertain future. And while all of this is reassuring in the face of that uncertain future, I am concerned about the present if you aren't in the best position financially. There is the cost of childcare, the lack of gun legislation in the U.S. and the lack of materity and paternity leave, and the thousands of dollars it costs to have a baby in a hospital in the first place that makes me second guess things in the U.S. Even if people want to have kids, there are very real logistical and financial restraints (not to mention the cost of living and stagnating wages) that stop people in the present who otherwise would really want to have children. I know that when people hear pro-choice, the main thing they think of is the access to abortion so that they can choose not to have a child if they so wish. But I don't think we think of the other side of pro-choice enough which is the choice to have a child. And I think that the pro-choice stance can tie into other political ideals such as a living wage, paternity and maternity leave, having vacation days, gun control, climate change legislation, universal health care, walkable cities, accessible childcare, and so many other policies that can support families in bringing kids into the world and raising them as well in a way that makes sense to their family planning goals. That's my other thing, if I decide to have a kid, I know that I don't want them to be raised in the U.S. not only for their well being but also for my sense of support and sanity. While I was able to handle going to school givent the shit that you see about school shootings and having a couple of close calls in my school, I don't think I can handle such a thing from a parent's perspective. I hate on how I had to panic about basic things like how to pay for college and getting health care in a way that was timely and wasn't going to be exhorbitantantly priced. And I don't think that I would be supported as a mother in this country as far as the social infrastructure goes. Sure I'm going to deal with shit like social biases and other issues everywhere, but atleast other places have it codified to be more supportive to families and in general have a better quality of life. An uncertain future is something I can deal with a certain extent. An uncertain present is another story. And while people talk about the social pressures and expectations to have kids, I think the times put pressure on people not to have kids as well in different ways.

A Mother's Baby, A Father's Maybe. The phrase "A Mother's Baby, A Father's Maybe" is used to describe two things. One that it's easy to know the mother of the child but the father can be ambigious unless there is a paternity test involved (insert a clip of Maury here). But another meaning of this phrase is that mothers are expected to take on more of the load in terms of raising the child compared to the father and that there isn't really a gurantee that the father will play a role in the child's life. I'm going to be discussing the later. One of the easiest places to see this is the whole ordeal around teen moms. Rarely does anyone talk about teen dads and what they're doing. There is a whole show about Teen Moms and people raised a question about where the dads are and let's be real, if there was a show call Teen Dad, it will be pretty boring (or alarming) because it's likely that the dad's life is not nearly as altered as the mom's and you will end up watching a teenage boy going through an existential crisis while in high school while still playing video games in their spare time. Or they run away all together. Why do I mention this despite the fact that I won't be a teen mom and I wouldn't dare having a chlid out of wedlock due to the instability that it will create for me and the child? Because the phenomenon of a married single mother exists. There are mothers out there who are married and even though they have a partner, all of the responsibility around haivng a kid (and also often holding down a job in the process) falls on her while her husband is not doing much to help her. Often times, when these mothers get a divorce, sometimes it's easier than when they were married because instead of taking care of an extra person, the husband, along with the children, it's easier to just take care of the kids even with a smaller income because of how it frees up more of your time and labor. And honestly, I think that and/or becoming a single mother is one of the worst situations, waaaaay worse than being single and child free. Basically, I'm evaluating my decision to have a kid with this possibility in mind, even if this is a possibility that makes me wince and I pray to god something like this happens. But it is a reality for many women, single and married. It also makes me think that if I decide to have a kid, I will also have to approach dating and marriage differently than I do now. I will have to have higher standards regarding men and also take the dimension of what kind of a parent this man will be and if our approach to parenting compliments each other. Because if I know I want to have a child and I'm making a decision about my life partner, my life partner will also be my co-parent. I can't just look at my own needs of what I want in a relationship when the decision of who the father of my child is on the line. Also, even if I make an excellent choice in a father, there is also a chance of him dying which again will put me back in the role of being a single mother. There is also a chance that I might die and my child has to be raised by my husband which is all the more reason to make a good choice when choosing a father and life partner. You don't want to leave your child in the hands of someone unhealthy and incompentent if you die. I'm not someone who actively seeks out "provider men." While I'm not a 50/50 kind of girl (more on that in another post), I do like doing things for my partner like paying every now and then and doing little gestures that are stereotyped as "things a man does in a relationship." Gender roles aside, I think it's natural to want to do things to show that you care for your partner. That can look different for different people. For some women, it looks like showing gratitude. And while I'm the same way, I don't like to just say thank you and act all giddy when a man does something for me 100% of the time. Personally, I do like taking a more active role in showing that I care in the relationship every now and then. I still think about the few times I bought my man flowers and how happy that made him. I believe that this is my authentic way of showing up in a romantic scenario. At the same time, sometimes I think that my authentic way of showing up would not be conducive to vetting and finding my life partner when I take into consideration of choosing the father of my child. I feel like getting a guy that actively provides in a relationship (and takes pride in providing), not just financially but also in other dimensions, gives you a better shot at avoiding the whole married single mom thing. I know my dad was a man like that. While he wasn't the best father, he didn't leave my mom hanging when it came to household matters. He took an active role in my childhood and he contributed to household tasks. He did the cleaning, my mom did the cooking. He did his share of the laundry and regularly picked up after himself. He also hired help with the lawn and with deep cleaning the house when he and my mom started getting older and less capable to physically keep up with everything. He also took care of 100% of the finances. And while the financial aspect wasn't all positive in terms of how it affected the power dynamic of the relationship and his degree of fulfillment in terms of having an equal partner, he always took pride in being a provider and a father and it was a version of masculinity he embraced and valued a great deal. My father told me growing up that a man with any sense will see the value that the women in his life provides and that he will invest in that accordingly to the best of his ability. That man is someone who sees the value in the role that his mother and the women in his life played and can see and understand how big of a job being a wife and mother is and how that in turn helps him and the whole family to prosper with the combination of the valuable work of their partner as well as how the family motivates a man to do better in his life. He only gave me this talk once when I was like 11 and he was telling me the story on how getting married and having kids affected his father's life and how it has affected his as well. I didn't think of it as much at the time but I do think back to that conversation whenever I see the alpha male podcasters who keep talking about 50/50 and how they keep asking women "what do you bring to the table?" almost in an accusatory tone as if a woman has nothing to add other than sex and as if they want to watch a woman dance monkey dance to prove herself to them. Men like that who cannot even see the value another person can add in their life but insist on dating and having kids anyway are the biggest red flags. Like you know damn well they won't give you basic respect much less step up when something affects you two as a couple. It's seriously giving wounded masculinity and fatherless behavior as if they never got any healthy role models for masculinity. Sure, it's fine if you don't resonate with the paternal archetype of masculinity, but it's really fucking weird to be that disrespectful to the people around you to where your view of masculinity is so limitted to where you only see it as a means to exert power over others in order to stroke your own ego. And unfortunately, a lot of men do just that. They have kids because they like the aesthetics of being a father and they expect that their wife is going to be the maid, the cook, and the nanny, and the caretaker in their old age without doing anything in return. Of course, it isn't all men. My father was most definitely not like that and it's always a little shocking to see the weaponized incompetence, from the idiot fathers that are played off for laughs in sitcoms to people irl congradulating a father for changing a diaper and watching the kids as he is supposed to as a co-parent. It's so weird when I see accounts of grown ass men who don't do basic chores that you would expect a roommate would do when they live with their partners because they expect their wife and girlfriend to pick up after them like their mother. That was never modeled to me as a child and my boyfriend is most certainly not like that. Men who don't do basic things when they live on their own to take care of themselves aren't men, they are boys. What I'm describing isn't "women's work." It's basic adult responsibility. Regardless of gender, I expect you to be able to cook, do the laundry, keep an clean, hygenic, and organized living space, and remember basic dates, appointments and responsibilities to yourself and the people around you becuase you're a fucking adult. Rant aside, I feel like the decision of whether or not to have a child would be 10x easier if I had been born a man. That's why this journal is called Contemplating Motherhood instead of Contemplating Parenthood. You don't have nearly as many expectations piled on to you if you are a man having a child and of course, you're physical body isn't on the line. That changes a lot of things.

Fears Regarding Motherhood: Pregnancy / Birth / Post partum: There are so many different side effects of preganancy that I've heard on the internet from the typical morning sickness all the way to potentially losing your teeth. I also grew up with a lot of traumatic birth stories in the form of the media I was exposed to in childhood witht the Indian Soap Operas that my mom and her sisters would watch. I just know that I if I decide to be a mother, I'm only having one. There is no way I'm repeating that shit. My mom reassures me and tells me that all of the women in both sides of our family had relatively smooth pregnancies without too many symptoms. I honestly call bullshit because I know that my aunt, my mom's older sister, had two miscarriages before having my cousin. Even if she didn't have many preganancy side effects prior to the miscarriage, that's still a pretty big deal. I'm pretty sure my mom is down playing things which causes me to not trust her tbh. I've read waaay too many therads on r/regretful parents to take things like this at face value. I'm also scared about post partum complications and depression. I'm scared of the time it can take to recover as well as how it can affect my ability to be a parent. I hate how people perpetuate this notion that pregnancy is the best thing that can happen to you, that you glow before and after pregnancy, and that it's always this easy and beautiful thing that everyone should experience when that's not the case for many people. I'm glad that people are talking about the effects of post partum depression and how it impacts people. I feel that a large part of it is not even in your control because so much of it is hormonal related from your body adjusting to pregnancy, adjusting to giving birth, and adjusting back even though you never fully go back, and there is only so much you can do to sort through your emotions and existential crisis prior to giving birth. The Baby Years: The baby years seem so incredibly stressful from the sleepless night, to not having any time for yourself for like 2+ years depending on how many kids you have, to the financial stress that you and your partner face. It's no wonder that people struggle with their marriage for like the first 3 years since a baby is born. Not to mention how mothers specifically often lose a great deal of their identity once having a kid because it consumes so much of their lives and because society has a tendency to view mothers as nothing more than just mothers. Babies are also so incredibly delicate that I'm scared that I'm going to fuck up and have it die or something because of the position that it is sleeping. That alone freaks me out, no elaboration necessary. It's the feeling of being on call 24/7 and having someone be 100% reliant on you. I know that' not 100% the case if you have a community there to help you. My mother had my aunt and uncle (my dad's brother and his wife) all throughout my childhood for help, even if it meant just dropping me off at their house for a couple of hours. She also had her sister come to the U.S. to help her with the first few months after I was born. And one year after I was born, my mom took me to India to visit family for 6 months both so that her relatives could bond with the baby and so that she could get additional support. Not to mention my dad supported us 3 financially during 90% of my childhood. Maybe this is a sure reason as to why I shouldn't be a parent. I'm attracted to more to the parenting and guiding part of the role rather than a 24/7 caretaking role. Severe Disabilities: Speaking of being on call 24/7 and having someone be 100% reliant on you, I'm scared of the possibility of my child being born with severe mental or physical disabilities. I'm scared of the ongoing suffering they will face in their lives in such a state and selfishly, I don't think I'm cut out for that circumstance of being a 24/7 caregiver for the rest of my life if something were to happen. While the baby years are intimidating, there's still an end in sight once the kid starts growing up and becoming more independent. At the same time, I'm told that a lot of severe disabilites can be detected early on in the pregnancy and that there is only a small chance of something like this happening. But at the same time, I'm also told by others that you need to be prepared for anything if you decide to be a parent and if that is not for you, parenting isn't for you either and you shouldn't have kids.However, my rebuttle to the detection of severe disabilities in pregnancy is the possibility of having a healthy child who later in life is caught in a freak accident that kills them or worse renders them physically and mentally incapable causing them to suffer for the rest of their life. That's not something you can detect ahead of time and while it's unlikely, the stakes can make it a huge gamble. And I know this is a fucked up way of looking at things, but I feel like the vast majority of people don't think about these things too hard. I'm not saying that's right, but I am saying that it makes me feel like maybe I'm over reacting or overthinking......? I feel this way both on the topic of disabilities as well as how much thought I'm putting into this decision to be a mother as a whole. Speaking of disabilities, I do have ADHD that I generally manage well. I know I have heard stories about the challenges that parents of disabled children go through in r/regretful parents and I think thankfully my parent's only dealt with my ADHD in the way that it manifested in me having trouble paying attention in school and my surroundings as a kid rather than full on tantrums and behavioral issues. But even then, that was still too much for my parents and they caused a good amount of trauma in me because they tried to "discipline" the ADHD out of me (i.e. my mom beat me and my dad verbally and emotionally abused me). On one hand it's like, my parents definitely didn't put this much thought into having a child and just had me so maybe I'm overthinking this especially since I think I have more skills to be a better parent (I'm not saying this to gloat rather I'm saying this to say that I've worked on myself and biases much more than they ever have in their lives much less than before I was born). At the same time, I'm like, you better than anyone should know how fucked up it is to have a kid and take on more than you can chew by default because you didn't fully think this through. I know about how unwanted I felt, how much of a failure I felt in my parents' eyes, and how much therapy it took to undo all that. And that's with a manageable form of ADHD, not even a severe disability.

Being 100% Sure You Want Kids I always hear from other people that "if you aren't 100% sure you want kids, don't have them." And I get it, kids are hard work and this is not a commitment you want to half ass especially since another human life is in your hands. At the same time, this attitude feels very black and white. After all, I know people who were 100% sure they wanted kids who ended up hating parenthood, specifically motherhood. I doubt everyone who was 100% sure just had a happy ever after after deciding to have a kid or two. Also, I feel that my sense of ambiguity and doubt on the decision is more of a reflection of me wanting to think critically about this decision rather than a symptom of me half assing my commitment. If anything, I feel like the way that I carefully think about this is indicative of my commitment to this topic, whether I ultimately decide to have a kid or not. It just boggles my mind that there are people out there that had this intrinsic knowing that they want X number of kids from the very beginning. I have a friend who has always been very in touch with her maternal energy since we were kids based on the way that she treated her younger brother and their friends. She has always told me that she wanted 3-4 kids from the time we were like 12. And just knowing her personally, I do think that it's coming from a healthy and authentic place since she has never been the type to be like "i want a mini me" (god, people who say that are so fucking cringe). My boyfriend is also someone that knew from a young age how many kids he wanted. That number is 0 and he has never waived a bit in his life. He just can't handle the tantrums and crying and would have issues keeping his sanity in that circumstance. It's simple, straightforward and uncomplicated. Clearly, given that I'm writing in this journal, I have a different experience lol. I have a lot of thoughts on this matter. At least one of us is sure about your decision. I have talked about this with him and how that affects what our relationship will look like long term. We have a very healthy relationship and we have talked about how we would handle various life transitions from moving to different parts of the country, moving in together, career changes, health and family matters etc. since we are both in our early 20s which can be a volatile time for people when it comes to life happening to them. I honestly feel like if we break up that it will likely be due to a difference in our long term life goals rather than problems in our relationship. Another part of me wants to wait til my friends start having kids so that I can see how their experience pans out and if I'm just content with being the fun aunt that takes care of the kids while the parents are catching up on some rest or doing anything else they need to do. I'm not cutting out the possibility of being a part time parent out of the equation lol. Another thing people say is ask yourself "which decision are you likely to regret more, the decision to have kids or the decision to be child free?" My answer to that question is I don't know. I'm scared of regretting the decision to have a kid because at that point, another life is involved and you better not screw it up or let the kid know about your regret. I'm also scared of regretting not having a kid because I do see myself reaching a point where I have lived life to the fullest and I would really want to share that with another life by pouring into them and I do think that not having a kid can have an impact on my sense of fulfillment in life, even if I can still envision a happy child free life for myself. I still think even if I have a happy child free life, it's lilkely that I will go through a sort of a mourning process. I remember when I was diagnosed with PCOS, I saw a bunch of scary stuff on the internet on how that basically means your infertile, and while that wasn't earth shattering for my life, I did feel this sense of heaviness and mourning of the thought that my body made the decision for me befre I was ready to make the decision on my own. Later the doctor that I went to abut my condition told me that people tend to exaggerate the impacts of PCOS in the internet and that it doesn't mean that I'm infertile. So far I just know that whatever the decision may be, I want to have a sense of autonomy over my body and my life. And unfortunately, that's no longer a gurantee considering the political climate of the U.S. especially in Texas.

I did a little brain dump about parenting in my private journal a few days ago and I thought I'd include this here in this journal. While I claim that I don't know and that I am open to being child free, I still find myself thinking a lot on how I would raise my kid: The Baby Phase (birth to 4 years old) Before having a baby, my husband and I both need to be in a place in our careers where we can support a family of 3 under a single person’s income and we have savings to fall back on. We also have to have a sense of community around us to help out with taking care of the baby whether that be friends or family. Birth to 2 years old I will be staying at home with the baby while my husband supports us all since, I will have to breast feed during this time. I will need to be focusing the most on the physical well being of the child in terms of adequate nutrition, a good amount of physical activity (+ we will have to baby proof our living area), good sleep, various medical check ups and other things that entails on taking care of a baby 24/7. As the child gets older, there will be more of an emphasis on gentle parenting. This will likely start at around the age of 2. Gentle Parenting means we will teach the child about the world not through punishment or asserting authority but by teaching them about natural consequences. It also means that there will be a focus on teaching the child emotional regulation and identification during tantrums or any other times the child is dysregulated. This will be emphasized more during the age of 3-4 years old 3-4 years old Basically, what I said in the previous paragraph plus here there will be a shift where instead of my husband supporting all of us like he did when the baby was born to about 2 years old, I will be supporting the family on a single income from the time the child is 3 to 4 years old. This is because, personally, I don’t think I’m cut out for the stay at home mom life and I don’t want to sacrifice too much of my career because I think it’s healthy to have an identity outside of being a wife and mom and that it’s important for me to maintain a degree of career and monetary stability independently since you never know what can happen in life (i.e. husband gets laid off in the future, he dies, we get divorced etc.). I also think it’s good for the father to be in the child’s life early on to bond with the child and so that parenting responsibilities are more equitably distributed, resulting in a better marriage where we can empathize with each other better and appreciate the work that is taking care of the family both in terms of taking care of the home as well as monetarily providing. Childhood years (age 4-10: school age) By now, both my husband and I will be back to work. During these years, I want there to be a focus on the child’s education in schools so that they are ahead of their curriculum and that they have the support they need to thrive. I’m willing to take on a similar model my mom had when it comes to educating me except without inflicting a lot of trauma (basically what she did without making my child an anxious mess that is scared to fail, basis their self worth on how they compare to others or their achievement, and without me hitting them or verbally abusing them) Education also means social education outside of the classroom as well. That means that we do emphasize the need to have friends and we will facilitate our child having friends whether that means their friends come over to our house or the kid goes over to theirs. It can also mean sending the kid to camp or sleep overs. This is different from the way that I was raised because my parents emphasized school so much to where my social skills suffered and I had a good deal of social anxiety growing up. I also get their anxiety around sending me away to camps and sleep overs since they were immigrant parents and as a result didn’t know how that stuff worked but were aware of predators. And I think this can be easily tackled with using age-appropriate sex education so that my kid can communicate if they are being abused. And if that happens, we are immediately going to therapy and taking legal action. Conversations around reproduction may come up if my child asks questions. I’m not going to sit here an lie to them and say that babies come from storks. That’s going to fuck up their perceptions of sex and reproduction and will probably lead them to being laughed at later on in school. I don’t think it’s a good idea to shelter my kid completely (even though there are some boundaries for age appropriate education) and I think it’s good to normalize the LGBTQ as a community rather than only focusing on the sexual aspect of it. I don’t want them to ever have to deal with “coming out” rather I want them to know early on that there is nothing wrong with being gay or trans and that’ it’s normal and that we are 100% supportive. If for instance my daughter is gay, I don’t want her to go through the whole thing about coming out because we expected her to be straight. I just want her to nonchalantly pop up with her girlfriend just as she would with a boyfriend. They will also be educated about masculine and feminine energy and learn that gender and gender expression is fluid. I would also teach my kid about boundaries and how to stand up to others (and maybe even fight if necessary). There have been several instances in my childhood where I was essentially raised to be a nonconfrontational people pleaser and while I have handled much of this as an adult through therapy, it still never went away fully. Also, these nonconfrontational methods of dealing with bullying such as ignoring the bullies, telling the teacher, “killing them with kindness” honestly made some things worse and more drawn out. Also, especially if my child is a girl, she will not be given the message that boys pick on her and physically hurt her because they secretly like her. My kid will also slowly learn to be self sufficient with basic chores regardless of gender. By age 10, they will be able to do their own laundry, pick up after themselves, do the dishes, and make the bed. My parents delayed this stuff for me until a later age because they wanted me to focus on my studies and while that didn’t horribly fuck me up, I do remember growing up feeling weird because it felt like my peers were progressing and growing in terms of responsibility and self efficacy while I stagnated more. My kid at these ages will not have to do super time-consuming chores (vacuuming, deep cleaning, cooking etc.) because I want them to focus on school but they will know how to do basic things for the sake of self sufficiency. My husband and I will also model a fair division of labor as well as the general principle of “we don’t clean the house because we always keep it clean in the first place.” I think this will do the child good in terms of modelling fair gender dynamics as well as promoting a healthy and hygienic way of living. While my kid won’t have a 1000 organized activities like a lot of kids that I grew up around in the suburbs, my kid will be encouraged to find their own hobbies and explore given what my husband and I do for fun as well as what is available in the community. I don’t think it’s the best approach to fill out a child’s calendar as if they have access to Microsoft Outlook and I also don’t want to drive them around in a 1000 different places. They will be encouraged to explore in a more organic, unstructured way to foster authenticity. And for the lightening round, here are things I will not do to my child at any age: Emotionally and verbally degrade them: I will not teach them that hurling insults and cussing at people is an effective way of communicating. I will not fuck up their emotional wellness and self-esteem by degrading them in the process of disciplining them. I will not teach them that discipline comes from degradation and I will teach them to have discipline within themselves in a healthy and gentle way Physically harm them or threaten to: I will not teach them the notion that people who love them will harm and disrespect them. I will not teach them that violence and asserting dominance is a good way to solve problems. Compare them to their peers and their achievements: They need to know how to develop their own sense of self and self esteem outside of how they measure up tot heir peers. Center their entire life around school: I want them to grow to be successful adults, not successful children. Isolate them socially by talking bad about their friends or not letting them hang out with their peers period. Comment about their or other people’s bodies and food choices: We will follow the principles of intuitive eating and we will encourage a sense of body neutrality. I will not share the intimate struggles of my marriage or personal issues with my child: I will not parentify them or make them feel like they have to carry a burden to comfort me and be my therapist. I will be a more competent adult than my family was to me. They will also not bear the burden of being guilt tripped by money or by having to do adult things like translate tax form at the age of 5. I will not get agitated when my child is simply trying to have a conversation or understand where I’m coming from: I won’t paint them as trying to “talk back” just because they have questions nor will I use the phrase “because I said so.” It’s important to have two way communication and for a child to understand where the parent is coming for so that they can sharpen their critical thinking skills. I want them to be able to question me and talk to me rather than blindly follow my authority. I want them to challenge me and cause me to think of things in a new way from their fresh perspective. I want them to feel comfortable with expressing their ideas to adults and authority figures and I want them to be comfortable with self expression in general. I won’t violate their physical or emotional boundaries: they will not be forced to show physical affection towards anyone if they are not comfortable and I will not force them to talk if they are not comfortable with it. And of course, I will respect their privacy and won’t do shit like take the door of the hinges, stop them from closing the door, or read their diary. I will not degrade them for their feelings: I will not tell my son that he needs to “man up” and that “boys don’t cry” and I will not tell my daughter that she is hysterical when she is experiencing something emotionally intense. Regardless of gender, I will create a space where my children can express and process their emotions in a healthy way. Suppression is not going to be a thing in this household. Preteen years (11-12) I do expect my child to do well in school and / or put in good effort. If anything, I would focus more on congratulating effort in order to promote healthy habits and responsibility rather than stroking their ego on how smart they are which can yield to various issues in terms of creating a healthy form of identity. If they are struggling in school, I’m not going to punish them and blow up at them rather we will both come up with a plan to help them succeed and figure out what is going on. I want to focus on this more so in these years rather than the childhood years because I think from age 4-10, kids need to grow at their own pace. But once they are like 11 ish, you have a solid understanding of where your kid is at and you can create a more individualized plan for them to thrive in school. At this age I want to have more conversations around media literacy, gender roles, racism, ableism etc. because a lot of bullying and self esteem issues come from these types of things. Of course, these are on going conversations that will start even in childhood since they are exposed to the world around them and their peers, meaning it’s up to the parent to guide them through that, but I think by the time the kid is about 11, they can engage with these ideas better on a more conscious level. I want them to be open to exploring different religions, different communities, questioning their sexuality and where they want to live, what their interests are, what they want to be when they grow up, what their skills are, and what careers they might be interested in. And I don’t want to put them up against the limitations I was given from my parents who raised me to think that doctor, lawyer, and engineer are the only options, that being gay will result in being disowned, and that I’m crazy to have an existential crisis on religion. And just in general, throughout their childhood, I want to raise my child in a culturally and socioeconomically diverse area so that my child knows how to engage with a variety of people and so that they are literate with different points of view. Of course, at this age I’m going to talk to them more explicitly about puberty and sex. I never got that conversation growing up and that messed with things down the road that I’m lucky to be able to come back from thanks to things like media literacy. Also, puberty was rough for me because my mom didn’t talk to me about shit and body shamed me during the whole thing. I’m not fucking doing that. I’m not going to stigmatize sex and I will say sexual exploration is healthy and normal but of course I will teach them how to be physically safe with contraception choices as well as how to be emotionally safe in terms of having boundaries and identifying sketchy behavior. Teen years (13-18) I’m going to be laid back in terms of me not demonizing alcohol/ weed, not demonizing sex, and not demonizing partying. I don’t want them to flat out avoid these things (and lets be real, kids are going to do what they want to do anyway) rather I want them to be educated so that they can handle these situations responsibly. My kid will be exposed to alcohol in the house at an early age to where when they go off to college, the novelty won’t be there and they won’t care for it. I will allow my kid to have private alone time with their significant other under my roof so that they won’t have to sneak off and do something in public in a high risk environment that can also involve them being isolated from others to where they cannot call for help. Also, condoms will always be available. I want my child to be able to talk about their friends and dating lives. I didn’t have this with my parents and I think it’s important for a kid to feel comfortable talking to their parents about these things because 1) their peers are on the same boat and are also working with limited knowledge and 2) if they are in a toxic friendship/ relationship, they can get help for it and learn what is and isn’t normal. I think especially with brown kids, since many of us were barred from dating to begin with, a lot of us had to suffer in silence instead of being able to go to a trusted adult to guide us whether that is navigating relationship challenges or consoling us through a break up. Mental health will always be a priority. We will have conversations about things like stress, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, etc. Mental health issues will not be stigmatized nor will interventions such as therapy and medications. I want my kid to have good coping skills and for them to feel safe enough to open up about these types of things without judgement. And I’m willing to share my experiences growing up as a way to teach them and bond with them. I want to really focus on fostering a healthy relationship with a lot of trust at this age because I want to move from actively parenting them to being more of a guide and mentor while still having certain solid boundaries since they are minors (i.e. curfew, not parentifying them, protecting them from predators etc.). Therapy may or may not be involved in this process. My kid will also learn good work life balance in the form of balancing friends, extra curriculars, a part time job, and school. While I do want to encourage them to challenge themselves, I won’t demonize rest or prioritizing themselves in the form of taking time for themselves or investing in their friendships. I’m not going to yell at them for not being up at 8 am on a Saturday when we don’t have anything urgent going on nor am I going to make them feel like they aren’t doing enough if they aren’t taking like 15 AP classes. I’m going to teach them about various ways to succeed in this world whether that means being an entrepreneur, going to college, working a 9/5, going to trade school etc. and the pros and cons that come with each of these. And while I don’t have all the answers, I’m willing to help them learn how to check in with themselves and follow their own path. Like, I’m not going to paint this narrative that college is the only way to create a stable and secure future. At this age, I’m going to encourage financial literacy. I’m going to talk about the investments that I have open under their name, open a credit card so that they can start building credit, and teach them basic budgeting along with how 401k, Roth IRAs, and stocks work. 18 and beyond I want to encourage my child to be independent but I’m not going to force them into the world. If they need to come back home and live with me for a bit to save up, they are more than welcome to. Here, there will be even more of a emphasis on fostering a relationship rather than being an authority figure. They will not have a curfew and generally speaking will be treated as an adult in terms of responsibility but I’m not going to sit here and expect them to have everything figured out. That’s where I come in when it comes to being supportive and giving life advice from my own experiences. Other things: They will be raised in a walkable city: I will raise a child who has the confidence and self sufficiency of a 10 year old in the NYC subway. I want them to have things to do and ways to get there independently without me accompanying them and driving them everywhere. They will be raised in a diverse area socioeconomically and racially: My child will be class conscious and will be aware of different kinds of life styles. They will also learn to deal with diverse groups of people and not be self hating. They will be in a financially sound and non-flashy household: They will not worry about the bills, how to pay for medical expenses if something were to happen, and how to pay for their education. At the same time, they won’t have a lavish lifestyle centered around mindless consumerism and compulsory consumption. They will travel nationally and internationally yearly: I will be spoiling my child with a wealth of life experiences and opportunities to bond with them. We will travel with our kid twice a year starting from age 8 so that they will remember the experiences and so it won’t be absolute hell. When we travel twice a year, in one occasion my husband will travel with the kid and in the other, I will travel with the kid. Every now and again we will do a day trip with all three of us. I accept that my child is their own person with their own thoughts, feelings, life experiences, and point of view: While I’m here to guide them, I’m not expecting them to agree with me or come out as some kind of “mini me.” I am here to guide my child to help them explore themselves and the world in a safe and healthy way so they can show up authentically, not form them into what I want them to be. I will accept my child regardless of his/her gender and sexual orientation, their weight and physical appearance, what skills they have to offer, their academic success, and the different ways they fuck up. And they will fuck up and be immature and have bad opinions because that is normal and healthy for a child of a certain age with limited life experience. Having a child who is mature for their age is not the flex that you think it is. I don’t expect my child to like me or have a relationship with me after they grow up because, again, they are their own person and don’t owe me anything. But at the same time, I won’t stop loving them and it’s my responsibility to create a healthy and loving relationship as much as I possibly can. I don’t expect my child to take care of me into old age. I don’t expect them to make similar life decisions as me. I don’t expect them to fill a hole in my heart and make me happy or be the reason why I experience unconditional love. When I have a child, I’m coming from a place where I’m not only full but I have so much to give and that I’m so fulfilled that I want to share that with a child and facilitate their growth. And yes, while my parenting has a great deal of influence on how my child shows up in the world, since I recognize that they are their own person, I know that while I have responsibility in being a good parent, just being a good parent isn’t going to guarantee good outcomes for the child since again, they are their own person and they are still subject to things outside of their homelife from school to broader culture which can also influence their decision making. Sure, I can guide them through that and help them out a great deal, but in the end of the day, they are responsible for their actions and to what extent they let my guidance in. Sometimes, they need to make their own mistakes and learn from them. I’m here to give them the tools to deal with life. It’s up to them whether or not they want to use those tools. I will be honest and say that I think I will struggle to accept my child if they do some kind of violent crime or become like a fascist (conservative is one thing but fascism is another. I can deal with conservative family members given that they are otherwise emotionally healthy and well rounded as adults so long as I have certain boundaries but fascism is another thing.). I will respect my child like they are a person: There is so much ableism around how we treat children and I swear a lot of people have kids for the power trip. My child is going to have realistic expectations compared to adults. They will not be expected to be more emotionally regulated than an adult. They will not be expected to be more polite than an adult or be more quiet and still than an adult. They will not have to constantly be the bigger person in our relationship because I will take responsibility as a parent to be the bigger person and apologize if necessary. They also have their own boundaries and I will teach them how to identify their boundaries and assert themselves. I will show them affection in a way that they are receptive to it and that makes them feel loved whether that is by touch, words of affirmation, quality time, etc. And of course, I’m committed to and excited by them becoming their own person and getting to know them along that journey.

9/7/2023 More Thoughts On Motherhood I have a bunch of reasons why I'm hesitant of having kids and why I'm thinking so hard about this. Some include the following: my ability to deal with a variety of situations from a child being born with disabilities to tragedy being struck on the child to where I have to be a fulltime care giver for the rest of my life the current state of the world regarding climate change and the such how draining kids can be and the thought of *what if I love my kids but end up hating motherhood* (particularly when it comes to the baby stage) how final this decision is how terrifying pregnancy, birth, and postpartum can be But I also have reasons for wanting kids as well. My main appeal is that I want to watch someone learn and grow from the very beginning. I think it's a beautiful and miraculous process to watch a baby who can't do much slowly start to walk, talk, eat on their own etc. up until they grow into an adult with their own thoughts, experiences, ideas, and personality. I would love to be there by someone's side, guiding them and connecting with them with various stages of their development so that they can discover and grow into themselves. I want to guide them through various things in their lives from their first steps, educating them, showing them a range of life experiences through travel and exposing them to a wide array of people. I also want to guide them through messier parts such as dealing with mental health matters, teaching them to stand up to other kids, having awkward but necessary conversations around relationships and sex, helping them with their first break up or rejection, dealing with difficult classes and poor grades, and helping them through any other challenge that life throws at them. I find the development of children as incredibly facinating. I'm interested in all of the ways that our upbringings can affect us into adulthood and it would be an honor if I could contribute that to someone in a positive way. I love learning about different methods of parenting and the lessons you can teach you kids through those methods and through various mundane things in life. I find it incredble on how structured and stable your life has to be to raise kids in a healthy way in terms of having your finances, marriage, health, career, emotional matters, and your community set. I find getting your life together and all of the moving parts to being a good mother as a challenge I'm willing to take on and grow from. Not to mention I want to grow and learn from my kids and see the consciousness from my family line grow and develop past me. I know there are some people who are super attached to the baby phase because they want a cute little thing to take care of but my appeal in motherhood comes from raising a kid instead. I want them to be different from me. I want to learn from them and revisit parts of my own inner child and really take a good hard look at what I went through and what they are experiencing and growing from. I want to know their differing opinions and concerns, have them set boundaries even if they are applied to me, and hell even talk back to me because while I see the power dynamic and I have the knowledge that there are some things that kids can't do, I don't see myself as an authortarian figure rather I see myself as a mentor and I still see them as a person worthy of their own rights and identity. (Also I find it super weird when people say they want a "mini me" or when there are some people who want to be parents or go into teaching because they like the idea of having power over kids who are dependent on you). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I also see myself as someone who is very easily satiated by life. What I mean by this is that I am the opposite of insatiable. There are some people who desire really big lives with a lot of things going on. There are people who want to spend their lives travelling. There are people who spend their entire 20s partying. There are people who needs indulge in various luxuries, not because they are snobish, but because they have the hunger for these experiences and rather than enjoying them unconciously, they really savor them. This is just to name a few. On the other hand, I'm a very one-and-done kind of person. I went bar hopping a small handful of times in college (like probably 3 times) and then I was like "I'm done lol." I did a weed brownie once and I'm like "yup, it wasn't bad but I think I'm good." I went to a fancy restaurant a couple of times and now I'm like "I can still enjoy this but I'll be fine if I don't experience this again. I've had my experience and I'm ready to go." I've gone back packing and part of me thinks after a few times of travelling I'll be satiated. I have studied many things and have had various hobbies and at some point I'm usually like "yup, I'm good to go." Satiated is the only word that I think really encapsulates how I feel about these things. Sure I can go bar hopping again with my friends for the hell of it, but it's not an experience I crave because I already feel full and I've done it before. Sure, I won't be opposed to going to a fancy restaurant but it's not an experience that I thirst after. And this feeling of being satiated I would describe as this sense of deep contentment with my life knowing that I have savored the experiences I have had, thus I was fully conscious of what was happening, meaning I took everything in and I don't necessarily *have to* go back for more though I wouldn't fight it since all of this is coming from a place of contentmnet after all. Where I'm going with this is that I think I'll reach an age in my 30s or so where I have done everything I want to do, travelled all of the places I wanted to go, and live the life I want to where I can see myself giving everything up to have a child. It will be my last act of selfishness and indulgence which I will repay with selflessness for the rest of my life. And this selflessness will not habor resentment because I will repay my decision to have a child by pouring into that child all of the happiness and contentment I have created for myself so that I can share my beautiful life with another individual, so that I can pour from a place of wholeness by giving them my life experiences as a teacher. I can see myself feeling so fulfilled and content with my life to where I will want to share that overflow with another person. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I'm also content with the idea of not being a mother in this life. To me, dying single or child free is not the worst scenario. I know I can still live a full and beautiful life without getting married or having kids. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't have a desparation to get married or have a kid. If it's not in the cards for me, I'm willing to accept that. And especially when it comes to being a mother, I want to either raise them in a good circumstance and be a phenomenonal mother, or not have a kid at all. If I'm going to be a mother, I'm not going to mediocre one. I will have the following at the bare minimum: 1. A stable and loving marriage to model to the child to a man who is dedicated to raising and providing for the child with me. We both have our personal issues and generational trauma worked through and we have both lived full and complete lives on our own and with each other because we are actualized and we created a beautiful life for ourselves that we both want to share with a child. We have done couples therapy before marriage and during the first 3 years of the child's life since that is usually the time when couples tend to be on the rocks. We have taken parenting classes and actively educate ourselves on parenting. We can admit when we are wrong and we can alter our way of parenting according to the needs of the child withouth compromising our marriage because we have compatible parenting styles. 2. Financial abundance to where we can do the following Provide food, shelter, and clothing with no sense of instability for the child. This is the bare minimum and honestly I shouldn't need to mention it. A good education along with domestic and international travel about once a year as a family (I want to spoil my kids with a variety of life experiences and expose them to a big world literally and intellectually) I can take the first 2 years off after the child is born and have my husband support us on one income Have my husband take the next two years off after me so that he can take just as much time with the child to bond/ raise them and I can support everyone on one income All of this except the last point is the circumstance that I was raised in and I want the same or better for my child. And even though my dad didn't take time off of his career to raise me, he did have a lot of free time as a business owner to where I got a lot of time with him growing up and he spent an active role in maintaing the household in terms of chores and raising/bonding with me. 3. A sense of community from friends and family so that my kid has other people to go to other than me and my husband (it takes a village / we're not doing the nuclear family nonsense) 4. Enough time and energy to give to the child so that they are thriving. And if I don't have these things or if I get the thought that my desire to have a child is not coming from a healthy place, no matter how much I want a child, I'm not going to have one because it's irresponsible to bring a child into this world against their will knowing you don't have the means to give them the world. If I reach like 40 and I don't have these things, then having a kid is simply not in the cards for me and that is perfectly fine. The worst case scenario isn't to die alone and /or childless. The worst case scenario is to be trapped in a toxic and abusive marriage with a child who didn't ask to be here having to endure that with you and get the worst version of both of their parents.

3/12/2023 Thoughts on Having a Kid This is something that I have caught myself thinking about a lot lately. I feel rather ambiguous about the thought of having a kid. I know that I don't want kids because I feel like having more than one is a lot to handle financially and emotionally, and also as an only child who doesn't know how sibling dynamics work, the thought of navigating that with multiple children seems wild to me. Also, if I do decide to give birth, I'm not doing that shit more than once. It seems traumatic. I also feel that you are no more of a mother whether you have 1 kid or +5, in the end of the day. So my question is, is motherhood for me? I have journaled about this in the past. I do still stand by much of what I wrote here (points 2-5, 7, and 8) but as for point 1 and 6, I feel like I want to challenge that a little bit. I feel like I have grown significantly since the last time I have written this and my life circumstances are very different. I am in a healthy and loving relationship which has made me think that maybe I have what it takes to raise well adjusted adults since often times, the qualities that make a good partner also makes a good parent. I'm also in a job that is stable and has descent benefits so I think in a few years time I would be financially equiped to have a kid in a dual income scenario. I'm sure in a few years I will be able to have a career that aligns with my life purpose. And as a result, I think that can fulfill much of what I have written about the moving parts of being a good mother (point 6) since I have the other aspects down. I'm still hung up on how much I would enjoy motherhood. I wouldn't say that I'm wanting a kid out of this expectation that it's going to be enjoyable and just sunshine and rainbows as most women are led to believe, rather it is this drive towards fulfillment. I do want to work on something in my personal life long term that will bring a lot of fufillment and the process of socializing a kid, guiding a kid, and raising them to be a good person is something that resonates with me since I feel that my life purpose has to do with understanding and improving the human condition. But at the same time, I wonder if having a kid is the best way of going about actualizing this purpose. Part of me wants a kid because I want to give them the parent and the conditions that my parents weren't able to give me. I wrote about this in the post I linked above: And I wonder if this is my own form of maternal energy or if this is a toxic reason for having a kid. But then again, what are some good reasons for having kids? I don't think I have a good answer for that. I'm also wary about my own social and biological conditioning playing into this. For the vast majority of history, motherhood was something that was expected and something that just happened to you. And now that we have a choice, I want to make the most of it by making a well informed and well contemplated choice even if it is to have a kid. But I still wonder how biased I can be when it comes to the topic of having kids. I have noticed lately that I have the tendency to make plans well off into the future and have the notion of being a mom be a given. And I don't know how much of that is me low key wanting to be a parent or if it is just the social conditioning. I was also talking to my boyfriend about a few things on how we see our futures turning out. He did mention that he is completely against having a kid. I will be honest, while I'm not totally on the having kids train, that answer did give me a little bit of the ick and I do catch myself thinking about how long term this relationship could be because the last thing I want to do is waste someone's time. But now, I feel like I'm in a position where I'm pretty sure that I have what it takes to be a good mom. But the question is, is this something I genuinely want to do in the first place? Like just because you have what it takes to be a lawyer, doesn't mean that you want to be a lawyer or that you would derive joy, fulfillment, or any other kind of satisfaction from it. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should or that you want to. So I'll be making a short bullet pointed list with little elaboration so that I don't spin my head into confusion from overthinking. Yes: I feel like I could be a good mother. I want to be that guiding and caring role for another human being and watch him/her grow as a person. Raising a kid seems like a long term goal in my personal life that would be fulfilling to me because it is a way I can understand and improve the human condition. No: Material conditions: the world is a mess and money can be an issue I think my desire to have a kid might not be coming from a 100% healthy place (wanting to have kids to be the parent that I didn't have) I'm scared that motherhood would drain me and that I would hate motherhood even if I love my kid. I'm also scared of being pregnant and giving birth. While this is something that has been on my mind, it isn't something that I feel rushed to figure out. If I decide to have a kid, that's not a decision I'm making until I'm in my 30s. I have like 7-10 years left to figure this area of my life out.

Starting off I'm going to post some things from my main journal: 12/8/2021 Thoughts on Motherhood I catch myself thinking about becoming a parent and what that would entail at random times throughout the week for like years now and I wanted to jot down my thoughts not only to get things out of my system but also to make sense of things as well. Thought #1: Would I Even Make a Good Parent? I have my doubts tbh especially given my history with difficult family dynamics. Sometimes I feel like I'm too traumatized to have a kid and raise them in a way that won't traumatize them (generational trauma is real). I feel like for people who grew up in difficult home environments that some of them grow up being really aware on all of the things that goes into being a parent and how much things like sorting through your own shit psychologically, having more than enough money to be financially stable, and having your priorities straight plays a role. And it's like... there are so many ways you can fuck up your kid if you didn't figure your life out before having them. There is a part of me that just doesn't understand how people can say that they want X amount of kids when they grow up because there is just so many things to consider practically and emotionally. But then again, the fact that I am questioning this, that I'm thinking critically, and that I'm taking into consideration all of the things I would need to sort out before hand is a really good sign. Also, the odds of someone growing up in an abusive home environment and then going on to abuse their kids in the same way is pretty slim (most people who have been abused don't grow up to be abusers while most abusers do have histories of abuse growing up). On top of that, it isn't like I'm about to have a kid now. If I do decide to have any, I'll probably be in my mid 30s tbh so I have roughly 10-15 years to figure things out. And I'm putting in the work by going to therapy and doing what I can to heal from my past and not incur any additional trauma that could fuck up my development. Finally, similar to getting into relationships, you don't have to be at a 100% in order to see yourself as worthy and capable of a relationship. I'm bringing this up because I see the parallels on how I used to have a very perfectionistic attitude towards my platonic and romantic relationships where I essentially felt like I needed to go into hermit mode and work on myself instead of letting myself grow and heal through healthy relationships. Granted that is sometimes necessary but there comes to a point where it isn't sustainable anymore. Similarly with parenthood, I think it's important to be cognizant of your short comings and work with them instead of entirely shutting yourself off from the experience as a whole. Thought #2: Kids are Draining There have been instances where I have been left in charge of dealing with children between the ages of 4 and 12 for hours on end. While I had no problems with dealing with them, after 3 hours of keeping them occupied constantly, I was done. I feel like that is my limit as far as dealing with children goes. Anything more than that is overwhelming to me. As a result, the idea of being a mom is pretty daunting. The idea of having work and then maintaining the household/ raising the kids seems like a recipe of becoming one of the many adults who are tired constantly and barely have room to breathe. Don't get me wrong, my husband would be sharing the responsibility but even then it's this idea of being on all the time. Then again, my priorities and the ways that I would want to spend my energy may shift over time. I'm mainly talking about this from my perspective at the moment as someone who wants to get ahead in their career, have somewhat of a social life where they have close knit friendships, have time to travel and self-actualize, and also have time to rest, relax, and take care of myself. Maybe there will be a point where I feel content with these areas of my life and therefore I won't feel as compelled to pour as much energy and resources there because I already have a solid foundation and it's taking care of itself. And then I would move onto a different phase in my life where I would have more time and energy freed up to have a family on my own and it wouldn't feel like this daunting task because I'll finally be in a place in my life where I feel ready and I genuinely/ wholeheartedly would want to have kids Thought #3: Loving Your Kids but Hating Motherhood Similar to the way that kids can be pretty draining, there are a lot of people who genuinely love their kids and who their kids grew up to be but they hated motherhood. On top of this being a huge energy sink, especially for women, a lot of women forget who they were before having kids because they no longer have the time to themselves or hobbies that make them feel fulfilled. Not only that, but often times when a woman becomes a mother, society only sees her as such and then suddenly literally everything in your life becomes about being a mom and people only focus on that one aspect of you. And I feel like if you take the path of least resistance and have things like your marriage and kids take over your life, it's bound to turn into a cesspool of resentment, dysfunction, and inner turmoil unless you carve out time to prioritize yourself and take care of your own needs amidst all of this (even when everyone else sees you as being selfish for doing so). From what I see, there is a very fine balance that you need to take with all aspects of your life because if one thing topples, so does everything else since it all rests on each other and interconnects with one another. Bottom line: I'm pretty sure if I had kids I would love them but I can't imagine raising kids being an experience that I would readily say yes to because of the various challenges that are involved. Thought #4: Birthing the Kid vs Adopting Pregnancy is some sci fi shit and I'm pretty sure if I was a man that the decision to have kids would be so much easier. I know people who have had seizures, heart attacks, and life long health issues to varying degrees after giving birth. Also, babies kind of freak me out because of the hypervigilance that is involved in taking care of them. Not only that but professionally having to take time off to take care of the kid for a couple years really fucks with your career trajectory and earning potential (not to mention the biases people have at work when it comes to women who have kids) and is one of the factors that creates the whole gender pay gap and glass ceiling. Like especially in the U.S., all of the doctor's visits, the money just to give birth, the lack of maternity and paternity leave makes having a kid really daunting. I feel like the easy solution to all of this is adopting. I can just adopt a 5 year old (or older) and have them start going to school and I won't have to ever change a diaper in my life, I won't have to sacrifice my career in the process, I won't have to deal with the horrors of pregnancy, and I'll be giving a better life to a kid who would have had issues with getting adopted (often times kids have much lower chances of getting adopted compared to babies and it's even worse for teenagers). But even though this seems like the most logical possibility, there is this weird thing in my head that's like *you need to have your own kids.* Idk, maybe it's the biological programing Thought #5: Unconventional Maternal Energy Speaking of biological programming, I know there are a lot of people who look at babies and have their baby fever get activated. To say the least, that just never made sense to me. Sure I look at babies and I think their cute and I want to play with them but the thought of having one of my own in the moment just doesn't cross my head. I feel like I have that lack of maternal instincts and I feel like that could impact the way I parent and potentially even my quality of parenting because I don't have this biological kneejerk reaction to have kids. But then again, perhaps I have a different kind of maternal energy. Even thought the thought of having kids is a big **IF**, I often catch myself thinking about long term goals I have and how they relate to me setting the foundation for having a family. For instance, I have been working on my mental health for quite some time now and I have been working on myself in general and even though I am doing this for myself and for my own quality of life, there is this thought that comes to mind where there is a part of me that is doing this for my future husband and kids. If I am well adjusted and create a very solid life for myself internally and externally, I'm more likely to have a healthy and loving relationship with a future partner and then we can raise a functional, healthy, and happy family together. Not to be cliche but there is a thing in a lot of spiritual/self help circles when discussing generational trauma where when a person heals from that trauma, they heal everyone that comes after them and they pave the way. And I genuinely feel that if I were to have kids, it would be an expression of the fruits of my labor in the past and my long term thinking from when I was like 15. Like when I think of having kids, I don't think of creating a legacy in material terms rather it's more along the lines of passing down a certain level of consciousness to my kids by the way that I raise them and have them go on their own self actualization journey to grow as individuals so that they can go much further than I did. I just think it's crazy considering how my grandparents grew up in a stage red/blue environment during things like Partition and the 1971 liberation war as well as norms such as child marriage and a lack of educational opportunities and agency for women being common place. Both of my grandmothers were married off in their teens with little education. Then you have my parents' generation who is in a significantly better place because they grew up in more stable political times but they have a lot of inner turmoil and problematic beliefs they had to sort through (let's just say they aren't the most functional and well adjusted people). On top of that, even though they grew up in a better place, they still decided to go the extra mile and immigrate to a foreign country for an even better quality of life (I'd say my mom is solidly blue, my dad is mainly at blue/orange, and the environment they moved to was a stable orange/green with little security and financial concerns). Then you have me and I know that I'm emotionally going to be in a significantly different place from my parents because of the privileges I have been granted in a first world country and it's just crazy especially in the South Asian American community regarding the generational differences and healing over time. I think as a consequence of seeing the big picture regarding how my future generations will grow up given the foundation I'm laying for myself and the way I see the evolution of consciousness as a very practical thing that I have don't have the typical feminine maternal energy. It isn't something that is rooted in this intuitive urge to have a child rather it is part of the way that my long term goals will manifest itself in the future. Long term goals such as working on myself and healing generational trauma, having a very solid career and life purpose, and creating a healthy network of support platonically and romantically are all big goals that takes years to fully build but it's also so small compared to the goal of having a healthy and happy family. The long term goals I listed are the foundation and are the small pieces of a much larger puzzle in my opinion. And while achieving those long term goals is satisfying in of itself and I won't regret putting in the work even if I eventually decide to not have kids, there is a maternal part of me that gets activated when I look at the larger vision of my goals. I suppose that I have a very masculine maternal energy and sometimes that doesn't resonate with the feminine maternal energy that is often talked about and represented when discussing maternal energy (nothing wrong with masculine or feminine maternal energy, they are just different and manifest as such). Thought #6: The Moving Parts of Being a Good Mother Similar to the point above on how different big goals play as small puzzle pieces to motherhood and similar to the point on how there is a lot that goes into parenting, I have observed many moving parts when I see healthy/functional families. I'm going to do my best to concisely summarize my thoughts: Have a good career and be aligned to your life purpose. Gives you an identity outside of being a mother and an additional outlet for fulfillment. Mitigates societal pressures and lets you have a life outside of the family. Helps you provide for your family and gives you agency in your marriage so you have an equal partnership with your spouse and if things go south and there is an event of a divorce you will have something to fall back on. Models healthy forms of achievement for your kids and gives you valuable life experiences that you can use to teach/raise your kids Work on yourself internally (therapy, journaling, healing generational trauma cycles, working on attachment styles. reflecting, raising your consciousness etc.) Helps you have better discernment when picking a spouse which is arguably one of the most important decisions you can make in addition to choosing a career path Will make you raise your kids better because you are using parenting techniques that are healthy for the kid rather than projecting your own trauma Will help in creating a strong marriage and will take a preventative approach to marital issues if both people are already whole and actualized people who can communicate, emotionally self regulate, set boundaries, have their own lives etc. A strong and healthy marriage is really the backbone to giving your kids a good childhood imo Also you want to model what a healthy relationship looks like and what a well adjusted person is so that your kids have a good example of what is healthy and good for them, thus saving them a lot of issues when they grow up and are on their own Finally, you want to check your biases and come from an informed place when presenting different world views so your kids grow up learning how to have good discernment and critical thinking skills Make sure you take care of your health Keep up with the kids and any other demands you may be having Stay around longer to watch them grow up and have lives of their own. Mentally and physically take care of yourself so you can be the best version of yourself with your kids. Have time for yourself. Have a good support system of conscious friends and relatives Helps in socializing the kid Gives you people to lean on and get help from when things become a little too much or you need a break (having people baby sit, give advice, etc.) Takes pressure off of your spouse since he isn't the only person you are getting help from and that will further help the marriage Gives you a life outside of the family so again, you don't grow resentful and like you lost your identity All of these are huge and I feel like there are more things that I'm missing but these are my general thoughts and how they interconnect and work with one another. Thought #7: The Chaos of the World Then again, will any of this matter if climate change takes over and we start having wars over water? Do I want to raise my kids in a late capitalist dystopia where they will likely deal with worse circumstances than what I grew up in. Even if I give my kids a good life, there is only so much I can do as an individual if systemically we're all fucked. While I have detailed how you need a stable life before having kids, to get to that stable life can be an uphill battle. For instance, I have talked about the cost of health care in the U.S. and the lack of things like maternity and paternity leave. However, there is no telling what the world is going to look like in 10-15 years. I can only hope that things will get better or that I will go to a place where things are better. Thought #8: The Finality of Having Kids There is this finality of having kids that I feel that people don't take seriously enough (similar to how people often times don't see getting married as one of the most significant legal decisions you will ever make). You never stop being a parent. So many other things in life, even the things that look permanent on the surface, aren't permanent in the same way as having kids. Life changing trauma can be healed from. Having career issues can be dealt with. If you have a bad marriage, there are ways you can try to get out of it. If you flunk out of school, you can get back in and improve your grades. If you don't like where you are living, you can move. Of course, each of these things have varying degrees of ease depending on situation and privilege's but there is always something you can do. But having a child.... you can't just undo something like that. It's not like you can yeet the kid out of existence and move on like nothing happened. Basically, even with planned pregnancies I feel like a lot of people don't think enough about having kids before they have them. One of my fears with having kids is that what if I wake up one day 6 years after having a kid and realize that having kids isn't for me. Tf am I supposed to do then???? Closing thoughts: Ultimately, I don't know if I want to have kids or how many (most likely 1, 2 feels like a stretch). That is a decision for 30 year old soos_mite_ah who will hopefully have a more stable and secure life by then and would have achieved a lot of the long term goals she has at this point in time. I wouldn't be surprised if I get to the point where I want to have a kid or if I realize that I'll never get there and that it isn't for me. As of right now, I'm kind of neutral on whether I have kids or I don't in the future. The way my life pans out in the next 10-15 years would give me a better idea.

Yeah, because the narrative is that men are expected to want it all the time and when shit like this happens, men either get congradulated or their concerns are trivialized. I know a lot of men who have explained uncomfortable, unwanted encounters that they awkwardly laugh off as a quirky joke and meanwhile I'm sitting there like... dude that's trauma... you should probably get that checked. Just look at how boys are treated when a female teacher sexually assaults them. You have grown men congradulating the little boy as proof the boy can pull even though there is a clear and sketchy power dynamic. Meanwhile the boy was like 14 and everything about it was just down right wrong and creepy.

Thoughts on Womanhood Me not feeling like an adult very much comes along with me not feeling "womanly" and very much like a 23/24 year old teenage girl. I really started thinking more about my relationship to adulthood and my age while couch shopping. Most of the decent couches were about $1100 to $2000 which were waaaay more than what I was anticipating for a couch which was like $600-700. I did find some couches in that range but they were either low quality and uncomfortable to sit in or they were not great in terms of size. Lets just say I sat through a lot of cheap Ikea/ Nebraska Furniture Mart Couches that were kind of ugly tbh. And then I went into an Ashley Home Furniture and had another form of existential crisis. While I was still concerned about prices like in the other stores, here I distinctly felt like a child, a 23 year old teenage girl. Idk, the whole store felt like I was in a Karen's faux Italian pinterst board after she got a divorce in 2008. The vibe was very much suburban couple with 2 children from the ages of 8-12 that are settled down and financially secure. I've written the previous post on how even though I'm an adult, I take responsibility for myself, and am emotionally mature, I don't really fit the "aesthetics" of adulthood and as a result feel like an adult. After writing that whole post, in retrospect, I think that's what I was very much reacting to when I went into Ashley Home Furniture. Then I watched these two videos and a lot resonated with me. I like on how this video talked about how being an adult is seen as an action rather than something you just are as well as how being adult looks different now than previous generations. I liked on how it talked about how subjective how we define adulthood it is from years that we think that adulthood begins to the expectations. The video also talked about how adulthood is defined differently in queer circles since a lot of gay people experience sexual and romantic milestones later on in life due to things like coming out and how they have different milestones to mark their lives apart from getting married and having kids, since historically for a long time gay people couldn't do those things legally. It also touches on how it's different for people of color, how in some cultures moving out isn't really a thing when it comes to coming of age and how women of color are perceived as grown younger than white women. And I want to expand on this as it relates to my personal experiences. I think in some ways I was forced to grow up faster as a woman of color. I feel like in south asian households, if you're born a girl, you are given more responsibility and are expected to be more mature at an earlier age compared to boys but at the same time you are given less freedom than them. Given my family structure, I've often been expected to be the bigger person in the face of conflicts with my parents and other relatives despite being a child. And of course, I was sexualized at a young age because of how my body is built and I started encountering attention from creepy old men earlier than some of my other peers. I was one of those kids that were seen as "mature for their age" and later on I found out that this isn't the flex I thought it was when I was growing up and that I was worthy of being supported instead of having to emotionally figure everything out on my own due to emotionally unavailable parents. I had portions of my life where I felt disconnected from my peers who were the same age who got to develop more normally due to the stuff that I had to go through, often alone. And as a result, I think there is a part of me that wants to hold on to girlhood because I didn't get to experience it fully when I was a child while at the same time feeling weird for being this way. The stage of adulthood and how it is defined can also come with a set of cultural clashes when you are a child of immigrants. My parents thought it was weird on how I felt this need to leave the nest and be more independent since they both grew up in cultures where you didn't move out until you were married. And they interpreted in me wanting to achieve what is considered a milestone of adulthood here as a form of abandonment and one of the negatives of a more individualistic society. They also didn't get the whole dating and relationships bit when it comes to western coming of age milestones but luckily for them I was a late bloomer. Also, I had a curfew while living with them and a more strict set of rules compared to what my peers here experienced as adults. There are times when I see my boyfriend hanging out with me late into the night and I'm just like *aren't your parents going to kill you for being out with me at my dorm/now apartment at like 11pm* and then I have to remind myself that he is a white man and even though he lives with his parents, they have a different set of standards. And there is a part of me that knowing the cultural context that my parents come from that no matter what I accomplish or what my over all life style looks like, they will never see me fully as an adult until after I get married and have kids. I also think another reason why my generation is embracing girlhood more is because we see womanhood as sad and depressing because we're more aware of the realities around being a wife and mother and how it's not as it's cracked out to be from the weaponized incompetence, to being a married single mother, and all of the labor that you're expected to do all on your own with little to no help. The video below talks about how girlhood is seen as lively and whimsical and that attitude is similar to the whole *romanticize your life* trend. And in a way, it's kind of a coping mechanism to help get us through this generally speaking awful and chaotic time. It contrasts the trend of the "girl dinner" and how its seen as fun, quirky, and filled with your favorite snacks with little to no labor while when people think of "woman dinner" you imagine a woman who has toiled away for her family only to have some scraps to the side after serving everyone else. The video above also talks about how girlhood has become a marketing trend from the "girl power" of the 90s to the "girl boss" of the 2010s. I found this video interesting in the way that it talked about various trends I have encountered in my feed and I liked how she did a deep dive into a pattern that I was already observing. I think to a certain extent I have been impacted by these trends even if I'm not directly engaging with them. I do find myself engaging with all of this in the whole "romanticizing your life" trend but it's more of a part of the my over all new year's resolution of being more delusional. Also with the Barbie movie and the Taylor Swift Era's tour, a lot of women seem to be engaging with the nostalgia of their girlhood this summer, especially white women. The Barbie movie was an interesting take on what girls experience as they transition into womenhood, how violent the realization of being in a man's world can be. And while I don't think the movie was a feminist masterpiece, parts of it did feel like 2014 tumblr, I do think that rather than providing interesting discourse, it mainly made you feel something and reflect. I felt deeply seen in many parts of the movie. As for the Taylor Swift tour, I don't much to say on that since I'm not a Taylor Swift fan but from what I've heard, it's pretty big and well done, and there is a lot of market and rampant consummerism around it much like the Barbie movie. Anyway, those two I feel really dominated this summer. On top of that, I think for me, a lot of these past few months from like January to July where I was able to get a chill job and I was still living in my childhood home, really felt healing for my inner teenager. I've written about that quite a bit in this journal over the last few months and I just wanted to add that parts of my lifestyle really resonate with that inner teenager. During that time, my job was chill and I didn't have to worry about much and I had all this free time to do things like hang out with my friends, go to little coffee shops, work out, engage with my hobbies, sneak my boyfriend into my house while my parents were away, just typical things people in their teens would do but I didn't really get to engage with because I was stressed, depressed, and had my calander filled with a million and one extracurriculars because I was focused and anxious about getting into a good college. And I continue to do those things like working out and hanging out with my friends but I guess it feels different now that I'm living on my own. I think these past couple months as been great in terms of me feeling like I have more agency in my life. It feels good to not have to tell people where you're going, when you're bringing someone over or be worried about how long your significant other can spend at your place. And while I did have all of this in college, it's nice to be able to live alone and take responsibility from paying the bills to cooking everyday even though I wouldn't say that I enjoy those things. It still gives me a sense of agency, a sense of agency that I yearned for since I was in my teens. Maybe this feeling of being a 23 year old teenage girl will slowly fade as this becomes my norm as I ease into living by myself and being financially sufficient over the next few months.

Thoughts on Adulthood I'm going to be turning 24 in about a month or so. And 24 feels like a big number. Just the thought of saying out loud that I'm in my mid-twenties feels odd and a little existential crisis inducing so I thought that I'd journal about it. I first thought of all of the ways that I am "and adult": I have a stable job that pays me enough to comfortably afford my life style and is holding up during the recession. It has a solid and healthy work culture and I have plenty of work life balance. I contribute to my 401k I have a Roth IRA set up that I also contribute to and I know how this shit works I have my own place that is clean and put together I'm on top of my chores whether it is laundry, dishes, meal prep etc. I generally speaking make healthy meals for myself with fruits and vegetables. I'm not living off of chicken nuggies and instant ramen noodles. I track my expenses and make all of my payments on time and I do have a good credit score. I have hobbies and interests outside of my work. I go to therapy and have sorted out most of my emotional baggage from childhood. I'm educated and have good discernment/ decision making skills I have good friends and a loving and supportive relationship that is healthy and fulfilling. I am emotionally intelligent and can communicate/ identify my emotions and boundaries without having those big conversations feel uncomfortable. I can be vulnerable in my relationships. I can drive anywhere in my country without freaking out and I have a general sense of direction when looking at a map. I have long term plans and an idea of how I want to settle down. I take accountability in my relationships and in life as a whole. I work out on a regular basis and I have a daily skin care routine because it makes me feel good taking care of myself, rather than any specific vanity goal. I have good emotional regulation and I'm self aware. I can generally get along with most people and I am a good judge of character. I have insight over my career tragectory both where I'm working at and beyond. I make my own doctors appointments. I'm aware of what's going on in the news and I have well informed opnions. I can drink responsibly and I haven't gotten drunk in years and generally am not on drugs. I think a lot of this is from a very western lens and a lot of the items on the list does have to do with financial security which can be indicative of priviledge and luck. I know that I got lucky with the job I got after graduation and that my dad opened up my Roth IRA account when I turned 18. And I think a lot of the traditional markers of adulthood like getting married, buying a house, having kids, etc. are becoming more and more unreachable for my generation (Gen Z/ Millenials) which contributes to this feeling of an extended adolescence. I have definitely heard of the concept from years past when everyone was talking about Millenials and how they were impacted by the 2008 recession but I think I'm feeling it more now since the world is more chaotic than ever and I'm experiencing this phenomenon more directly in my personal life. And speaking of the recession and traditional markers of adulthood becoming more unreachable due to late stage capitalism, I remember watching a video commenting on this and how things like emotional intelligence and self development are being more emphasized in our generations as a way of defining adulthood past materialism. That video talked about how growing up fast doesn't always yield to growing up right. Just because boomers and previous generations got married and had kids young and were able to buy a house in their 20s, doesn't mean that they were automatically well adjusted adults nor does it mean that just because my generation is putting off these milestone doesn't mean that we're developmentally arrested. And a lot of the items on my list do reflect that emotional development piece as well. But at the same time it feels weird because I guess I am decently well off but I'm watching all of my friends struggle with their respective industries and it's like even though I'm financially in a good place, there is part of me that doesn't feel like an adult at all. So here's that list: The ways that I don't feel like "an adult": Beer and wine menus make no sense to me, they all taste awful, and I'm pretty sure I went out to a bar I would be the one awkwardly standing there with a pink lemonade because I have no clue what I would order since most things taste bad to me. Not only that, but I feel like the quickest way for me to feel like a child is if I go somewhere with a lot of adults talking about wine and I'm sitting here trying to figure out what they mean by it tastes dry. Basic home improvment stuff freaks me out. If anything is wrong with my car, I'm just gonna go to my dad so he can take care of things. I eat different iterations of the same five meals on repeat. My sense of style is a slightly elevated version Adam Sandler since I work from home. Whenever I'm around my coworkers talking about buying a house, I'm usually just sitting there head empty no thoughts, just a far off feeling of stress because of rising prices. I don't have a great relationship with my parents (specifically with my mom) and sometimes that has me feeling like an angsty, ungrateful teenager. I have stuffed animals that I cuddle with every night. I have a bright, colorful, and whimsical aesthetic and I guess it screams more youthful rather and sleek, sophisticated, and put together. Also, part of me thinks that things marketed to adults are boring. There's just only so much white, beige, grey, and black I can handle lol. I spend a lot of my free time on Tiktok or Youtube. As I'm looking at this list, I think a lot of the items are aesthetics driven, from not knowing alcohol, to my sense of personal style, to the aesthetics I'm drawn to, my stuffed animals, and the way that I spend my time. There is also the whole "girl dinner" phenomenon that I really resonate with because cooking is not something that I enjoy. And then there is some skills based things like home improvement, things related to cars, and buying a house that partly comes from me not being at that stage of adulthood yet and partly due to my personal sense of incompetence lol.

Honestly, that's some boomer nonsense. Our parent's generation had it easier in terms of college both when it came to curriculum as well as paying for it. A lot of people are stressed over their course load, finances, or both and a lot of people didn't have the traditional 4 year college experience with Greek life on the side because that shit is expensive. And a lot of us go through an existential crisis because we're in college, we're being told that we're supposed to be having the time of our lives, but for the aforementioned reasons we're not thus causing many (myself included) to feel like we're wasting our youth or that we're wasting "the best years of our lives." Even if you didn't socially blossom in college whether it was because of stress, a fragmented experience like you're describing, or because your school didn't have a thriving social scene (or a scene that fit in with you), that doesn't mean that you won't ever blossom. You can still party and meet plenty of people after college. Lol I've been there. Deleting social media for some period of time is honestly the move. I will also add that you don't know what's actually going on in people's lives. For all you know, they could be a total mess. Don't compare yourself to hypothetical people. I've been there. I had friends who went to MIT, UC Berkley, Rice Univeristy, John Hopkins and Columbia. I went to a good school, but I guess rankings wise, it's not something to brag about or something that is comparable to the schools I listed out. However, I will say that the school I went to made the most sense to me in terms of academic rigor and structure, how easy it was to double major, the fact that fin aid and scholarships came through, and that the school took my college credits from my community college. And those things will always matter more than how pretty the school is and how prestigious it can be when it comes to rankings. I won't say that the rankings are all bullshit, it's just that they don't always measure what matters to individual people because they are trying to appeal to the masses. Things that influence rankings are things like how big their library and research facilities are based on funding, SAT/ACT test scores, and how selective they are. You can easily inflate these metrics without adding anything of value if you think about it. And it doesn't gurantee that it will be a good fit for you personally. I will say for me it got better once I graduated and I got a decent job that fulfilled what I considered successful on my own terms. I picked majors that I personally found fulfilling and I came out of school genuinely feeling more educated due to what I learned in the classroom and my surroundings. That should be your goal, and you can achieve this goal regardless of where you end up going because it is up to you to take charge of your education. I have met people from Ivy league colleges who felt like they didn't get much out of their classes because they didn't take as much charge of their education for whatever reason and I've met people who really extracted a lot of value from community colleges.

One of the great tragedies of this current age is that amidst all of these existential threats, from climate change, the cost of living crisis, the rise of fascism and more, is that we have all of the tools and solutions to combat this but we don’t take the action necessary because of the monetary interests of the select few. But this is also something that fill me with hope. We know what we need to do. We aren’t completely powerless to these forces, helpless at the face of inevitability. We have to hold some people accountable and implement these solutions which is just as much as a challenge, if not more so, than conjuring up the solutions themselves. I think when we think of a futuristic, utopian world, we think of all of the solutions and technological advancements that will increase our standard of living, flying cars, teleportation, etc . And while this is the case to a certain extent, we underestimate the impact of our collective conscious evolution towards a healthier social system towards more equity in society, more free time, and more quality communities that foster our very human needs to be respected, to have valuable connections, towards actualization, towards the very things that make life worth living .

@Yimpa I read what you linked and I've had a similar upbringing and I am out here spreading hateful ideas like a lunatic. Stop making excuses for men. A lot of us have had unstable upbringings but we still manage to have basic human decency and empathy. The stuff he is spewing is not something that you look at and think "let's just give him a chance" and let it pollute the forum and impact other impressionable users and make the overall user experience terrible for the nonimpressionable users. It's one thing to have misconceptions of women, it's another to start talking about violence so explicitly. Saving people like this and entertaining their nonsense is not the responsibilty of any forum user. At this point, people like this need to get off the internet and talk to a professional.