Why are some women just not maternal?

[Directly171717171717]

Just pondering really. I’ve always known I wouldn’t have kids just as I’ve known that I wouldn’t climb Mount Everest. It wasn’t really a decision and I’ve given it almost no thought.

Yet my sister has always wanted to be a mother and is a fantastic one. I absolutely adore my nieces and spending time with them, but it doesn’t make me remotely broody at all.

I know this is purely anecdotal, but she loved her dolls and prams when we were kids. I never played with dolls.

It is something evolutionary? Or something biological? Why is that feeling to reproduce just not turned on for some women?

As you don't have children, I'm not sure you can actually say what thinking impacted any one else's decision. trust me, I felt no biological urge. And while I wouldn't say I was as flippant as "give it a go", and yes, it was a big decision, I didn't need a desperate biological urge to decide to have children.

And sure, I could decide to move back to my home country at this point in time, but when I made the decision to stay here, I did so knowing it was a life decision and tha tmoving back would be extremely difficult, if not impossible because I was also deciding to marry DH, to have children who would then be born and bred here etc etc etc. Yes, having children might be a "bigger" decision that moving countries, but it's not like we don't all make really big decisions all the time.

This is not my experience but a friend of similar age (early 50s) told me that she'd simply left it too late.
Not from a physical viewpoint but a mental one.

She said that had she had children it would have had to have been about 20 before she had time to worry about what could go wrong and had a bit more (blind) faith in life!!

By the time she got to 35 she was a bit too aware of all that could go wrong in life.
May be the urge was not at all that strong I don't know.

She also thought that had she be born 50 or so years earlier she'd have had them as marriage and children in 20s was the default back then.

It’s just a discussion, not a personal attack on you or any of your biological desires, or lack of them.

You can always leave your husband and return home. It’s not comparable to having children.

Regardless, this is about why some women feel an innate, biological urge for children, broodiness, and why some women never get a flicker of it.

The problem is that for the older generation marriage and children was something you just did.

My grandmothers were mothers by their early twenties. One at 20 in fact, the other 21.

They weren't part of an any underclass, either.

Far from it.

Were they ever broody as such? In early twenties? Possibly not.

Very true. It is probably the desire for sex (apologies, realise I’m saying that about your grandparents!) that’s driven the survival of the species much more than women being broody.

I'm the same as you @Directly171717171717 I knew I never wanted kids and never played with dolls as a kid. I'm more of a tomboy.

I dated a bloke who is landed gentry but I introduced him to my sister as I didn't want to have kids and he had to have them to pass it all on to. They got married within six months of meeting but my sister isn't maternal either but she is materialistic so is happy with the land, the farms and the houses. She has made a rotten mother as I knew she would and I look at her set up and am so glad I gave it all a swerve. It's just a mess of responsibilities as far as I can see.

I have never once regretted not having kids either. We have some dodgy genes in our family and I didn't want to be responsible for passing them on quite frankly.

I think smaller families are also a reflection of how much you want to parent.

I told my husband I never wanted to be more than 50% of a parent. He said it sounded like I didn't want to be a mum at all, but was shame faced when I asked why he'd want to be less than 50% of a parent?

We have one pretty easy child and life is good. I am confident that I'm a fantastic mother to one child. I sort of side-eye people who parent lazily because they chose to have more kids than they could adequately parent. The whole "oh, the second one was weaned on old chips and dusty sugar cubes" brigade. I'm not a perfectionist mum, but I just don't see the point in having another if you're not going to have at least a handle on the basics like nutrition etc.

I have a mouth full of fillings thanks to the 'lazy parenting will do for number 4' attitude!

Oh, and I'm not maternal, but I think I had one thing better than that - I grew up in farming country. I knew what it was like to be woken in the middle of the night to see to the animals, to see to them first before yourself, to stick to their needs and routines, to deal with forty varieties of poo without fuss.

I still DGAF about foofy outfits etc, but I went into the practical stuff with my eyes wide open.

Not offended at all.
It's just that it is what people did back then.
I'm not sure if either of them felt particularly broody at all to be honest.

Lots of women who are child free now would have not been had they existed 80 years ago.

It's not about being forced into marriage and children or anything awful like that either. It's just what you did if you see what I mean.

My ex DP's gran only had the one child (his DF). She never wanted kids (would make that clear at every family gathering), but was a good mum. Said it was what was expected of you back then. You got married, you had kids. If you didn't, there must have been something "wrong" with you.

turns out my own mother (whom I have had a very rocky relationship with and would say I do not like as a person) is autistic with adhd, diagnosed in her 60s.

Yes being broody or not didn't come into it.

It’s hard to say as everyone is not the same but a biological urge was there for me, ik because since perimenopause that’s totally gone.

I mean I still have the dc but the thought of having more is the kind of thing in dreams that I wake up very relieved not to be true.

Interesting question that leads to many others!

Everyone is different and just because you make a decision like this at 20 years old doesn't mean you won't change your mind at 35+ years old. Time changes people.

I feel I have to add this quote from Professor Gayle Letherby (University of Plymouth):
"It’s part of me—but it doesn’t define me.”

Professor Letherby has written many papers on Motherhood and Grief - also about involuntary childlessness too.

Another quote from Professor Letherby to finish: "We’re all more than one thing.”

I wanted children from being very young. As a child and a teenager, I was by far the most “maternal” of my friends. Yet I’m the only one who doesn’t have kids - and that’s because I never met a man that I trusted enough to have them with, and I didn’t want to be a single mum.

(I had a hysterectomy at 48 - as I came round after 9 hours under anaesthetic, my surgeon casually told me that I would “never have been able to get pregnant anyway”, which was a bit of a mind fuck!)

From observing my friends and family - some women do have that strong biological imperative. Some definitely had kids because it was “the next thing” they were expected to do after they got married or bought a house. One admitted when drunk that she did it because her career was failing and she didn’t want to get another job.

I really wanted kids, but when it came down to it, the fear of doing it alone / having post natal depression (I have severe chronic depression anyway) were stronger than that urge.

I still love being around kids but I’m 100% happy that I made the right decision for me. I’m very very lucky that urge to be a mum faded.

It’s very interesting question, I don’t know the answer. I wonder if it has to do with levels of certain hormones?
Based on my friends at school, I would have though there was a correlation between intelligence and being less interested in having children, but one of my closest friends was one of the people most desperate for children that I know, and she is uber-bright.
I was never maternal, until I was in my 30s. I’ve never been one of those mums in tears as they finish primary school etc either, which I put down to having an interesting career.
Looki g forward to seeing what others say.

My mother clearly hated being a mother and I picked up on that. As a young child I wanted nothing to do with mothering. I would not play with dolls, push a buggy etc. This was extremely unusual in my small town in the west if Scotland in the early 1960s. I was coaxed constantly - bought all manner of dolls but I wouldn't do it.

I grew up with a very unhappy mother who seemed to derive zero enjoyment from her children and so I couldn't see any joy in it either.

Yes, so a lot of women don't have it. I didn't (but have a child) About half my friends are child free by choice. I suspect the same number of f women have always not been maternal but access lack of reliable contraception, access to careers, and social pressures have meant their lives didn't take the path they could have if they lived in a different time.

What explains it? Biology and hormones I suppose.

Well I certainly don't ever intend to have any children, absolutely everything about the idea revolts me.
When I was a child, I remember saying "I HATE babies" to my aunts, and them saying "You'll change your mind when you're older"
I remember very vividly being 4 or 5 and older, what I thought and felt about life in general, and I haven't changed my mind about anything at all.
I did play with dolls, but that has nothing to do with being maternal. I like Barbie dolls, not baby dolls.
Like other posters, I disliked a lot of other children when I was a child, they bored me, It was tedious being cooped up in school with them, and I ditched them whenever possible in favour of hanging out with adults who I could have a real conversation with.

It’s weird I was not maternal at all, never had dolls or really “girly” toys. I remember seeing babies and thinking they were weird looking, I didn’t want to hold my cousins even at 19 and used to actually feel repulsed by babies being sick or eating a rusk. I accidentally got pregnant at 20 and hated mys whole pregnancy, felt like I had ruined my life and had an alien in me. Looking back I was so immature and also probably traumatised tbh. Anyway biology is crazy as after she was here I fell in love and was so maternal and attentive and it came so naturally to me. I always advocated that woman are no different from men when it comes to having babies etc but what I felt was animalistic, if someone walked out the room with her and she was crying I felt so unsettled obviously your milk leaks at the sound of them crying etc. I just think if the contraception worked I would never have had a child but I’m glad I did. It’s an interesting question though. I’m autistic and I wondered if that played apart but then there are probably lots of maternal autistic woman so maybe not 🤷

My sister has never wanted kids. She is a wonderful aunt to my 3 and was so hands on when they were small. She has adult stepchildren and is a wonderful gran to their kids. She just never wanted to be a mother and she can’t explain why when we have discussed it

I'm the same. Friends with children refer to my "decision" not to have children but tbh it was no more a decision that deciding not to adopt a camel or learn Portuguese.

I put my Barbies in the oven 😬

DNA + Circumstances

I'm not convinced that women are 'naturally' maternal, or if that's just a line sold to us by men who want babies but don't want the work of looking after them, so we, in Anglo/European cultures at least, have created this idea that 'real' women want babies sooo much.

I was never especially 'maternal', I didn't find babies that cute (though I do now) and I never knew what to do with babies or small kids and I never thought 'oh wow, it would be so amazing to have this being that loves an depends on me', but nonetheless I thought that it would be really interesting to have kids, and it has been!

As @HyggeTygge said, it really is a spectrum and some women find they feel differently than they expected after having kids.