To think the language of ‘choice’ is not always helpful

[AmericasfavoritefightingFrenchman]

Of course access to contraception and reproductive health services is a Very Good Thing and is linked in clear and obvious ways to improvements in health and economic outcomes for women globally.

But there is an interesting side effect of the language of ‘choice’ that comes as a result of this access. In previous generations pregnancy and raising children was more or less inevitable for women, but now for a couple of generations we’ve been able to get used to the idea that it is a choice whether or not to try to become pregnant and whether or not to keep a pregnancy and raise a family.

The way we talk about this ‘choice’ effects those women who struggle the most with pregnancy, childbirth and parenting.

When a woman in a stable relationship chooses to try to become pregnant, succeeds in a reasonable timeframe, has a healthy and more or less comfortable pregnancy, survives childbirth with minimal scarring and goes on to raise healthy, able-bodied, neuro-typical children, we celebrate her choice, even though most of those elements are down to luck more than judgement.

When a woman actively chooses not to have children, succeeds in avoiding pregnancy, and continues to feel she made the right choice by the time she is menopausal, we celebrate her choice. This is perhaps more sensible as most of the elements here are at least within the woman’s control!

When a woman chooses to become pregnant outside of a stable relationship, or outside of a very comfortable standard of living, and decides to keep the baby, we question her choice- it may be foolish or naive- and use this as a reason to withhold support.

When a woman suffers illness or injury during pregnancy, such as HG or SPD or gestational diabetes, or is simply too tired and achey and indegestion-y and hormonal to make it through the day, we remind her that pregnancy is a choice she made and so withhold sympathy and support.

When a woman suffers terrible birth injuries we remind her that pregnancy was her choice, and she should have accounted for these possibilities in making her choice.

When a child is not healthy, able-bodied or neuro-typical we remind the mother that no one obliged her to carry her children to term, that it is reasonable to abort if you feel unable to cope with caring for a disabled child (though not everyone has this ‘opportunity’) and that it is highly unfair to expect society to pick up the burden created by one woman’s reproductive choices. We use this as an excuse to withhold support and empathy.

So Aibu to think the language of ‘choice’ is not always helpful to women.

The value judgement placed on choices are not, imo, indicative of a problem with the word itself. I also don’t think they owning our own autonomy, rather than disavowing it as if choice is both unimportant and not something we can take responsibility for, doesn’t mean that someone can’t ask for, or receive, help in a vulnerable situation.

Judgement on reproductive choices is unfortunately symptomatic of the propensity of human beings to want to judge, and oftentimes control, the lives of others. Particularly women. I personally prefer a society that leans individualistic, rather than one that tries to erase the individual and render them property of society. That isn’t to say that it’s perfect, but then neither is the alternative.

@Eyerollcentral yes there can be good, bad and neutral choices in life generally. And good, bad and neutral consequences of any choice.

I think that the issues around reproductive choices are so complex - what kind of contraception? What kind of relationship? What genetic or economic factors might have bearing? - and have such an enormous impact on the future of at least three individuals - that it’s a braver person than me who could confidently label those choices good or bad in the majority of circumstances.

I also think that the consequences of those choices are so unique and elaborate, and have such little predictable connection to the original choice, that it is especially cruel and illogical to hold up an unfortunate consequence and say ‘look! You chose this.’

I think the simplistic language of choice and it’s implications does more harm than good.

I wasn’t restricting my question to reproductive choices and indeed was responding to the part of your last post that had moved beyond that topic. The reality is that there are predictable consequences to many decisions, and whilst none of us are mind readers on a balance of probabilities it’s quite often possible to see which way things are going to go in general. No choice is made in a vacuum but choices made in context still have readily identifiable likely outcomes.

Women have never been supported and have always bore responsibility, health care has always been terrible and so has welfare. The language of ‘choice’ has not changed that.

@whumpthereitisI definitely do agree that people want to judge and control others, especially women. I don’t think I am disavowing my autonomy, or refusing to take responsibility or saying that choice is unimportant. I think I am saying that it is not nearly as relevant as we claim, and not very helpful as a concept specifically around reproduction.

For instance I could proudly claim that I chose exactly when to conceive each of my DC. They each resulted from a single attempt. I carefully planned when my babies would be due to suit our family and my career. But in know in reality that’s just a fluke of my and DH’s combined fertility, and of a surprising lack of opportunity for more sex per week or month or whatever.

In a different situation, those factors could have resulted in a ‘disastrous’ choice, if we were using condoms for contraception and split one, or if I had forgotten to take a pill. All it would have taken for us was one minor slip, to have rendered our choice of contraception a ‘bad’ one. Other couples have many ‘near-misses’ with contraception and it doesn’t actually lead to a pregnancy, but again that’s fluke not choice.

Um. I mean we have a huge choice of contraception now, all free. Maternity care is free. Giving birth is free. Health visitor checks are free. Welfare is generous for women with children. I’m sorry but what you’ve said is nonsense!

You are absolutely spot on OP

You could take this all the way down the rabbit hole of free will versus determinism, but again that’s a debate that encompasses far more than reproduction.

In regards to your example: you asserted power to the degree that this was possible. You may not have been able to determine whether you conceived the month that you did, but you did choose to try and conceive. You also chose the method of contraception you used prior to this. Had it failed that still would not have negated the fact it was your choice to use it.

We live, at least in the UK, in country that enables individuals to make different choices according to their own preferences. There will, unfortunately, always be those that fall victim to coercion or find themselves limited in regards to their options, but this is not true in the majority of cases.

Sure, there are predictable consequences in lots of circumstances, and probabilities are useful. Most people can work with likely outcomes most of the time, to enable them to make choices and move forward through life. I don’t have an issue with the idea of autonomy or personal responsibility generally speaking.

I have two separate issues about reproductive choice, I’m realising. The first is the fact that so little relating to reproduction is a choice in any meaningful sense. A lot of what is a choice, is made blind, or with limited information, or is choosing between impossible scenarios. I think it’s very hard to hold someone to account for that kind of choice. A bit like (on a much reduced scale) choosing whether to do a root canal or extraction- often even the dentist can’t confidently predict which has the best chance of success, and success is ill -defined, and your ‘choice’ may well be predetermined by cost anyway.

The second is that I think whether or not someone has made a ‘choice’ (a complicated claim) about an aspect reproduction should not be the dominating factor in future interactions with that person. If someone has HG, since we’ve mentioned that a lot, or SPD, it is meaningless and useless to tell them they chose to be pregnant.

The most obvious choice with reproduction is where you decide who to reproduce with. There are often quite predictable outcomes in such situations, for instance a lack lustre partner prior to having a baby is unlikely to magically transform in to the ultimate parent with the birth of a baby. Every choice involves risk and evaluating what you feel is an acceptable risk to take. I have a problem with your analysis as you seem to paint women particularly as passive.

I don’t know what the relevance is of most of what you’ve said.
Free contraception is an improvement, but it isn’t equal, there is no equivalent for a man and responsibility still falls to women.
it’s also not available everywhere

free maternity care also isn’t available everywhere and free doesn’t equal good. Medicine has traditionally not developed women’s healthcare at a proportionate rate to men’s healthcare, with things like women’s pain not being taken as seriously as men’s pain and with some groups like black women still more likely to die in childbirth than other women. I’d consider that terrible, free or not.

so my point is that historically, things haven’t been great for women when it comes to child birth and child rearing,
so now that the language has changed to making this all a woman’s ‘choice’ that situation hasn’t changed. Meaning that the language of ‘choice’ isn’t the problem.

No I don’t think women in particular are passive, I think both parents are equally in the dark about the course and outcome of the pregnancy- but I do think that women find it harder to escape the consequences since many of them play out in the woman’s own body.

Also, it is almost always the woman being blamed. The woman is the one who is told that she ‘chose the pregnancy’ and thus has no right to complain that she can no longer walk across the room. The man doesn’t have to deal with any of that nonsense.

I genuinely don’t know anyone in real life who has been treated in the way you describe in your post above. Again if it’s a partner treating her like that, often the partner isn’t great before the pregnancy.

I agree with you. I gather from your posts that you have a disabled child. From experience, I agree with what you have described. Nobody chooses to have a disabled child. I didn't know my child was disabled but even if I had have known something was amiss, what would / could I have realistically done about it? The insensitive comments I have had from some people are insane to be honest. You have described it well. Unfortunately women are blamed / criticised for anything and everything.

Hi @confusedaboutworkingandparenting That’s some impressive deduction, given I didn’t say it explicitly. 😊 You’re right- I do have a disabled child (my eldest, if we want to talk about ‘choices’ that are questioned…)

I’m actually a little curious what gave me away? I wonder if it’s the fact that only people who have experienced parenting a disabled child understand the insanity and cruelty of some of the comments we get?

Anyway, I’m glad I described the experience reasonably well, but sorry to hear that you are in a position to recognise it.

I think one of the things that winds me up the most is the way people talk about screening and anomaly scans and tfmr and will say things like ‘I’ve considered really carefully and I just don’t think a disabled child would be the right choice for my family.’ They are performing the ‘correct’ language about choice, probably at some cost given the difficulty of those kinds of decisions. As if parents like me had actively chosen to have a disabled child! As if that was possible to control!

(I know some Deaf parents have strong feelings about wanting their children to be Deaf and able to join in fully with their community and language, though, as an outsider, I do think that is a different way of thinking about ability and difference which is not very applicable to my child’s disability. It’s also still not a thing the parents can control!)

To my mind it would be more honest and accurate- more acceptable and less offensive- in those circumstances to say ‘I don’t believe I can parent a disabled child and, since I have the option, I’d rather not try.’

The irony, I suppose, is that I’ve spent a lot of time around people with various physical disabilities including some of my best and oldest friends, and I thought a lot about the possibility of a disabled child and I wasn’t daunted by it. I actually did the hard work of thinking it through that we are all supposed to have done in order to ‘choose’ correctly. But my child has a learning disability, something I hadn’t accounted for- and I had no idea how different, how hard, how isolating that would be even compared to the discrimination my friends had experienced. Control and choice in these matters is an illusion, blaming women for their ‘choices’ is an outrage.

Thanks and I am sorry also about your experiences. What gave you away (to me) was probably yes maybe there are some things only parent carers really understand but also you said something about "inflicting" a disabled sibling on DS. Absolutely awful! I am sorry for what you have been through and are going through. Do I understand correctly that you did find out (to some extent anyway) about your child's disability or likelihood of disability when you were pregnant? That must have been extremely difficult and any talk of any true "choice" in that situation is frankly ridiculous.

Thanks @confusedaboutworkingandparenting thats really kind. Sorry that was all a bit long and probably a bit much.

No, my child’s disability wasn’t predictable or identifiable in utero. My social circle meant that I’d thought a lot about that scenario and knew I wouldn’t terminate in that circumstance, but the reality of all the missed milestones and the diagnosis at ~18 months really took me by surprise. I think with a bit more maturity and experience my naive ‘choice’ pre-pregnancy seems laughable now.

Knowing what it’s like as a parent carer, I hope you and your family are as well and happy as it’s possible to be xx

We are in almost exactly the same situation as you describe re: not predictable / identifiable in utero & found out via missed milestones and diagnosis in the early years. It's bloody hard. Really bloody hard. I also really struggle with people assuming we knew / must've known. As if that really matters anyway. I think a lot of people work on the basis of you have all the scans and all looks well so of course it will be! Which we both (and many others) know isn't true. People don't want to hear or accept the reality that you often don't know / couldn't have known / things are missed / can't be detected / not enough information is known even if something is found... because it's way too scary for them. Everyone assumes any issues would be picked up on the scans. And like we have discussed, even if they are, would can you really do at that point anyway? An impossible "choice". Wishing you all the best too xx

‘As if that really matters any way’ is a good summary, I think. Like you say, it’s hard enough before you add the layers of nonsense around good and bad choices and people judging whether you’re ‘deserving’ of support.

I started the thread because I was so frustrated at the way posters were misunderstanding and haranguing Pineapple. Her analogy was fine actually-just as the person with the scraped knee has no place telling the amputee it’s ‘no big deal’, the woman with the easy pregnancy symptoms has no special insight to decide what the one with HG is capable of.

But the disability issue is the primary reason why the criticism of others ‘choices’ frustrates me so much.

I'm still so relieved at least one person understood what I was getting at and I'm not the devil (or totally unhinged as some people pointed out!) I was hoping for a discussion about having your experiences belittled by people who think they understand your situation when they really don't. I never once claimed to understand what an amputatee goes though, it must be devastating. I have however had countless women speak about HG as if they understand it because they had a couple of weeks of morning sickness during which they just powered through and didn't require any 'special treatment'. I feel like I lost nearly a year of my life to HG, it was so isolating and devastating and still has ongoing effects now (damaged teeth, mental health, lingering food aversions sleeplessness). This simply doesn't happen with standard morning sickness. To be told what happened to me was my choice over and over again was awful.

Slightly off topic, OP, but you seem like such an intelligent, insightful and caring person. Your children are lucky to have you as their mum. Sorry to hear you've had such a difficult and challenging time, I'm sure you're doing a wonderful job.

You’re very kind @Pineapple9210 😊 Definitely not ‘the devil’ or ‘unhinged’ 🙄🙄🙄 I’m so glad you’re enjoying being a mum now.

The discussion you wanted would have been really interesting. Honestly, I think Mumsnet is not really the place to come for interesting discussion most of the time. Certainly not for support. I worry a bit about the damage posters do to each other showing off how critical and uncompromising they can be. I only really come here when I’m in the mood for an argument any more, wanting to vent some of my frustrations and less likely to be hurt by the nonsense 🤷‍♀️

Definitely off topic now but I thought it was worth saying- it may not feel like it but it will be easier to get support for the after-effects of HG while you’re still in the early post-partum months than it will be after your maternity exemption card expires. Of course you have many other things to take up your time as a new mum but maybe even a friend or family member could help you make a priority of chasing up appointments to get some medical support with the ongoing issues. xx

Thinking more about this interesting thread ... I wonder if people use the concept/word "choice" in order to protect themselves from a deep human psychological fear of chaos and lack
Of control. The deep awareness that we cover up all the time, that we are vulnerable and life is a series of chance moments which we can never control.

So for eg, When I (used to) watch murder-related films I'm aware I used also to have a "well I wouldn't have done that/gone there/thought that, so the "choices" the victim made were not choices I'd have made [comforting and protecting myself from those uncomfortable knowledge that yes, this horror could happen to me], so I delude myself that that event would not have happened with me as my (wiser) choices would have protected me.

I wonder if that protective response is at play around reproductive choice - I with my fallacious ability to make wiser choices than "her", would not get raped/have a disabled baby/triplets/bleed to death post partum/need to have an abortion

I kind of see where you're coming from but women have always been judged for their "choices". Eg. SAHM- "well, its your choice to sit on the sofa eating bon bons all day". Working mum- "well, it was your choice to send your child to daycare and have someone else raise them", Housewife- "well, it was your choice not to work and so now he's left you and you have no money. Working woman with no kids- "well it was your choice to prioritise work over a family so no wonder you feel unfulfilled", Woman growing older with no cosmetic procedures- "well, it was your choice to let yourself go", woman who has had cosmetic enhancements- "well it was your choice to alter your face and now you look plastic". Women in particular are judged for absolutely everything- just look at the media.

Literally whatever women "choose" will garner judgment from society in general- you cant win. I dont think the dialogue around this is about the language of "choice", I think it involves a shift in attitudes towards the judgement of women in general and how that is influenced by the patriarchy.

I agree, women are blamed for anything and everything, and most women can hear and see this even when it is not said or said under the guise of support making it feel particularly isolating and unprovable.