When asked about potential parenthood in my college days, all my classmates' answers were the same: nobody wanted children.
It was practically a given among all of us. If someone did want them, they were seen as some alien or someone rooted in conservative traditions that were quite foreign to us. Either that or someone with the money for it. This almost never happened because in Portugal, as in many places, we tend to relate to people of the same class, and as such, we’re all a bit poor and have the same desires.
The years passed without me noticing, but this feeling of unwanted parenthood remained with all of us. And this feeling can be extended to the entire middle class, which finds itself struggling to stay that way.
Of my close friends, no one is a parent or wants to become one. Not even the only one who once said she had maternal feelings talks about being a mother anymore!
I’m talking about the generation that was born in the late 80s and early 90s in Portugal. And now, we’re all roughly between the ages of 34 and 37.
And if we look more specifically at women’s fertility, we’re all starting to pass our sell-by date, or at least those years when we thought that anything would get us pregnant are long gone.
And although this feeling of invalidity could also apply to men, we women feel the pressure to decide most strongly. The phrase ‘now or never’ hangs over all of us, and as such, there are compelling reasons to become a mother. (I believe that many, like me, would like to pause their lives and not have to deal with this issue).
I, on my way to 34, like many other women, am feeling this pressure like never before, as if every day, the passage of time is now becoming a ticking time bomb.
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