I feel grief and relief that I’ve never had children. Other women must share this | Katherine Baldwin
We have a choice about motherhood but it’s not always clear-cut, and ambivalence can be a painful place
In the last month, there’s been a run of fertility-related news stories, from the pregnancy figures that confirmed the trend towards later motherhood, to the suggestion that IVF clinics are exploiting older women, to the huge emotional and financial cost of failed IVF. But among them, I don’t hear about experiences that chime with my own, or with those of some of the women I coach – the women who are or were ambivalent about having children.
Ambivalence, from the Latin, means to be pulled strongly in two directions. This aptly describes my relationship to motherhood. I spent my 20s and early 30s avoiding having a baby at all costs as I built my career as a foreign correspondent. Back in London and approaching 40, a combination of factors sparked baby angst. There was my ticking biological clock, burnout in my job and my father’s death, which exposed my aloneness and made me question why I’d prioritised work over family.