By: Karen

In reply to Sybil.

“With so many children without families, why do we applaud people who bring more babies into the world?”

I think we’re taught it’s appropriate to be happy that someone is pregnant. But we don’t question why.

In groups formed by hereditary traits (national, ethnic, racial, maybe religious), you would be happy for another member joining your tribe, because that’s an extra vote for you! Or in an agricultural society, that’s another worker.

Today though, I think having children is part of the definition of compulsory femininity. Almost every woman I know around 30 is talking about how she “should” get pregnant. Not that they want to get pregnant, or are in relationships with people with whom they’d want to raise children, but it’s a cultural expectation.

If you don’t give birth, you’re an incomplete woman, un-feminine, you’ll be a crone not a mother, you’ve failed your social imperative to be a baby machine.

That’s why we applaud women who are pregnant today, because now she is a real woman, now she is sufficiently feminine, and we need to perpetuate that standard to exert pressure on the childless/childfree women to get reproducin’!