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On Releasing the Pressure to Justify Yourself — and Finding the Truth That Grounds You Instead
For a long time, I put a lot of pressure on myself to find my “Big Why.”
Because here’s the thing about being a woman in her 30s quietly questioning whether you want children, and considering stepping off the path everyone assumed you’d take- people who love you want to know why, and strangers have a way of making you feel like you owe them an explanation. And I wanted to be ready for that. I wanted a short, simple, and universally acceptable reason that would hold up under pressure.
And I’m not gonna lie, what I actually wanted wasn’t clarity, it was armor. I wanted a justification, a reason so airtight, so universally resonating, for whenever someone asked why I wasn’t having children. Something that would make people nod and move on. Something that would protect me from having to defend a deeply personal decision to people who, honestly, had no business asking in the first place.
As I worked, let’s be real, as I’m still working with my therapist to release myself from the pressure to organize my life around other people’s comfort, something shifted. I stopped trying to craft an explanation for other and started searching for something for myself.
The Big Why is not the explanation you offer to satisfy other people. It’s the quiet truth you return to when doubt and uncertainty about your decision creep in.
Because that’s what the Big Why actually is.
It’s for the hard moments. When a friend announces a pregnancy and I feel something complicated move through me (and a little guilty for feeling it). The well-meaning relative who asks, again, if I’m sure. When I ask if I’m sure. The Big Why isn’t for anyone else. It’s for me, for the moments when the doubt creeps in loud and when I spiral into “am I sure?” and “was I ever sure?” and “what if I’m getting this completely wrong?” It’s the thing I return to when I need to quiet the noise and come back to myself.
When I finally gave myself permission to find my Big Why, my answer to the question “why don’t you want to have children?” this is where I landed:
I don’t want to lose myself inside the current model of motherhood that is under-supported by every system it exists in, asks everything of me culturally, and genuinely conflicts with the person I’m trying to be.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing. (For now)
But as I reflected on my Big Why, here’s what I realized: my Big Why isn’t actually one thing in the way I assumed it should be. It’s several interconnected realities, each one part of a bigger, more honest picture of what motherhood actually looks like right now, and why I’m choosing not to step into it.
My single sentence “why” didn’t feel sufficient, and so I wrote more, specifically for myself as a way to think it all the way through. So, there are two additional posts that dive deeper into why I’m choosing not to have children. Again, they are for me, but if you’re curious, they’re here for you too