Let's Burst The 'Selfish Woman' Myth

Whatever decisions we make about having children (or not), we’re judged – usually by other women. Emma Brockes, a single mother to sperm-donor twins, has a few things to say about that

My mother had me late in life, at least by the standards of 1975. She was 42, almost 43, and would like to have had more children, but it was still three years before the first IVF baby, and I would remain her only child. Thirty-nine years later, when I had my twins, assisted fertility – and with it older mothers – had become commonplace. The circumstances of my children’s background are very different from my own – I was raised in Buckinghamshire, my children in New York; I had a mum and dad; my children were conceived via sperm donor and I’m a single parent by choice. But one thing that hasn’t changed is the word that is consistently used to describe the choices both my mother and I, and every other woman I know, made about having our children: selfish. Let’s see. Have a baby at 45: selfish (you’ll die before it grows up). Have a child at 17: selfish (children having children). Have ‘only’ one child: selfish (needs a playmate). Have five children: selfish (bad for the environment/costly to the taxpayer). Don’t have a child at all: selfish. (You’ll have more time to lavish on yourself, never learning the meaning of self-sacrifice.) Have a child and work full-time/don’t work at all/draw benefits/hire a nanny: selfish. And, obviously, having an abortion: very, very selfish. There is almost no decision a woman can make in relation to when, how or if she has children that is entirely free from the risk of another woman (or man) calling her selfish. I wonder why this is. When it comes to having children, men are rarely called selfish, in spite of the fact they go on creating families well into their 50s (Alec Baldwin), 60s (Steve Martin) and even 70s (Mick Jagger), while a lot of us look on and indulgently chuckle.