The Desire for Parenthood
The Handmaid’s Tale is the first e-book I ever purchased. I read it constantly, and the idea of always having it with me felt like the best use of my iPod space. It holds a spot in my top five books of all time, so it’s no small thing to say that Sophie Mackintosh’s Blue Ticket is equally worthy of inner circle space. That is, if you get all the way to the end. Unlike The Handmaid’s Tale which answers all questions the moment you may have them, Blue Ticket waits to answer all of your questions until the last page. But once answered, it’s a perfect story.
Think of it as The Handmaid’s Tale 2.0: What if instead of being told you must try to have a child, you were told that you were not allowed to try to have a child?
So the basic premise: When you get your period, you go to a centralized office where you either get a white ticket (which means you are allowed to have a child) or a blue ticket (which means you are not allowed to have a child). We don’t know a lot about what happens to the white ticket girls next, but the blue ticket girls are outfitted with an IUD and sent on their way to start their adult life. They can do anything they want to do except have a child. That’s their only restriction. And in society, there is no benefit to having a child except experiencing that relationship. Yet some white ticket women don’t want parenthood. And some blue ticket women suddenly find themselves coveting a child.
You don’t need to read the book to have feelings on some of the thoughts I had reading the book. And I promise that my questions will not ruin any part of the book.
The first thought is unpacking who/what generates the desire to become a mother. Is it something biological (perpetuate the species), something emotional (love), or something societal? Are we led into family building because of pressure from family or being raised to see that as the norm or promised that it will be an exciting stage of life or feeling like you can’t achieve certain things without having a partner and child?
On page 22, she unpacks the meaning of a blue ticket. It’s relief that the decision is made for you. It’s an unbiased system that finds you unmotherly. It’s a belief that you are enough as you are and do not need a child to make you better/different. It is an understanding that your life is important and shouldn’t be risked by something as dangerous as birth. She feels differently about her judgment every time she thinks about it.
On page 23 she writes,
Sometimes I became aware that there was somewhere I could not go. And I wanted to go there. Who wouldn’t, when told it was impossible? Motherhood was the last perversion; otherwise known as loving and being loved. It was the only one closed off to me. I want. There was a purity to that feeling that other sensations lacked, a simplicity, even as it remained the most complicated thing in the world.
In other words, the decision is made for you, but your brain still makes a decision anyway; to accept the decision bestowed on you or to want something different.
I’ve tried to mentally unpack this over the years: did the impulse to build a family come internally or externally or a combination of both? I still haven’t found a good answer.
Your thoughts?
7 comments
Have now got “Blue Ticket” on hold at the library – that sounds like a really interesting book!
The concept of choice vs the relief of having the decision made for you is something that’s been a constant sort of conversation in my household as we debated for over a year what to do with family building – did we continue or stop? I can remember several conversations in which I told my husband that I don’t believe in fortune-telling but that I almost wanted to go out, have someone read my palm, and tell me what I should do. I didn’t (because, well, I’m a chronic skeptic)…but that idea of having someone/something outside myself give me some certainty that x was the true, correct path was very, very alluring in some major ways.
As far as the internal/biological/external/societal debate, I guess I’d say that it’s probably all of the above. After charting my cycle closely for quite awhile, I can definitely tell there are times in the cycle when I’m at least mildly more likely to have baby fever. I do think there’s a lot of societal stuff as well – it can bring a lot of attention and excitement, particularly for that first baby. But like you, I don’t think I’ve ever really found a totally satisfactory equation that brings me to *the* solution on this.
This IS interesting. I only wanted to be a mother in the abstract before I started trying to become one, and until we first attempted I was still a bit on the fence about it. After I started trying and even moreso after it wasn’t super easy, that was when I wanted it the most. When I became one, I was sure that having a child had been the right decision because of what I felt for the child, even though it definitely made my life harder. Will put this book on my list!
BTW – I hate that people decide that one person or another is “unmotherly.” What does that even mean? It definitely does happen though.
I think that the impulse to become a parent is both internal and external, in varying degrees depending on the individual person. I also think that the two are difficulty to separate, in the same way that it’s hard to discern whether a person’s traits are inborn or a product of environment. Each person is a part of the society into which s/he is born, and its effects on us can be very difficult to parse.
Btw, I found The Handmaid’s Tale dark and depressing, and it’s a book I’d never want to read a second time, so I find it interesting that you read it constantly. I would avoid re-reading any book that has such serious themes. I have never watched the TV show based on the book for the same reason.
I’ve got the book reserved and I should have it in my hands within a week. I will be thinking about your questions as I read. I do often wonder where my desired to have children came from: an inner desire or an expectation cultivated from external sources.
I had a somewhat similar experience as omdg. I wasn’t one of those people who was pining to be a mom since they were a kid. I wanted somewhat abstractly to have kids and knew (ha) it would happen eventually. I frankly wasn’t ready or that interested until I was in my 30s (but I never doubted that I would want/have kids). I do think it was mostly internal for me. Before I began trying, I was kind of immune to societal expectations. And once we hit roadblocks, it wasn’t the fear of not living up to what was expected that caused anguish. We really wanted a baby because, well, we did.
I’m one of the lucky ones. But it’s sad that what seems perfectly reasonable (to me)—feeling eh in your 20s, deciding in your 30s you are on board and ready to have that baby—doesn’t line up very well with biology for many of us. Andthere are enough people for whom it IS no problem getting pregnant in even their late 30s that many unsuspecting women (such as me back then) aren’t terribly worried about waiting until their mid -30s to try.
Hmmm, I’m really interested to read this one. I think that the urge to have children is a combination of both internal/external. My mother, for example, said she had kids because that’s just what you did in the 1960s.
And I also wondered whether my distress over losing pregnancies/subsequent failed cycles reflected a true desire or the “I want” reaction at being denied something. I don’t question that now. I know how I made the decisions. But doubting ourselves is also a very strong instinct.
I agree that it’s probably a bit of both. I know some women who couldn’t WAIT to have children. Whether that was biological impulse or cultural conditioning, I don’t know, but it wasn’t me. I wanted kids & I always thought I would have them… some day… but there were other things I wanted to do with my life first. I remember one woman I know who, whenever she saw a baby, was was all over him/her, shrieking stuff like “Ohmigod, you’re so CUTE!!” I was never like that. I liked babies and of course they’re all adorable 🙂 but there was always part of me that held back — partly because I knew if I showed any interest, I would get the “so when are YOU…” questions & I always felt that was absolutely none of anyone’s business.
Of course, once I realized that having them was not going to be as easy as I had thought, I wanted them, very badly. 🙁