“I Kind of Want to Want”: Women Who Are Undecided About Becoming Mothers

Abstract

This study focuses on women who define themselves as being undecided about becoming mothers. It addresses the question of how these women navigate their lives between two main conflicting cultural directives and perceptions: pronatalism and familism entwined in perception of linear time on one hand; and individualism and its counterpart, the notion of flexible liquid society, on the other. The research is based on group meetings designated for these women, which were facilitated by the first author. Ten women participated in the study—of whom, most were heterosexual, half were single, and half were partnered. Data were collected using (1) questionnaires completed during individual interviews that preceded the group encounter; (2) transcripts of the discussions held during the ten group sessions; and (3) questions regarding the status of the women’s doubts about motherhood asked 4 years after participating in the group. Our findings expand the existing typology of women’s reproductive decision-making, and demonstrate how categories that are commonly perceived as binary intersect when one challenges the rigid classifications of “active decisions” and “passive decisions”; “motherhood” and “non-motherhood,” and “want to be a mother” and “do not want to be a mother.” The findings also suggest that after becoming mothers, women can change their maternal status from “non-mother” to “mother,” yet still continue to view themselves as indecisive regarding motherhood. Based on our findings, we will argue that while indecisiveness about motherhood derives from individualized neoliberal rhetoric, it simultaneously undermines that same rhetoric and contradicts the injunction to “know, to decide, to strive.” It opposes the expectation in post-feminist discourse, that women will make choices about their bodies and exert them, while also opposing the pronatalist rhetoric, and the temporal linear discourse positing that women should “move forward” toward motherhood along with the ticking of the “biological clock.” Whereas some women sought to resolve their indecisiveness, other women found that the indecisiveness leaves all options open in a manner that expands their boundaries of autonomy in a society that seeks to limit it.

Challenging Pronatalism Is Key to Advancing Reproductive Rights and a Sustainable Population

“…Wherever religion is highly embedded in the affairs of the state, religious pronatalism may be indistinguishable from nationalistic pronatalism. In Israel, religious pronatalism serves nationalistic ends as it seeks to advance the state's goal of Jewish demographic superiority to Palestinians; this 'demographic war' with Palestinians is among the factors underlying Israel's status as the foremost user of reproductive technologies in the world, wherein the state actually finances women's use of these technologies to give birth to their first two children (Raucher, 2021;Donath et al, 2022).…”

Becoming the mother of a transgender child: Ethical self‐formation and moral moods of mothers in transition

“…Yet these tendencies do not challenge the centrality of motherhood. Familism remains the identifying mark of Israeli society, while the woman is constructed first of all in terms of wife and mother (Donath, Berkovitch, and Segal‐Engelchin, 2022; Fogiel‐Bijaoui and Rutlinger‐Reiner, 2013).…”

“…Motherhood is produced in the legal arena as a role that bears national significance within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Yefet, 2016), and this role is one of the important determinants of Jewish Israeli women's citizenship (Berkovitch, 1997). In recent decades, Israel has been moving toward neoliberalization and individualization, which prioritize the individual's interest and needs (Donath, Berkovitch, and Segal-Engelchin, 2022). Family is becoming more of a private concern, which has enabled "various innovative family structures to come into being" (Fogiel-Bijaoui and Rutlinger-Reiner, 2013, viii).…”

Psychosocial Impact of Infertility Diagnosis and Conformity to Gender Norms on the Quality of Life of Infertile Spanish Couples

“…As a result of social and economic transformations and the increased presence of feminism, the roles associated with motherhood and fatherhood have been redefined during the 21th century [22]. However, there are still gaps in the widespread social conception of motherhood as one of women's main aspirations [23]. As a consequence of the traditional association between women and reproduction, men have also been affected by the weight of gender in relation to infertility [24][25][26].…”