I’m watching the Today Show and again today they’re discussing this married woman who disappeared with another married man.

Shit that happens ALL THE TIME.

And again today they have “experts” diagnosing her relationship with her husband, that she MUST have some sort of depression because she walked away from her 1-year-old, she MUST have had some childhood trauma or she’s a monster for abandoning her child, blah blah blah. Why label? Labels give people easy excuses for shitty behavior.

Like I said yesterday, birthing a child doesn’t make you a parent. There’s no automatic tie between the birth mother and the child (else there wouldn’t be adoptions) and not every woman has 100% maternal instinct.

My 1stSon’s “wife” started catting around pretty quickly after Kira was born. When he kicked her out she rarely wanted to see Kira and proceeded to have twins by another man and after a year, took the twins to another state and dumped them. I hear she’s moved on and is now pregnant again.

Does she suffer from depression? I doubt it. Did she have childhood trauma? Likely as she was a foster child. Personally I think she just craves attention (she was a stripper) and being pregnant and lugging around infants means the attention is on her. She’s had three kids and yet not a smidgen of maternal instinct.

Choosing to never be a parent and/or giving your baby away at birth is different. I know women who have chosen to remain childless who have more maternal instinct than a few who have kids and treat them like dogs.

Why does society insist that all women should have children? We really don’t need any more unwanted mongrels out there.

Why does society harass women who choose birth control or abortion to avoid having children they don’t want or know they’re unprepared to raise?

Why does society bitch about there not being enough babies out there to adopt, yet are so shocked and therefore harass any woman who might not want a second or third child and chooses to give it to someone who does?

That’s the one that confuses me. Say there’s a married woman who already has two kids and gets pregnant. For whatever reason she’s against abortion but really doesn’t want that third kid. What does she do? If she chose to put that third child up for adoption everyone around her would probably give her a hard time. Instead of applauding her for giving someone else a chance to parent, they’re appalled she doesn’t want that child. So she’s stuck.

Maybe if we stopped putting so much emphasis on what every woman should do and just let woman do what they’re comfortable doing we’d all be better off. When will parenting really be a choice?

I think “maternal instinct” should be knowing your own ability and making your own choices.  I think women instinctively know what’s best for themselves (and any possible child) but too often succumb to family and societal pressures.