Recreation, procreation, creation. I was struck by an article recently by a best-selling author. She said that after her second child, she was discontented and went away on holiday.
To be really open about it, that was a trip when I was desperately wanting a third child, as women often do…It was like a visceral need, but actually I think the need was to create something, and on that holiday, where I was in a very odd mood, I went on that day trip and it came immediately. I felt completely fulfilled by just having that idea.
The idea was to write a book about a part of the history of the island she happened to be on. She never did have that third child but went on instead to create what people like Plato and other philosophers might call ‘spiritual offspring’. This was the start of a great writing career.
How many women, I wonder, confuse the urge to create with the urge to procreate? Whenever women of child-bearing age are discontent there is usually some clever clogs around who opines that she is just being “broody”. Such is the cultural assumption around the supposed desire of every woman to become a mother and keep on reproducing. For those who have already given in that department, the thrill of the pregnancy hormones and the post-partum oxytocin flooding the system can indeed have them yearning for yet another child. Some women have said they are at their happiest when they are pregnant. I don’t doubt it. Those hormones can be very persuasive- that’s their job after all in evolutionary terms to get those genes rolling into a new generation.
But after the euphoria has worn off, are these women as pleased with that decision? I think for many the answer is “no”. I know of too many who have said that, although they love their child now that he or she is here, they wish they had chosen to fulfil themselves otherwise. It’s not to say they can’t then do so, as did this author in her later years, but for many the opportunity just doesn’t exist. This author was part of a rich power couple where money was not an issue. The need to survive financially can be an all-consuming task for most especially if their relationship with the child’s father is unstable or non-existent.
I wish schools would teach young women that nature has a definite set of objectives and how we need to be careful and discerning in how we interpret its strong signals. That the urge to create does not always signal the desire to become a mother. In another blog I’ll look at what Plato had to say about spiritual offspring and the conditions that make such creations and recreation wonderful odysseys of adventure at the physical, mental and spiritual levels, as well as worthwhile goals in themselves.
