There are many statements a woman should never utter out loud, even to her closest friends. For Ghanaian women (and I’m sure, other African women), there’s the following: “I don’t want to be a wife,” I don’t want to be a mother,” and “I don’t know how/want to cook!” Any of these utterances even among friends are bound to get you shunned, heavily judged, questioned and labeled by both men and women alike. And even as unacceptable as these statements are, some are more tolerable than others.

“I don’t know how to cook” might get you by among some circles because it’s never too late to learn. Some may even attempt to rescue you by throwing a few recipe lifelines your way for the occasional times when the need arises to impress others with your cooking skills – like the new man in your life. Unless, of course, your ‘I don’t know how to cook” is because of your “I don’t want to be a wife.” In which case, you have nothing to worry about besides having to explain why you “don’t want to be a wife!”

“I don’t want to be a wife” might get you by for a few years past your mid-twenties because everyone naturally assumes you’re either not ready, or you just haven’t found the right man. Plus you have more time to change your mind. After your thirtieth birthday, however, they would expect that enough time has passed for you to either be ready, to have found Mr. Right, or changed your mind. That’s when the questionable looks and judgments about your character become the topic of discussion among the church pews.

“I don’t want to be a mother” is the worst of them all. It is a taboo statement that no woman in her right mind must ever say out loud, especially among women, no matter how strongly you feel about your instincts not to have children! It is rather advisable that you go along with the excuses “I’m not ready” or “God’s time is the best.” These however can only carry you so far. After a while it becomes difficult to keep up the charade of what’s really going on inside you. The truth is that there aren’t even that many women with enough courage to simply admit they “don’t want to have children.” Our culture dictates that women are good for a few naturally/biologically ordered functions like having children. It is a function of womanly necessity. It not only proves our human capabilities, it proves our womanhood and our usefulness as human beings. We were born to bear children, plain and simple! Choosing not to is not only considered selfish, it is considered a blatant, disrespectful, inconsiderate choice that spits in the face of women who will give their last pesewa to be able to have the choice to say “I can, but I don’t wanna.” As such, many have convinced themselves half-heartedly that they desire to bear their resemblances when in all reality, the thought of being responsible for another human life scares them half to death.

On the surface, society’s expectations somehow make sense even though they are also arguable. A male friend likened a woman capable yet unwilling to have children to a car which runs just fine but that just sits in the driveway gathering dust. It may be tuned up every now and then and driven around the block to make sure it still runs on its wheels, but other than that, it is a useless piece of metal just sitting there and taking up useful space. The car becomes disposable at a point in time, once the owner becomes sick of simply admiring its beauty. What society fails to take into consideration is the fact that human beings are endowed with an innate desire to choose, and once that choice is taken away from us as individuals something ugly and undesirable is born. The result is women who have no business being wives becoming wives. They become the most spiteful wives one has ever seen. They sit daily on their verandas, their chins resting in the palm of their hands, thinking of just how much poison is enough to cause them to become widowed without being labeled murderers. After all, everyone feels sympathy for a widowed woman. At least she has tasted of the “sweetness” of marriage.

In the same way a woman who has no business bringing a baby into the world is forced into doing so, only to become the worse mother one could ever imagine. And yes, there are bad mothers everywhere, even in African countries. Don’t think Western women are the only ones who serve cruelty on their own children by microwaving and drowning them in bath tubs. Lack of such innovative ways to kill cause us, African women, to harm our babies and our children in the crudest of ways – flushing newborns down the toilet, leaving them in trash bags at dump sites, and drinking dangerous concoctions meant to abort pregnancies – all in an attempt to cover up the terminations as miscarriages. To a hypocritical society, such a woman has at least tried to fulfill her God-given role as a mother when in all actuality; she has simply chosen sympathy over scorn in her own self-interest.

Many argue that women who choose not to have children but are capable of doing so are selfish women who refuse to live up to their natural roles as mothers. But is it really a fact that all women are born to be mothers? Is it really true that all women have natural maternal instincts? If that is so, why do some women despise their own children? And I also ask, what can be more selfish than to bring a child into a loveless world full of abuse and hate? Is it not selfish for a woman seeking to avoid worldly and societal scorn to bring forth a child knowing very well that she will loathe that child for the rest of her days? Is that not worse than a woman who decides to spare her unborn children the spite of their own mother? Not all children who reside in orphanages reside there because both parents are deceased, you know. Many are there because they were abandoned by the very women who bore them.

What women need is support, understanding, and the freedom to choose. It just so happens that the very places we go to seek support and understanding are the very places that judge us the heaviest – church, family, friends, etc. Pastors stand in the pulpits and offer the most insensitive prayers and sermons on Mother’s Day. Ordinary men stand in front of congregations and at weddings and judge their fellow single women while knowing very little about the choices these women have made. Family accuses you of not wanting to provide the niece, nephew or grandchild they so desire. Friends shun you out as the single, childless friend who has something sinister going on in her life.

It is a little known fact that people often times judge indiscriminately the things they do not fully understand. And what is more confusing than a woman who is more than capable of experiencing the “joys” of motherhood, yet, refuses to do so? There can be no sane explanation besides the fact that she is a selfish, cold-hearted, irresponsible human-being who thinks of no one but herself. At least that’s what people most often times think. And even so, women who “choose” not to bear children of their own turn out to be some of the most nurturing, most caring people one will ever know.

For many women, regardless of culture, the struggle whether or not to become a mother is one that eats at them from the inside out. The decision becomes deep-seated, much like being homosexual struggling to come out of the closet. You don’t want to admit your lifestyle choice for fear of societal scorn so you try the best you can to live a normal life. Except that the life you live is anything but normal as you struggle daily with lies, deceit, excuses and explanations coupled with guilt, hatred and resentment. Resentment at the world you live in – the culture that has taken away your choice to live what you consider a normal life. So you do the best you can to bear living the dictates of a larger societal influence that leaves very little room for compromise, understanding or support. The end result is left up to your imagination. N. Amma Twum-Baah is the Founder and Editor of Afrikan Goddess (AG) Online. AG is an online publication dedicated to highlighting the achievements of women of African descent.