I'm glad you wrote this. Because I agree, yes, a lot of women are opting out. For various reasons. And it's totally OKAY! But...they need to know what they are foregoing. And very few of them, that I know, have any idea as to what the gifts of motherhood are. They have heard the nightmares and they see the nightmares each day...in the grocery store.

But, those are not THEIR kids. There is no comparison between helping someone raise their own (and who doesn't need an amazing aunty?) and raising your own kids. We don't necessarily need a lot of new people on this planet, true. But, I do see a pattern with a majority of the women I know who choose not to have kids. And that pattern includes a characteristic that many men, only men, have had the privilege of living. And it is this: They don't have to grow up. Nothing forces you to grow up like motherhood does. You don't HAVE to, but you are invited into maturity each day, like a slap in the face. So many women want to live life like they have seen men live it...free. And I don't blame them. It is truly sexy. But it has it's price as well.

This little tidbit has NOTHING at all to do with women who would love children and cannot have them. Nothing! You are a quite rare and beautiful woman, you.