In many people’s eyes, being a woman is directly linked to being a mom—if not now, then someday. That is why many women are encouraged, if not pressured, to have children, whether they desire it or not.
That’s what happened to this redditor, who was pressured by her husband and her family to become a mom. Even though “they said it would be different when you have your own child,” the woman hated being a mother and a wife; so, eventually, she reached a breaking point and decided to uproot herself from the life she detested and move on.
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Image credits: freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: victim_6
Women tend to experience more pressure than men when it comes to parenting
As a woman, you often have to explain yourself if you say you don’t want to have children. In such cases, people rush to tell you that having a child of your own is magical and that the longing to become a mother will present itself when you fall pregnant, when you give birth, when you hold your baby for the first time, or when you reach another important milestone. But what if it won’t?
The societal pressure to become a mom, a wife, or whatever people around you expect you to be is strong—even in the 21st century. Granted, men often have to fight battles of their own, but when it comes to parenthood, they seem to be less pressured by society compared to their female counterparts. According to YouGov’s 2024 data, people in the US were more than twice as likely to say that women (37%) face pressure to have children than to say that men do (17%).
Data presented by the Pew Research Center reveals that out of child-free respondents aged 50 and over, women were also more likely than men to say they felt societal pressure to have children at least sometimes when they were younger (42% vs. 27% respectively). Roughly a third of the respondents in that age group shared that they never wanted to have children, though, comprising a group of voluntarily child-free individuals who are also often stigmatized for, as studies put it, “falling outside the margins of normativity in a society that is pronatalist.”
A research on the pressure child-free women feel to have kids echoed the idea that women are usually expected to want to become mothers. The lead author behind the research, University of Nebraska-Lincoln sociologist Julia McQuillan, pointed out that while “there are women who have low or no distress about not being mothers” despite the societal pressure, in general, “motherhood is so highly connected with adult femininity in the United States that many women feel that they need to be mothers.”
There are stark differences regarding what’s expected of men and women
Bearing in mind how deep-rooted societal pressure on women is, it’s no surprise that it often starts weighing down on females at an early age. An Ipsos poll carried out in Toronto found that a majority of teenage girls in Canada—nearly 60%—feel pressure from society “to conform to unrealistic expectations about what it means to ‘be a girl,’ whether it’s how they should look, dress, speak, or act, or the specific interests they should have.” To make matters worse, they also feel pressure from the media or social media to conform to unrealistic beauty standards.
Clearly, the societal pressure on women—as well as men—relates to way more than just parenting. But the difference between what’s expected of the genders is quite stark. Pew Research Center’s data on how Americans see expectations for men and women show that the trait people believe society values in men the most is honesty and morality, while in women—it’s physical attractiveness.
In addition to parenting, looks, and a hundred other things women are expected to do or be, they also often feel pressured to find and stick to a suitable partner. Studies on how adults in emerging adulthood perceive pressure revealed that females felt more pressure from parents or family to enter a relationship than males. They also reported experiencing more fear of being single.
The OP shared that she, too, felt immense pressure to live a certain way, which eventually led to her living a life she hated. “I was pressured by society, my husband, and my own family to have this baby and how I will love this life after I have this baby and just to do it and give it time,” she said, adding that it just didn’t work out that way. After reading her story, netizens took to the comments section to share their thoughts.
Fellow netizens shared their thoughts in the comments
Some people opened up about similar stories
Many felt bad for the kid, the woman was going to leave behind
