There’s one perceived enemy to feminism that – no matter how hard we’ve tried – we’ve failed to conquer: our biological clock. It’s dictated to us, disrupted us, demonised us and depressed us. For years, we’ve been fed warnings about our (very real) ‘ticking time bomb of fertility’; endless scare stories of single women ‘selfishly’ pursuing careers over motherhood or ‘leaving it too late’ to settle down.
Well, guess what? We’ve had enough! More and more single millennial women are now seizing back the power and choosing either to become mothers on their own, or not at all – all on their own agenda.
Whereas, yes, previously we were often waiting for ‘Mr Right’ or getting ahead in our careers and fearing solo motherhood as a ‘last resort’, this is no longer the case. As many of us hit our mid-thirties, or sometimes earlier, we’re making friends with our fertility and working with the clock, not against it. We’re recognising the realities that no matter how young you look on the outside, we cannot slow down the fertility aging process – and so are using the resources available to create families at a time that is right for us.
Of course, women having children on their own is nothing new, but this is about choosing solo motherhood as opposed to feeling pushed into it by time or circumstances. And choice, after all, is the very essence of feminism.
Jenny Nash, is 36, and 16 months ago became a Solo Mother by Choice (SMC) to her daughter, Dorothy, who was conceived using a sperm donor.
“I was 30 when I first started thinking about this,” she says. “A friend thought I’d be an amazing mum and asked if I’d consider using a donor, because another single friend of hers had. Although I’d been in a relationship, it hadn’t come to anything and I wasn’t really dating, but I desperately wanted to be a mother. At first, I wasn’t sure, but then I started thinking, ‘Why would I stick to this old-fashioned ideal of falling in love, getting married and having a baby, when I can still follow my dream and pursue what I want on my own?’”
Jenny, who is a teacher from Exeter, did some preliminary research, but it wasn’t until three years later, after her grandmother died, that she became serious about it. “I remember my mum saying how sad it was that Gran would never see me find someone and have a baby, and I just said, ‘Well, actually, I’ve been thinking about doing it alone.’ My family were immediately supportive, which actually shocked me, but in a good way.” Jenny, who now lives with her mother and grandfather who help with childcare, does remember a friend’s husband questioning her decision. “He asked me, ‘Well, don’t you ever want to find a man?’ as if doing this on my own would rule that out completely,” she recalls. “I said, ‘I’m pretty sure people who have kids can still meet someone.’”
NO LONGER A BACK-UP PLAN
Jenny now runs the Facebook group Solo Mothers by Choice UK, which, in just a year since its launch now has over 1,000 members. “There are a lot of younger members for whom this is a first choice, not a back-up plan,” she explains. “There’s a feeling of, ‘This is what I want to do’ as opposed to ‘I’m running out of time and I need to have a baby before I am too old.’”