I want to be a mom. Perhaps more than anything else. I’ve written about my maternal dreams on this blog before. I’ve taken great care to select names for my would-be children, and I’ve often imagined what they’d be like, these tiny versions of me and whoever I ended up procreating with. But I’ve always imagined I’d be in a much different place whenever I eventually had these kids.
And the older I get, the more I don’t think I’ll ever get there.
It’s not a secret that our government and the elites are trying to push a pro-natalist agenda. Elon, Trump, and their cronies are all about popping out as many babies as possible — or that’s what they’d like you to believe. After all, aren’t the Republicans and the conservatives the “family” party? Certainly all those godless leftists don’t give a damn about families. They’re too busy dyeing their hair blue and owning cats and doing a communism, whatever that means.
Here’s what they don’t tell you. They only want a very specific demographic to reproduce. And it’s not me. Or you.
If you weren’t born into wealth, it’s almost impossible at this point to start a family. Without insurance, the cost to just have the baby is $20,416. With insurance, it’s still well over two grand, which is more than most people’s rent, and then you factor in that most folks my age are living paycheck to paycheck. Add on the costs of actually raising the child, and it turns out parenthood is prohibitively expensive for a lot of people.
I hate that we’re being priced out of what should be a human birthright, along with several other things that should be a given. Why is it so fucking hard to find affordable housing? Why does one company keep buying and hoarding family homes? Why do the tech bros insist on building data centers that bork the entire water supply for regular folks who happen to live nearby? It’s like they’re trying to make literally everywhere uninhabitable for anyone whose bank account is less than six, maybe even seven figures. In a way, we’re being priced out of simply existing.
Not to be alarmist, but it kinda seems like they want us all to die.
I want a child more than anything, but I don’t want her to grow up in a world where she’s not allowed to own anything herself. We don’t own our homes anymore, and we’re starting to not be able to own our media and tools and art either. Everything is a subscription service these days. How long until they own us? It’s a terrifying thought, but we’re so indebted to our corporate and political overlords at this point, I feel like it’s a matter of time before they declare we don’t even belong to us anymore.
I hate this existence. I hate that we created this stupid concept of money just so people can use it as an excuse to be shitty to one another. We deserve better than renting and subscription services and having to settle for a nice dog or something because actually having a child feels out of reach. We deserve better than dying because the technocrats decided robots and filthy lucre are cooler than sharing this earth with other humans.
I know this seems like a hopeless post, but I want to end it on a positive note. While I was writing this, my roommate asked me what the point even was. Why do I even write blog posts like this? And the answer is simple — because my words have power. Maybe I can’t change the world, but I can use my words to inspire those who can. I want to give a voice to people like me and my loved ones. I want to tell my story and the stories of other good working class folks who just want to live and thrive in peace. Stories are what humanize us to outsiders. Stories are what make us human.
I pray that someday, I will be the mother of more than just this blog, but until then, I’ll nurture my little corner of the internet and the words I put into it. That will be my mark on this planet.
JESSA JOYCE 