In two days, my new collection Nulligravida will be released. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know I’ve been talking about this for awhile, but this is the first mention of it on my actual website. (I know, I’ve been away for some months — I’ve been busy writing behind the scenes amidst the daily stresses of living…and at some point, I became the full-time caregiver for my elderly mother. It’s been a ride.)

This book is full of new poems as well as short essays and some personal photography, all related to my choice to live a childfree life and the stigma I face because of this choice. It would be a lot easier to just go with the Life Script (TM) and get pregnant with my husband like everyone expects me to, but there are so many reasons I won’t, and can’t. Not to mention the slight fury I feel that I am consistently subjected to all this questioning when women who do what they’re “supposed to do” are given a free pass, despite the number of reasons why giving birth is just a bad idea in this day and age.

Following is the essay “Motherhood is What Made You?” included in the book.

Motherhood is What Made You?

“…As a mother, I weep for the children devastated by the hurricane. …As a mother, I wish I could keep all these boys safe from police brutality. …As a mother, I am scared about what climate change will mean for my children. …As a mother, I know the true meaning of tired.”

To preface a sentiment with, “As a mother,” transforms it into moral superiority. It insinuates that non-mothers aren’t capable of the statement that follows. It implies that childfree and childless women lack the capacity to nurture or care, merely because they have not pushed out a baby for which they are obligated to be responsible. Without that particular responsibility, such women are seen as self-centered and unsympathetic.

But motherhood only teaches women to care for their own, and when their own are threatened, even in simple play-competition, they easily become seething, capable of violence against the threat. It’s instinctual, to protect the extension of the self. Childfree women rarely feel this level of visceral solicitude, but that does not make them better or lesser than mothers. Rather, mothers and non-mothers alike possess different sorts of self-centeredness.

Similarly, non-mothers are just as capable as mothers  of empathy, from their own upbringing and through the existence of other family members—parents, siblings, partners—as well as friends, clients, and pets.

Humanity is tribal, a web, not a singular line down through time. Empathy is part of our nature. It is not restricted to a biological bubble. I don’t need to have kids to sympathize with others’ situations and want to improve them. I don’t need to create a new person to care about before I am able to care for the people around me.

Empathy is stronger when there is a personal connection, of course. The death of a parent elicits more compassion from someone who has also lost a parent than from someone who hasn’t. But to impart a moral high ground to the person who has also suffered is supercilious, especially when articulated as, “Well, you haven’t experienced X, so you couldn’t possibly understand.”

As a human, I understand.

As a human, I feel for hurricane victims. As a human, I cry for separated families and police brutality casualties. As a human, I worry about what we are doing to the environment for the sake of comfort and convenience, and what that means for all life, not just my own species. As a human, I appreciate hard work and exhaustion, and I acknowledge that no one has a monopoly on suffering.

I don’t need to give birth to a new life to comprehend and feel these things. I pity the women who do.