Recovery from A Hysterectomy - My Journey So Far

On the 30th December I had a hysterectomy.  This is something, after trying many other avenues without success, that was needed.  I met with a Consultant last June and after reviewing my scan which revealed large fibroids that had once again returned, he advised that I should have a hysterectomy, leaving my ovaries so that I could go through menopause naturally.

My answer was obvious.  No more pain, no more periods (woo hoo!).  At my age although the possibility of getting pregnant was still a factor and was possible, I have never wanted children; so taking away that possibility was also something I wanted.  Plus getting rid of the damn Mirena coil was an added bonus.  I had already vowed never, ever to go through the pain of having one in again.

It is now coming up to four weeks since my surgery and I am pleased that I made the right choice.  I have heard many different experiences about recovery post surgery, from what happens when you wake up, to potential pain, problems and mobility after.  So I thought that I would share my experience with you so far.

I had a robotic hysterectomy.  I do urge you to google the machine that they use.  It is amazing!  If you have ever seen RoboCop, the scene where they bring the machine into the board meeting and it ends up killing someone; it looks a little like that.  It is very cool.   Alas I did not get to see in person as I was already under anaesthetic before they wheeled me into surgery.

The next morning after my surgery (finished around 7.30 the last before), I expected to be quite a bit of pain.  For me, the pain wasn't bad at all.  In fact I was more concerned about the catheter that they were due to take out.  I don't know why, but that freaked me out more than anything else.

Before they will discharge you, you have to be able to get up and move around, have the catheter out and have peed at least three times so that they know everything is working there as it should.  I just wanted to go home.  I had not slept well the night before.  The nurses (who were wonderful) checked on me around every 45 minutes during the night so sleep didn't go too well.  So I drank and drank until the required bathroom element was completed and I could go home.

Upon discharge they gave me a sick note for six weeks, which they told me was the minimum (I promptly lost this as soon as I got home and had to get another from my GP).  They also give you seven injections, well six as they did the first in the hospital for me, which you need to inject into your stomach every day.  

No one likes injections, but after the initial "I cannot not this" and then deciding that having my boyfriend in control of the injection rather than me would be worse (yes I am a control freak), I got the first one out of the way.  By injection 4 I was an old hat at it and it barely hurt at all.  

The first thing that I will tell you, which I think is a universal thing, is that you are going to be tired.  Not just right after the surgery and in the days after, but for a long time.  I am still tired, although I am not doing much of anything other than watching box sets and reading books.

Alongside the tiredness, for the first couple of weeks I was also experiencing insomnia.  Sometimes I was wide away until 3-4 am.  This is dissipating now.  But the tiredness persists.  My boyfriend tells me that I am sleeping less during the day now though, so that is some improvement.

One thing that I was worried about was the scarring.  I knew that there would be five incision sites and I had visions of looking like Frankenstein's monster.  I was very pleasantly surprised.  There are five different sites, some with a couple of incisions next to each other.  The size of them surprised me, barely half an inch, if that.  Four weeks on, I have started to use bio oil and am happy to report that they will be barely noticeable.  

Going on to the pain.  Everyone is different, some get a lot, some get prolonged pain, some experience medium levels, some experience none.  In general, my pain levels have been small.  I have had a couple of days recently where the pain has increased, but to do with every knitting together I think.  I was given three days of pain medication, one a day I think, but on the whole, a couple of paracetamol or Ibuprofen have held me comfortably.  Some days I have none at all.

Before the operation and since having it I have been using the Hysterectomy section on Reddit.  This has been massively helpful as many women have written about and answered questions that I wanted to know.  If you have a hysterectomy, I highly recommend going on there.

One thing that I have learned is that it is important to listen to the "don't dos".   Sex is obviously off the menu for a while.  But the important parts are: don't lift anything heavy.  Don't do too much, of anything.  Don't drive.

Not doing anything is a challenge.  But it is necessary.  Doing the smallest thing can tire you out.  Start small.  Very small.

Because I have an office job I was given six weeks off work.  If you have a more manual job they will sign you off for longer.  Take the time.  All of it.  If, like me with smaller pain levels, you get the urge to go back to work early, don't.  If you can't make yourself dinner without having to lie down after, you definately cannot manage to work for eight hours.

That is my journey so far.  I will let you know how I go on when I get back to work in mid February.  But I am healing well and am trying to enjoy this period away from work.  This is the longest period I have had from work since I left school and no doubt will not have again until I retire. 

So far, so good!

2025 - The Biggest Year of My Life

 2025 was a big one.  The biggest of my life.

My boyfriend and I started 2025 in a flurry of activity.  We had bought a house and were in the process of moving boxes from November 2024 until we finally moved in, in mid January 2025.  This was a big move for me.

I had moved in with my boyfriend two years prior, but his home did not feel like my home.  Anyone who has moved in with someone who previously lived with a long term partner can understand that.  Although I liked the house, it was not truly my home and I knew that I would never be at home there.

My boyfriend had restored that house from the ground up and had a lot of emotion tired to that house, but he knew that I would never be comfortable.  Finding a home perfect for both of us though was less of a challenge than I thought.  The right one appeared and by January, we were in. 

Although there is work to be done and changes to be made, I truly love this house.  It feels like home.  My home.  Our home.  This is the first house of my life that has truly felt like mine.  

So that was the first big change of the year.  The second was my job.  I had been thinking about a change of jobs for a few months, but having been at that job for 25+ years, even thinking about moving was a big thing.  I had truly grown up with that firm, having started there when I turned 18.  Some people still there when I left had seen me grow from a child to a woman and I had a relationship with my boss that I know will never be replicated.  

But the work had changed.  The firm had changed.  I was working and had been for some time in historical abuse and that was taking its toll.  Adding that to a change in ownership and a change in location and all the signs were telling me that it was time to go.

I was lucky enough to be headhunted in March by another firm.  Different department, different work, more pay and the people all seemed to be nice.  So, I made the decision and jumped ship.

My last day with the firm was emotional.  I shed tears when I walked out of the door for the last time but could only hope that I had made the right decision.

Starting at my new job was like starting my career over again.  Although the basis of what I did was the same, the work was completely new and I knew nothing about it.  I was starting to learn again, whilst being in a busy office and from the ground up.  But I found the challenge exhilarating and after the first couple of months of "Can I do this?" the answer was yes, yes I can.

I have been incredibly lucky to move to this new firm where I feel at home.  Where all the staff are fantastic, I made made a close friend in one of my colleagues and the money is better.  My old boss has checked on me a couple of times (I suspect to see if I wanted to come back) and I have bumped into him once.  I had a fantastic working relationship with him and that is something that I will never have again.  The rest of my old work colleagues have been disappointing.  I have not heard from any of them (yes I reached out).  But hey ho.  My life has moved on.

Finally, and most importantly, I have finally found my inner peace.  I have struggled for most of my adult life, but this was the year where I found the tools to put to rest my ghosts.  I reached the point where I could finally exhale.   I had the moment of knowing, right then and there, that everything is now ok.  I am ok.  It was wonderful.  More than wonderful.

Healing can be a long process and the journey can be full of dead ends, side paths and doubling back.  But since that day, I have felt a calm, a peace and happiness like I have never known.  I am now who I was always meant to be.  Unrestrained and unencumbered by pain.  

I have my boyfriend who I adore, a home I love, a job I enjoy, great friends and I have found my peace.  There are no more locked boxes hidden away, no dark corners in the attic of my mind.  There is light there now; and peace and happiness.

I am thankful.

Silly Things That Irritate

Have you ever had an absolute irritation of something that is completely irrational?  Something that has no effect on you or your life whatsoever?

Well mine is the way that Americans call a starter and main course "entrees and appetizers".

Here comes the fucks.  Sorry.

Entrees and appetizers ?  You are not fucking French!  Even then they get it wrong.  An entree is a first course, an APPETIZER, not the bloody main course itself! 

Americans do not even have what you could really call their own cuisine.  They cook from cuisines all over the world, but do not really have their own (and don't bring up barbecue because that is Caribbean).

For example, I saw a question on Reddit posed as "What is the American equivalent to someone breaking spaghetti in front of an Italian?"  The top answer was cooking a Philly cheek steak incorrectly.  

A FUCKING steak sandwich.

It is enough that they bastardise the English language.  It is herbs, not fucking erbs.    To quote Eddie Izzard, it has a fucking H in it!

Why does this anger me so much?  I have no idea.  

Sorry Americans.  Not sorry.

What irritates you irrationally?

Where Do We Go From Here?

 

When For Women Scotland won the appeal against the Scottish Government which in turn, cemented and clarified in law what we already knew, that women were and have always been biological women; I innocently thought that the fight had, not been won, but that we could move forward on the basis that the ruling would be adhered to.

Oh sweet summer child.

Some organisations have capitulated, the Transit Police for example rolling back their ridiculous decision to give biological men the power to strip search women. 

Crimes will no longer recorded as chosen sex, but the person’s actual sex (although I note some crimes go reported with no sex at all listed).

Many sport associations are no longer allowing men into women’s sports.

What has become apparently however, is that the powers that be simply don’t care about the ruling.

Unison, the country’s biggest union recently allowed a biological man to run for a female seat.  The Labour Women’s Conference has been postponed.   Some NHS Trusts and Local Councils are blatantly ignoring the ruling, still allowing men into women’s toilets and changing rooms, claiming that they need “further guidance”.

What further guidance is needed I ask?  Men cannot ever become biological women or be acknowledged as being so.  So says the Supreme Court.  They therefore do not belong in women’s spaces.

What these organisations are telling us, what the Labour Government is telling us (see also the text messages spread around by MPs after the ruling) is that they do not care.  The ruling means nothing to them and they intend to carry on as they wish.

For Women Scotland went through two judicial reviews and an appeal at the Supreme Court, expending over two hundred thousand pounds in the process to get there, not to mention hundreds of hours of time; only for us now to effectively be told that it doesn’t matter.

So what does this mean for women’s rights? When we win in the highest Court in the land, yet that ruling is simply ignored by those who wish to.

I think in some places the ruling was welcome.  I do not believe that many sport associations wanted a crossover of men in women’s sports, effectively ruining every sport that they entered.  But for many other organisations, Trusts, Councils, the Government; it clearly was not.

The trans agenda brings profit.  It allows control.  It brings a distraction when needed for the Government to wield. 

The trans agenda was welcomed, encouraged, assisted and promoted by those in power because it is useful to them.  Because they have their own agenda.  Why else let organisations mutilate children’s bodies with drugs that stem their growth and reduce their bone density.  Why else tell children that they can be born into the wrong body and that there is a quick fix to all their problems.   Why else wave through women’s bathrooms being made into gender neutral, allow men in our changing rooms and our rape crisis centres, removing our safety and safe spaces in the process.

What do we do now in the question?  Someone brings a Court case for each time the Supreme Court is ignored?  They know that this is going to be an impossible feat, not just from a financial point of view, or the time involved; but also because we now have to wonder, is there any point?

If the Supreme Court are to be ignored which it appears in many cases that they are being, how can we fight this?  Especially when our own Government clearly did not want the ruling and by “postponing” the Women’s Conference, they have made their stance quite clear. 

What I fear is that this will now escalate.  I fear that they will do away with the Equality Act all together, rewriting it so as to make the rights of men who pose and cos play as women, front and centre.

What I see is that the Government allowed this ruling to change the situation in things like sports, but had no intention of following through with anything else.  Which poses the question. 

How far down this rabbit hole of hell are we going to go?

Big Changes Afoot

 I started this year with a big change, the only change that I thought possible this year.  I moved into a new home with my boyfriend.  A house that would be ours.  To create new memories.  A new chapter.  It was to be the start of the rest of our lives together and still is.

But it appears that the world of change was not done with me yet.

I have worked for the same company since I was 18 years old.  Over 25 years ago, over half of my life.  I grew into an adult with that firm.  They saw the many stages in my life, the way that I grew and the various iterations of the person that I would eventually become.

People came and people went over the years, but generally it was a firm that people stayed with and some I have known for as long as I have been there.

But as everything does, things changed; certainly over the past couple of years.  The firm was bought out and the company that I knew, changed.  The soul of the firm was different.  Everyone feels it.  Suddenly, the thought of working elsewhere crossed my mind.

It was not just the change of the guard, it was other things too.  The person I had worked with for so longer was coming towards retiring.  I had moved departments with him a few years ago and the cases that we now deal with are traumatic.  The type that you take home at night.  That torment you. 

Last week I was approached by another firm, offering me a new job.  A new department, more money and a security that I felt was slipping away at my current firm.  At my age, an opportunity that I could not ignore.

So I went for an interview.  

Without telling you what I do,  I can tell you that people who want to do, actually do, my job are rare.  They don't want to be that busy.  They see it as a stepping stone.  They see it as something that you move on from.  

I am a lifer when it comes to what I do.  I am good at it and I enjoy it.  My aspirations in life are work to live, not live to work.  This is rare in my field.  As such, finding someone like me who wants to stay and commit is rare.  Sought after.  Something I didn't actually understand, until I went to the interview.

I was offered the job.

Yesterday, after much deliberation, soul searching and a lot of worry, I decided to accept and handed my notice in.

Is it the right decision?  For me, now, yes.  Will it be the right decision in the long run?  I hope so.  Only time will tell.  What finally clinched my decision however was the realisation that if this new job went south, would I want to go back to my current job and the answer was no.  

I have loved my current job and moving away from it will be hard and strange and new.  But I have changed so much over the years.  I have grown and the person who started at the firm all those years ago is not me anymore.  I am ready for a new challenge.

Another new chapter.  That is two this year.  Wish me luck!

When Older Men Hit On You - What I Needed to Hear at 15

I just saw a post on Reddit that made me pause, and remember.

The question was "Women who were hit on by grown men when you were a teenager, what did you do?"  The girl asking the question was 15 years old.

The one thing that men will never understand is how this feels when you are a young girl.  Your whole world changes, forever.  It is the moment your childhood ends because you realise that you are no longer safe.  You can no longer dance carefree through the world as you used to.  It does not change in one day, it happens incrementally.  The rules that will change you and cage you appear so very quickly.

I hit puberty early and started to develop breasts when I was 11.  

I used to go to a park very close to our home which had swings, a roundabout and a slide.  I used to like going to play there when I was younger and even at 11/12 I would still go there, on my own, swinging around on the roundabout with a book.

That particular day, while happily sitting on the roundabout, a group of older boys turned up.  They were probably 15 years old.  They started to talk about me.  "Look, she's got tits already!".  They could see I was still so very young.  They came closer to me, asking me if they could touch them.  I ran away home and thankfully nothing more happened.

There was an awkwardness, a lack of understanding and some fear about that day.  But it was explained away as silliness of older boys and not to worry about it.  Although with a warning perhaps not to go there alone again.  

Don't go out on your own, it isn't safe.

I started to notice that adult me were starting to treat me differently.  At first I brushed it off until I started to recognise the signs.  The way they spoke to you was different.  Not like you speak to a child.  Almost flirting.   But subtly.  It was the look in the eyes that did it.  The way they would tell me I was so pretty and that all the men would be after me soon.  With a certain look in their eyes.  The way they pressed just that bit closer than I was used to, than I felt uncomfortable with.

Back then, I  did not understand their intentions, but I knew that something had changed and I did not like the way they looked at me.  The way they stepped that little bit closer to me.  I felt like a rabbit being eyed by a fox.

Be careful with adult men.

The older I got, the more developed I looked, the more this came to happen.  Some men, even men I had known as a child looked at me in a different way.  Like I was a woman.  Except I wasn't.  By the time I was 13 my fellow male pupils started to notice my shape too.  The size of my breasts gained me a nickname at school, which I won't share here.  There was also a presumption that I was "up for it", purely based on that my breasts were large.

Cover up or you are asking for it.

Over time, as we all do, I learned how to get away from the older men and deal with them.  Boys were a a different story and the lessons of how to deal with my peers look far longer.

That is the advice that I shared on the Reddit post.

 I went through this. From 12. Be strong is the first thing. It can be hard and they can be persistent. I will tell you what I used to do, which worked generally.

Say loudly "You do know I'm only 15 right? Then walk away.

If you are stuck in the conversation or the room with the man, say at a family party or something, look at him direct in the eye and say to him in a normal tone "This isn't the way you should be speaking to a 15 year old. Leave me alone". Then walk away.

If you are in public, go up to the nearest woman and tell her what he is doing/saying. She WILL look after you. I never had a woman walk away from me. Because we have all been there.

Be strong OP. Look them in the eyes when you say the above to them. Make them feel as uncomfortable as they did to you.

Looking them in the eye was definately the key for me. Making them understand that I knew what they were doing and that I knew that he knew that how he was behaving was wrong.

Sometimes if I was at a gathering or party where I knew other women, I would repeat what the man had said to me to the nearest woman. "Hey Aunty June, Bob thinks I should go out on a date with him, what do you think?"

I was strong because I had to be. But there are things that I wish that I could tell that 15 year old girl now.

• Your worth does not go up and down depending on what you look like.
• If he is over 5 years older than you and he is flirting with you, do not trust him.
• It is not "cool" if an older men is flirting with you, no matter how attractive he is. He is a predator.
• If someone does something bad to you, TELL SOMEONE. It is not your fault.
• You will be ok, I promise.

What would you tell your 15 year old self?

An Ode to (the Old) Sex and the City

I preface this post by saying that when I write about Sex and the City, I am only talking about the series and the two films for the purposes of this post.  I just can't talk about "And Just Like That".

I remember when Sex and the City came across my screen in the 1999.   

Many people did (and still do) say that the show was purely about sex and shoes.  Fluff content.  True enough there is a lot of sex and shoes in SATC.  But there is also something much more in the characters of Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda that represent many women.

 

I saw something in each of those women that represented myself.  Things I was and things that I wanted to be but also, I saw my imperfections in them too.  That was the important part.  They were not perfect.  Far from it.  But I could identify with each of them in different ways.

 

I saw four completely different people, four friends, that were soulmates.  The four of them combined made one beautiful whole.  A friendship that would last forever and through anything.  A constant in each other's lives, forever.

 

First there was Carrie with her writing, her distinct sense of style and the men in her life.  Several men throughout the series, but she knew as did we, the one that would always have her heart.  Mr Big.  The One.   Carrie could also be self centred and more than a little self absorbed at times.  

 

I wanted to write like her, I lived vicariously through her sense of style that I would never come close to and I understood completely that once your heart is taken, you never really get it back.  I was lucky with that last one.

 

But also, I am also a little self centred and a little self absorbed.  I recognise it and try to work on it.  But it was nice to see a lead character portrayed as less than perfect.

 

I also saw myself in Charlotte.  Charlotte who wanted nothing more than to fall in love and marry.  Charlotte was also a little spoiled and thought nothing of giving up her successful career to be a stay at home wife, although with Trey, she had not thought this through.  The typical rich bitch, except Charlotte was not a bitch.  I’m not sure she would ever say the word, except in whisper.  But she believed in true love, real love, and the right “one”.  That definitely is me.

 

Then we have Miranda,  I could see so much of myself in Miranda too.  Despite her successful career, she had so many insecurities.  She pushed men away, especially Steve, until she realised, almost when it was too late, he was the one.  (Actively ignoring the new Miranda in the new series. That is not Miranda).

She was never without an opinion, even through her insecurities, which was brought out more in her by her friends.  She blossomed in those friendships.  She learned from them and with them and also learned to trust and love with Steve.  Miranda's journey to let down her walls, trust and love was something that I understand and have lived. 

 

Finally, Samantha.  I never wanted to be Samantha or aspire to her love for bed hopping.  But I appreciated her.  I loved her.  

Samantha was the best friend of all of them.  The better friend.  I feel she loved the rest of them the most.

 

I loved how unapologetic Samantha was.  She was beautiful and acknowledged it, but in a manner of fact way rather than boastful.  She had a great career and she knew what she wanted (and nearly always got it).  Her life may not be one that many of us would choose in the relationship department, but the thing about Samantha was that she was never anything but completely herself, making up her own rules.  I admired that.

 

“I love you, but I love me more”.  While those are not words you would hear from me, it is important that we love ourselves too.

 

Over the 6 seasons (was it really only 6?) you got to know these women inside and out.  You knew their characters, their strengths, their flaws and their weaknesses.  You got to know them so well that you could anticipate what each of them would do.

 

Carrie, that she would always and forever, belong to Big.  Wherever her path led her, it would always find its way back to him.

Charlotte, that she would do anything for love, even convert to another religion.

Miranda, that she was clever enough (eventually) to realise and tell Steve that she loved him.  That she didn’t have to be alone.  That she could rely on another person.

Samantha, that she would move heaven and earth for a friend, maybe not for a man.

What they have done to Sex and the City with the reboot of And Just Like That is ruin it.  Because they changed the people that they were.  Miranda most of all.  I watched the first season and I did not recognise the woman that I knew and had resonated with.  It was, quite simply, a betrayal.

I understood what the Star Wars fans were talking about with the reboots killing what they have grown up with and loved.  I went into and through my adulthood with those four women and the changes they made to their characters and the choices that they made, was wrong.   For what?  Money.

At least Kim Cattrell had the integrity not to join in, although I also cannot blame her for the apparent phone call they had I believe in the second season.  That must have been some pay off.

So I will keep my heart with the original series and not watch any of the new series.   The women I knew are no longer there.

Lessons Learned

 I’ve been learning a lot recently.  Both about who I am, why I am the way I am and also the root causes of that.  As always when you are on a journey like this, there are ups and downs.  Happy surprises and also, disappointments.

One of the lessons that I am learning is that there is no perfect person, and everyone has had something in their life that can carry on to the next generation, or can be taken out on the next generation; if you let it.

When someone hurts you, or wants to hurt you, there is often a reason behind that, that has nothing to do with you.  They are choosing to take it out on you, you are the target and the focus of their actions; but the root cause lies elsewhere.

Sometimes, certainly on the journey that I am on, understanding the root cause of the other person’s pain, can help to heal your own.

You may not ever forgive them, but you don’t always have to forgive.  You may not ever forget.  But, you can understand where they came from and what formed their behaviour.  And you can choose not to make their mistakes.

This can apply to many people, in all aspects of your life.

The lessons that are the hardest to learn are those when the person hurting you or hurt you in the past is a loved one or someone you know well.  Because a loved one is the person that you turn to.  They should not be the one that has caused you harm.

When this happens, you think to yourself over and over “What did I do wrong?  Why do they treat me this way?”  “Why don’t they love me?”  The answer that you seek however is often not the most obvious one.

I spent years analysing and trying to move on from the pain that was caused to me.  But I was only dealing with the effect of those words and actions against me.  Not the cause.  Because I did not know the cause.  The root of the issue, that had nothing to do with me.

I reached a point where the actions no longer hurt me, but I finally wanted answers.  I wanted to know why.  I was ready to face it.  I had reached, finally, the stage of anger.  Anger is not usually a good emotion, but in my case, it forced me to re-examine everything and the person that I was angry at.

What I realised was that their actions, however hurtful, however horrible, did have a root cause.  An explanation as to why they were the way they were.

I won’t talk further here as I do not want to go into my history.  But learning to understand them, what experiences they had had that made them the way they were, put everything together like a jigsaw puzzle.

I learned to understand that forgiveness is not possible sometimes because forgiveness is not always deserved.  But understanding the why, was the key to healing.  The key to moving on.  

Furthermore, in understanding them and their actions more clearly, this gave me an understanding as to myself.  My own reactions to their actions.  The way I had set up my life as a result.

What I realised is that I do not need to do that anymore.  I understand now.  I can move on, lead my life and be who I really am.  Also, I can build a better relationship with them.  Because now I see some of myself in them, but I am not destined to repeat history.  I have chosen not to.  I am like them. But I am not them.

I can finally be, myself.

The Decrease of Women Wanting Children

 I saw a video recently in which a man proposed that more and more women wanted to have children, but were forced or felt like they had to get an education, get a job/career and prioritise that over having a family.

I talked recently about whether modern man were struggling to live with and have a relationship with the modern, empowered women.  What I said in that post I believe ties in to this question.

Is there is decrease in the amount of women who want children?  If you look at statistics, that answer would indicate yes.   But, statistics do not show context. 

Up until the last few decades, the question of whether you were going to have a husband and a child  was not so much of a choice, but an expectation.  Regardless of whether you worked on or, this was a presumption.

How many women went into marriage or a relationship actually wanting children and how many just did it because that was the norm?

Traditionally, women who chose not to have a husband and a family were ridiculed.  They were called old maids or spinsters.  “Left on the shelf” is certainly a phrase that I heard, even well into the 2000s.  In some places, this way of thinking is still in place.

An unmarried man has always been called a bachelor, a woman earns the title of spinster when she reaches an age where society believes that she should have married and had children, but didn’t.  She is then an old maid.  Left on the shelf.  As if she were an item to be bought in a shop.

The ability to use contraception solved problems for many women who did not want a child and wanted to prevent from doing so/were unable to care for another child etc.  But even when contraception was brought in, there was still the expectation that a woman would want to have a child.  That it was the female default setting.  That simply is not the case for all women.

So the question of has been a decrease in the number of women who want children is both yes, and no.  Because until the past few decades, the women who didn’t want children, who didn’t see themselves as being a mother; ended up being a mother anyway.

Let us not forget also the number of women who are on the fence about having children.  That they would be happy if it happened, happy if it didn’t.  Or those who want children, but want to do so once they have accomplished other things in their life first.  Education, career etc.

It is the women in the above two categories who are also affecting the statistics of the number of women who want children.  More so (I believe) than the women who know from an early age that they do not want to conceive.

As I talked about in my previous post, women have so many more options now than a simple goal or expectation of being a wife and mother.  Many women still want this, but they want (and are entitled to) a standard that was not afforded to women before them.

Some want an established career before they become a mother.  Others may want a child/are on the fence; but are wary.  I do not believe that this is because women are worried that they cannot care for a child, it is more because they are worried about losing themselves in the role.  Worried that their participation in the child’s upbringing and the house chores/cooking etc levels will be far in excess of their partner.

This is not an unreasonable expectation.

I am in the camp of “never wanted to have a child”.   Thankfully because of contraception, I do not have one.

But for those that do or those that are undecided, they are right to have those reservations.  They do not want to fall into roles of being the primary parent and primary person to take of and run the household, whilst also working.  

They do not want to become stay at home mothers, only for them to be the sole person taking care of the child/household when their partner’s only contribution is working and take out the bins once a week with zero evening/weekend participation.

They also do not want to have a child with someone, only for that person to change their mind or decide to leave the relationship, leaving sole care of the child to the woman, some of whom then struggle to get child support from the father.   

They do not want to become single mothers, a person who has always, and still is, looked down on in society.   Single mothers have always been named called.  From whores to scroungers.  Despite, as we know, it taking two people to make a baby.

These worries are real and valid.  Not all men by any means are going to be the kind of man that women need to worry about in situations such as above.  Many will participate fully in the home and upbringing of their children.  The majority will not disappear from their children's lives.

But there are enough men that do not meet these basic expectations, basic levels of what you can expect from a partner to worry women.  

Women who have worked for and have been given the advantages fought for by women generations before them, lives of their own.  Rights of their own.  An identity outside of simply being a wife and mother.

In short, we do not want to go back.

So yes, birth rates and the number of women wanting to/having children are decreasing.  Because until we get to a place in society where an equality of participation is the norm, birth rates will decrease, and divorce rates will increase.

We can do better and we have the tools to be able to do so.  Men and women.  All of us. 

The Modern Relationship

 

I saw a quote the other day:

“The past few decades have taught women to empower themselves, but have not taught men how to live with those empowered women”

This made a lot of sense to me.  

Over the past one hundred years, women’s rights have improved in many ways.  As a result, our way of thinking, what we believe that we can achieve and what we are prepared to put up with, has changed.

We now have our own bank accounts, can own property, can vote, have rights to our own bodies (excluding the US in that one for obvious reasons) and have our own money.   We can have careers in fields we choose, we can have a life outside of the home; we can be stay at home mothers (but only if we wish to be).  We no longer need rely on a man for our existence through life.  We can fund ourselves.  Educate ourselves.  Be a whole person outside of the "wife and mother".

In short, we now have the freedom to choose, for ourselves, what kind of life we want.

This is not a “but what about the men post”.  But it is worth pointing out that whilst women have moved forward, evolved; (some) men have not.

Some of these men still see women as the mother, the person who takes care of the chores.  The person in charge of the home.   They see the 1950s as “the perfect time in history”.

What these men fail to realise that women have always worked.  Whether it be in factories, as nurses, secretaries, teachers, cooks etc.   However.  In addition to these jobs, women were also expected to fully take care of the home and take care of the children.  They were in fact doing two jobs.  The “second shift”.  Their weekends were not time off work, they spent them taking care of the home and the children while their partners, well, didn’t.

This “perfect” time of the 1950s was when the stay at home mother was a prevalent thing.  But was it perfect for women?  Some.  Of course.  But was it a life that many wanted?  No money of their own, no freedoms and a life that was 24/7.  They were always on call.

But was this “perfect time” even accurate?  Because studies show us that around 45% of working age women were in fact working in the UK.   In the US, that figure was around 32%, or 18.4 million women.  Not a small amount.

The men that see this as a perfect time in history do so because they see women as lesser than themselves.  They want a bang maid who they can control through money and power.  I do find it amusing however that many of these men who claim they want a “traditional woman” now also expect them to pay their own way, pay half the bills.  They want it all.

But let us put aside the misogynists.  We know of them.  But they do not make up all men.

Countless studies, as well as what we hear from women day to day, is that the split of work/home/chores/children is in no way balanced.  Despite women also doing a full time job, they are also doing the majority of household cleaning, cooking and childcare.  This includes being the default parent when it comes to the child falling ill and a parent needing to take time off to be with them.

Women now contribute financially to the home.  They have their own money.  They are no longer the default homemakers.  What they want, what they deserve; is an equal or percentage based contribution to the home.    

No home life is ever going to be perfectly 50/50.  Life does not work that way.  But if you both work the same kind of hours, you should be splitting cleaning, cooking, children equally.  Obviously if one parent is working more hours, you adjust accordingly.

But why have things not changed?  Why are women still doing more?

I would say that the first men to realise that there had been a change were millennial men.  But even then, I see husbands who think that changing the odd nappy, mowing the lawn in summer and taking out the rubbish every week is equal.  Is fair.  Yet these men seem to want recognition for doing what is the bare minimum.

Worse, some of them do a household chore with the expectation of getting something in return.  Like they are doing their partners a favour.

It seems to me that there is something innate in men, in their makeup, that sees women as the homemakers and men as the providers.  Regardless of how times have changed.  Because if you follow the trend that millennial men started to realise that they needed to contribute more than simply working, coming home and putting their feet up, then each generation of men should be doing more.  But that isn’t the case.

I used to work with a girl who thought that she had the perfect boyfriend (she is 25 and so they are Gen Z).  His mother had raised him to contribute to the chores in the home so she presumed that he would contribute to their own home equally.  But that was not the case.

After contributing well enough initially, things then started to go downhill.  He started to do less and less, even to the extent that he was leaving his clothes on the floor and his plates left on tables for her to clean up.  She could not understand why, having been raised how he was.

It is a story that I have read 100s of times, from women who are Gen X, right through to Gen Z.  Women are still doing more/the majority of chores, cooking and childcare, despite having full time jobs.  There is nothing less attractive than having to take care of a man like he is a child/one of your children.

Some of these women either face an outright refusal to do more, weaponised incompetence by doing a chore/simply task so badly that you will never ask again or them stating that they are happy to live in filth.

Not all men are like this.  Stay at home dads are a thing and more men are doing their fair share.  So it is possible.

But with so many men not contributing equally, this is turning women away from relationships and can also be a reason for divorce.  A woman does not want to have sex with a man who cannot fill out a form or make an appointment without his partner’s help and who cannot understand how a washing machine works.  She is not attracted to a man who thinks that doing the washing means putting the clothes in the washing machine and calling the job done or who cannot make himself a meal if she is not there to hand hold his every step.

I think that applied weaponised incompetence is worse than the excuse of “I don’t notice what needs to be done” or an outright refusal to contribute.  Because at least you know where you stand.  An outright expectation that you will do more because you are a woman.  You know where you stand.  How you choose to move forward with that is another thing.

When weaponised incompetence is applied, this is pure manipulation.  The dishes that don’t get put away because “I don’t know where they go”.  The laundry that gets ruined because “I didn’t know what setting”.  The children who don’t get fed breakfast because “I don’t know what they eat”.  These men know exactly what they are doing.  Manipulation until you give up and do the job yourself.

Another thing that I see some men say is that “I wasn’t taught how to do x, y and z and you do it better.  You were taught”.

Frankly, this is bullshit.  I was not raised to do much in the way of chores, laundry or cooking.  I taught myself when I moved out.  In an age where Google and Youtube is at your fingertips, anything can be learned.  I myself used Google, Youtube and TikTok (yes, Tiktok!) to teach myself how to cook.

In my own relationship, we work on percentages.  We do the things we like more and if we both don’t like a task, we split it equally.  I do not feel taken advantage of.    When I get home from work, I do not have to clean up from his day and when I come home to a job done that I was expecting to do, it is wonderful.

I heard someone say once that while women want a relationship, men need a relationship.  I believe this to be true.

Because we can look after ourselves financially.  We can entertain ourselves.  Our homes are cleaner when men who (not all…) do not contribute and make a mess, are not there.  If the woman feels like she is having to be the mother of her partner, she no longer has to stay because she has no means of supporting herself.

So back to my original quote about men having not learned to live with empowered women.  This appears to be true.  Because the reality is, the men that do not contribute, no longer get relationships or marriage.  They often find themselves divorced.

But the fact of the matter is that men do not need to learn how to live with empowered women.  What they need to do is move away from thinking that the women’s sole purpose is to be the homemaker.  The mother.  The house manager.  Their second mother.

They can do it, and do when they have to.  When no women is around men are able to feed and clothe themselves and look after children if they become a single father or share joint custody.  Because they have to.

So the answer, simply, maybe is to think of a woman like they do a man.  Their equal, not their lesser and not their home help.