Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently announced that, at 36, she is freezing her eggs. She has chosen to make the deeply personal process public, describing the decision as one that has given her a greater sense of control over her life and left her feeling empowered.
I dont begrudge her that decision. I hope she gets the family she wants, when she wants it.
But her announcement made me think about the message my generation of women received about motherhood â and the one we are now passing down to future generations of girls.
When did postponing motherhood become a symbol of female empowerment?
AOC and I are essentially the same age. We came of age during the rise of the “girl boss,” when female empowerment was increasingly defined by independence, achievement and personal fulfillment. Travel. Build yourself. Establish yourself. Prove yourself.
The message was relentlessly centered on the self: What do I want? What makes me happy? What life do I want to build? Put yourself first. Everything else can come later.
Motherhood doesnt fit neatly into a “me first” culture. Children require sacrifice and rearrange our priorities around someone other than ourselves. No wonder a generation taught to prioritize the self learned to see children as something that might get in the way.
I believed it.
I believed it so deeply that, for years, I wasnt even sure I wanted children.
I wasnt a 25-year-old woman desperately longing for babies but forcing myself to wait. I was a woman who had absorbed a culture that made motherhood look limiting. Children seemed like something that might interrupt the exciting life I was supposed to be building.
We didnt just teach women to delay motherhood. We taught some women not to want it at all.
Then God changed my heart.
I became a mother, and so much of what I thought I understood about fulfillment was turned upside down. The children I once feared might hold me back became the greatest blessing of my life. But by the time I understood that, I was racing the clock.
Im 37 now, just a few months older than AOC, and I gave birth to my third child earlier this year at 36. I had three children back-to-back-to-back because once I realized how much I wanted a larger family, I knew I did not have unlimited time.
I would do it all over again. My regret is that I waited so long to understand what I was missing.
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Starting younger might have meant having more children. But even more than that, I think about the years I could have had with the children I already have. More birthdays. More Christmas mornings. More bedtime stories and ordinary Tuesdays. And, God willing, I want to be there when my daughters become mothers and my son becomes a father â to have the energy to help them and the years to know my grandchildren and watch them grow.
But I dont just wish I had more years with them. I
