Helen Mirren was quoted recently explaining how she simply never wanted to have children. Try as she may, that warm, maternal “I must procreate!” feeling never took over Helen’s mind and body.
She says, “I really tried to want it at one point. I thought maybe I should. But I never convinced myself. I think some men and women just don't have a deep urge to procreate.” She also wisely adds, “I think still it is very fine not to want children. There are far too many people in the world. It's my contribution to ecology."
Not to sound completely anti-baby, but it’s nice to finally hear someone like Mirren just go, “You know what, I don’t want to," instead of every single female celebrity who is asked if she wants a family responding by smiling and cooing and saying, “Oh yes, definitely!”
Obviously Mirren is past an age where a journalist will go, “Oh come on, there’s still time! Are so you sure?” so it makes it easier for her to voice her opinion without the entire world and US Weekly freaking out. I also can’t help but think that because she is so beautiful and so thin and a DAME that it’s easier for people to think she knows what she’s talking about and isn’t just “confused”.
While I love Mirren’s honesty, it makes me a bit sad to think that she and so many other women do try desperately to convince themselves that having a baby is what they want. It’s in their biology, shouldn’t it be more natural for them just to want it.
It is what our bodies are made for - fornicating, procreating and, well, dying - yet some of us are just made differently psychologically. The world has enough babies, and clearly as BBC reported, so many children in the care of the government waiting to be adopted, should we really be tutting at women who don’t want babies?
As Caitlin Moran so brilliantly discusses in How to Be A Woman, it’s the unwanted children, the under-loved, and the resented children that grow up with psychological problems that can end up affecting generation after generation. If people only had children that they really wanted and were ready for, how would our world change?
Image via HelenMirrenNews's Flickr