No, I do not want to do the Maternity Placement. No, I am not looking forward to this. Yes, I do wish I could do something sensible and more relevant to my aspirations for the next four weeks. Yes, I do think life sucks sometimes.

Why don't I want to do this? Well, I have my reasons, people.

• I don't like babies.

There. I said it. I don't like babies. I know, in the eyes of some people this makes me a failure of a woman because I don't possess the right 'maternal' instincts. Never have done, either. You know most little girls play with dolls? I hated dolls as a child. I had teddies. No, I didn't make them into my children either, and sing them lullabies or change their nappies. I made them into the Thunderbirds or the men from U.N.C.L.E and had them save the world. Basically, I'm not maternal at all and everyone who knows me well knows that.


• I can't see why so many people think all women must want to reproduce.

I've got nothing against mothers or motherhood. If people want to have babies, fine. Go to it. I don't care. But why then do people have to get so het up when I say I don't want babies? Oh, you'll change your mind, they say, as if the possibility that I might not was not just remote but utterly nonexistent. Or they say, oh, a lot of young women think like you do, wait until you get older. It's as if these people think I'm just saying I don't want a baby to get at them. It's as if people don't like the idea that women could be - gasp - different from one another. Not all women want babies. Sorry if that busts anyone's bubble, but there's no 'correct' way to be female.


• I don't like the idea that 'a real woman' = 'a fertile woman'.

Purposeful infertility does not make me or anyone else who chooses it any less of a woman. A woman is a woman regardless of whether or not she has a baby attached to her. There's this creepy idea knocking about the place that if I choose (yes, choose) not to reproduce, I am somehow being selfish or unwomanly. Please. There are more than enough human beings on this planet already without my adding to the score. The problem is, all these sad women who clamor for fertility treatments of consider themselves bereft and flawed because they can't have babies don't help those of us who could have them and don't want them.


• I'm worried my classmates are going to shove the Joys of Motherhood down my child-free throat.

There are a lot of mothers in my class. An awful lot. I just bet we get asked how many people in the class have children, and those that do are going to be asked to share their birthing experiences or some such claptrap. Furthermore, I'd imagine that some of them (not all, of course) are just not going to shut up about it. They're not going to believe that it's possible for any woman anywhere not to go all gooey over the thought of babies. In short, some of the idiots I'm on a course with are going to assume all women everywhere are basically the same and, worse, they're going to be insulted when I tell them that actually, they're not.

Oh. And the thought of childbirth grosses me out. I don't think it's miraculous, I just think it's pretty foul.

At least everyone who knows me well knows I'm not just saying all this for the fun of it, or because I'm some cynical young woman who's going to go all gushy over baby-gros in ten years' time. When I told my mother, at age eighteen, that I didn't think I ever wanted children, she said 'that's probably not a bad thing', or words to that effect. If your own mother agrees with you when you say you think you shouldn't be having children, isn't that a pretty good sign that perhaps - get this - you really shouldn't be having children?

So, simply put, I am not looking forward to four weeks' enforced contact with the glorious world of babies, babies, more babies, pregnancy, motherhood, babies and joyous things like that.

Blah.

Anyway, whatever. I'll just sit here and chill and try to forget about tomorrow. I'm in a massive Weiss Kreuz Fangirl mood at the moment. Yes, I know, what else is new. Actually, this is a step up from my usual state of obsession. Just waiting for my fic updates to show up... Ho hum. Fanfiction.net is being slow...

I know. I'll sit here and stare at my Ken icon and slip into a fangirl coma. That'll make me feel better.

... when my credit card comes, I am definitely upgrading my lj account. I want more room to store my Ken icons! I only have three on here at the moment, it's not fair. I'm too big a fangirl for that.