The Great Maternity Challenge: I’m 31, Single and I Want a Baby!

I’d always be more excited to see a puppy than a baby, but suddenly something has changed and I can’t understand why

I have this sudden, insatiable urge to become a mother… and the beauty is that I don’t even like children that much.

(Photo Courtesy: Supriya Joshi/Image altered by The Quint)

I’m a 31-year-old single unmarried woman, and I’m going through a very strange phase in my life. I have this sudden, insatiable urge to become a mother… and the beauty is that I don’t even like children that much.

I am prejudiced against humans under the age of 18, because they’re noisy and throw tantrums and their fingers are always sticky for some reason. Despite this reasoning, I have always made infants and newborns an exception because they really don’t know any better. However, I would still always be more excited to see a puppy than an actual human baby… but suddenly something has changed, and I can’t understand why.

I never felt that way when I was 25 and friends my age were mass producing babies; I would mostly just consider myself lucky because I was living that diaper-free life. But now… I don’t know, I see a baby picture, and I instinctively want to cuddle it instead of doing the ‘yay-no-diapers-for-me-to-clean’ dance.

I can’t even blame this feeling on hormones and my periods, because no period lasts for two months straight (if yours do, PLEASE see a gynaecologist!). It’s just that whenever I see a baby now, I melt. I can physically hear my ovaries groaning that they really, really, really want one. And when I deny them that wish, they take their revenge on me in a rather bloody fashion.

The writer, as a baby.

Is this the so-called biological clock, that seems to be ticking only for women? It is a universal truth that none of your feelings are unique only to you, so I went online to see what other women have said about this feeling. Many attribute it to the fact that you’ve been hurt in love so many times, you think having a baby could be the best release to your love. You can give your love fully to someone who will love you back unconditionally.

That’s fair, but babies grow up. Despite your best efforts, they are going to turn into noisy, tantrum throwing, sticky fingered toddlers. And you’ll never figure out why their fingers are sticky. Sure, your baby can grow up to become a great scientist, a talented poet or even a Nobel Laureate. But what if your baby becomes an axe murderer? Or a drug lord? Or worse… a social media influencer?

I’m not sure I’m willing to take that risk with something I put in nine months of investment for 1 year of supreme love. My parents took that risk and now look what they have… a 31-year-old single woman who is suffering from baby brain.

Also, parents who are able to plan and have babies in this economy, I truly applaud you. I have to think twice before I order food online before settling for Maggi.

The second, and perhaps more important, thing that I don’t have figured out is who will be the baby’s daddy? There will come a time in 3000 AD where women wouldn’t require men in order to produce babies, but I won’t be alive then and if I don’t have a baby ever, neither will my future descendants. This is 2017, and men don’t want to be in steady relationships, so where’s a baby going to figure in this equation?

Maybe I should adopt a puppy.

Maybe I should adopt a puppy. The unconditional love will remain throughout its life. It’ll never have sticky fingers. It’ll never grow up to be an axe murderer or a drug lord. But because it’ll be so cute, I’ll make it an Instagram account and it’ll grow up to be a social media influencer.

(Supriya Joshi is a Mumbai-based Creative Writer at ‘All India Bakchod.’ She also moonlights as a stand up comic and dabbles in rocket science (only when no one's looking). According to the Myers–Briggs personality test, she is an ISFJ. In her free time, she likes long walks on the beach, binge watching Bojack Horseman and wallowing in an existential crisis of her own making.)