Difficult to put words on a non-desire.
“I don't want to” is a simple statement after all.
It does not call for justification.
Except that Chloé Chaudet, 36, lecturer in comparative literature "does not want"
to have a child, "and this choice cannot be understood by French society", slices the author of the book "I decided not to be a mother" (Éditions L'Iconoclaste).
A choice not accepted accompanied by these corollaries that she develops in this book which has just been released: the injunction to motherhood which is considered to be the source of ultimate fulfillment in a woman, the certainty displayed of "
it will pass to her
" thus infantilizing his adult decision, the social pressure wanting to lead him towards the guilt of refusing his companion to become a father (when he does not want a child either) ... All these formal notices oblige him, willy-nilly, to have to explain.
Over a million women have made this choice
A non-desire is not a refusal.
She does not "want".
Point.
Don't try to psychoanalyze Chloé Chaudet.
You won't find childhood trauma or a toxic mother figure that she wouldn't want to look like.
No Folcoche on the horizon, quite the contrary.
No denatalist activism, no detestation of children and "I'm not the nerd who puts his career above all," she quips.
But to have its own offspring, "without ceremony, thank you", she answers today to the people who question her and to the diktats.
“Is procreation an aspiration common to all women?
I am the incarnate contradiction of this idea, which is still too widespread.
"And it is in a very ingenious way that she holds up a mirror to French society, turning the question over:" why do you want children?
"
- I want children because everyone does.
- You should talk to your shrink. # UnpopularOpinion https://t.co/ARuNLWMis3
- 🌱 Childfree.fr (@ChildfreeFr) January 18, 2021
Like her, in our country, around 4.5% of women aged 18 to 79 do not or have never wanted to become a mother, according to the latest INED summary (2016).
“And a little less than 15% of my congeners have no children.
Among the four million French women who have not made their genetic capital grow, more than a million share my choice, ”she underlines in her book.
“I don't do propaganda.
I do not value any model.
My choice is not better than any other, but let it be accepted!
You can judge me behind my back after, if you want, she sweeps energetically with the back of her hand.
It is this injunction to motherhood that forces me to impose my disinterest in having a child, and this pressure is even greater when you are a woman in a relationship.
"
"It seems unthinkable that I can find meaning in my daily life, without children"
" You will not regret it ? "," Aren't you afraid to end up alone? “, Chloé Chaudet must have answered these questions hundreds of times. “This choice intrigues, especially the women. It seems unthinkable that I can find meaning in my daily life, without children. It is the norm of "making a family" which leads to these automatisms, not voluntary aggressiveness, "she excuses… almost. “What a lack of empathy anyway. What if I couldn't have children when I wanted them? Imagine asking these same questions of women in this situation. What violence! People don't even realize it, ”she says, dumbfounded.
"Without ceremony, thank you". She had not dared to retort in this way, at the age of 32, during a consultation with a gynecologist where she intended to obtain information on sterilization. She remains stuck in the face of the medical imperative to "hurry" to procreate. It is that the ticking of the biological clock has started its mad race. She had also complied with a friend who put her baby in her arms, without asking her opinion. A painting which inspires the young mother with this sentence, whispered to her companion: "You look like your niece, with her hesitant little gestures". The niece was about to turn 6. Infantilization, again and again. “This harmless event is part of a whole set of situations where I was made to feel, not always so tenderly, that I was next to it,away from concerns worthy of interest: those that revolve around the Child, ”says Chloé Chaudet.
Words fail to express this desire which is not one. She quite likes those of "child free", which one could translate by "without child by choice". On the other hand, she hates "the horrible
nulliparous
", at the crossroads of medical and zoological vocabulary. When she sees the latter in a form, she crosses it out and replaces it with "woman". Finally, the word exists.
