Since when was motherhood reduced to a Facebook ad?

Holly Brockwell has certainly divided opinion. The aftermath of her declaration of victory over the NHS after a four-year battle to be sterilised continues to rumble on, the cooling embers reignited in the public eye by her appearance on television to share her happiness over the decision that would mean she could finally get what she had been asking for for so long.

Brockwell’s not alone. While she has had to suffer a barrage of abuse online from people unable to comprehend her lack of desire for a child, she has also - in her own words - been inundated by supporters describing their own difficulties, either with their decision not to become mothers, or problems they suffered due to the contraceptive pill.

I’m one of them. I may not have begged my GP to refer me for sterilisation, but I suffer not only from the same negative reaction to hormonal contraceptives but from the same lack of desire or need to hold a baby in my arms, as so many women do.

Let me make it clear from the outset, while I may not understand how it feels to desperately crave motherhood, I completely respect it. I’m 33. I’ve passed the age where friends got pregnant slightly younger than they’d planned but accepted it as part of the rich tapestry of life. I’ve passed, too, the planners who wed then had their first, second, some of them third, children.

I’m now coming to the age where some friends have wanted a child for quite some time, and it hasn’t happened. I’ve witnessed firsthand the distress of someone I care about who, by some cruel stroke of biology, can’t do something they see so many people doing, and desperately want for themselves.

In short, I know this is a big deal, as is Brockwell’s request for sterilisation and, indeed, every decision made by people to have, or not to have, a child. The size of such an issue is made ever clearer by the reaction I get every time I mention my antipathy to the idea of becoming a mum.

I won’t go over each and every response, every argument I’ve been presented with for why having children RIGHT NOW would be a good idea for me, or every time I’ve been asked to justify my decision thus far not to procreate. I also won’t go into the looks of pity, confusion, and downright horror from people - often women, I’m sad to say - at the idea that motherhood might just not be something that appeals to me.

Brockwell has outlined all of these, and rather eloquently too, in her explanations behind her decision. Unlike her, I’m not saying never, I’m just saying not now. Of course, I have to accept that the longer I wait, the greater the chances will be that that decision is taken out of mine and my husband's hands. We’re okay with that. We’ve thought about it, we've talked about, and we've made the decision together. Like I say, it’s a big deal for us.

What’s worrying me is that the weight of the decision to have or not to have children  is starting to seem a bit one way. Like other women who don't have, or don't want, a child, I've been offered myriad reasons for why I'm wrong.

From “someone to love you unconditionally” to “someone to look after me in old age”, through to justifications as woolly as “well, what would you do otherwise” and “you may as well do it now, it’s what all women want eventually so it's only a matter of time”, a lot of them seem to be rather lightweight when it comes to such a permanent decision that won’t just affect us, but will affect the very person we create by our decision. I’ll ask the same question Holly Brockwell asked - why did she have to fight so hard for her choice not to have a child compared to if she had decided to have one?

An example of this imbalance when it comes to the gravity of parenthood was,and is regularly, shown to me boldly, crassly and cynically on my own Facebook feed. Last year I found my timeline becoming populated by adverts relating to pregnancy. They'd pop up seemingly innocuously, an ad here, an ad there, sneaking in between status updates and pictures of food.

But for someone who isn't pregnant, and doesn't have any plans to be anytime soon, they were noticeable. The final straw was a "suggested post" urging me to "maximise the chances of getting pregnant" with a Clearblue ovulation test. Having never shown a desire, on social media or otherwise, to "maximise" my chances of being with child - far from it in fact - I was perplexed as to why I was being targeted in this way.

Don't get me wrong, I get targeted advertising. You look for tickets to Ellie Goulding, they or other similar artists will pop up wherever your digital footprint takes you. You google a particular brand of makeup and that, or similar products, will stalk you around the internet tempting you to part with your pennies for them. That’s advertising. That’s capitalism. That’s the world we live in. But when did parenthood fall into that world? When did it become something else to be profited from?

As for the secondary issue at play here - what does this say about the society that’s creating these algorithms based on its own view? Who’s deciding who should be thinking about parenthood, and when they should be doing it? Cuz it sure as hell wasn’t me. I looked into why I was suddenly seeing these ads. Seems because I’d been married a certain period of time and was a certain age, whatever algorithm was operating in the background decided I was ready to become a mum. Blame the computers hey? No. Somebody - a real person - writes those algorithms that help target products to a certain audience.

So, for women who are of a certain age and have been married for a certain amount of time, it’s obvious isn’t it? They must want a baby. We can laugh, we can say, 'yes but most women DO'. But what about those who don't? To me, these adverts are a symptom of exactly the attitude I, Holly Brockwell, and god knows how many other women have experienced - our society’s one-sided attitude to motherhood. In her own words, said more succinctly that I could probably write: “Yes, sterilisation is drastic: a big, irreversible, serious decision. But so is having a child. And I'd like to see the day when both choices are respected equally.”

Me too. And I’d also like to see the day when it’s treated as the big deal I believe it to be. I’ll say it one more time, for anyone who missed it earlier or chooses to ignore it. I’m not criticising all the people who choose parenthood. I'm definitely not dismissing it as a trifling matter. Quite the opposite. It’s such a big deal that I’m just not ready for it and am doubting that I ever will be.

But how big a deal is it for a society that reduces it to just another automatic step that happens at a certain age, or certain stage, in your life, regardless of whether you feel ready or willing? How big a deal is it for a world that reduces what is supposed to be one of the most precious, most monumental decisions of your life to an automatic advert designed to earn a few pennies?