I Am Ready For Marriage Does Not Equate To I Am Ready To Be A Mother.

I have sat in rooms where the loudest voices belonged to women who should know better, women who once upon a time, were on the receiving end of these same questions. Yet, they have become the enforcers of this expectation.

They were married young. They had children before they even understood their own bodies, before they knew who they were. Their husbands distant, indifferent, unfaithful, gave them many things but never love.

So, they poured themselves into their children, hoping to find fulfillment. And when that wasn’t enough, they poured themselves into other people’s business.

The same women who were once pressured, who once cried in bathrooms after family gatherings, their hands resting on empty wombs, have now become enforcers of the same cycle that tormented them. They gather in parlors and kitchens, whispering about the young wife who has been married for two years but has no child.

“She’s focusing too much on enjoyment.”

“Maybe the husband is the problem, but you know men don’t like to hear that.”

“I just hope she doesn’t end up like Mrs. So-and-So.”

I wonder if they ever pause to remember what it felt like to be on the receiving end of these words.

“When Will You Give Us a Child?”

It starts subtly, almost like a joke.

“Ah, you are glowing o! I hope it’s pregnancy.”

“This one you’re enjoying life, are you sure you’re not hiding something?”

At first, you smile and brush it off. But soon, the questions become sharper, more insistent.

“What are you waiting for?”

“Is everything okay?”

“Have you tried going for prayers?”

“Maybe you should see a doctor?”

“Hope it’s not family planning you people are doing?”

I think about the women who once sat in this same position who endured the whispers, the side-eyes at family gatherings, the quiet suffering of knowing that their husband was giving another woman the child they desperately wanted.

This is the silence around male infertility.Motherhood is often treated as an inevitable milestone rather than a conscious, life-altering decision. Society places immense pressure on women to bear children without considering whether they are truly ready, emotionally, mentally, or even financially.

It does not matter if I am still finding myself, if I still cry when things go wrong, if I still struggle to hold myself together on difficult days. The moment I become a wife, I must also become a mother. And I must do it happily, gracefully.

But motherhood is not a phase. It is not a wedding ceremony where I wear a beautiful dress, smile at cameras, and bask in the moment. Motherhood does not end when the guests leave. It is a constant, consuming thing, demanding, unrelenting. They tell you a child is a blessing, but they do not tell you how exhausting blessings can be. But what they do not tell you is how exhausting blessings can be. They do not tell you how your body will no longer be your own. How your mind will stretch thin with worry. How you will carry not just the child, but their hunger, their fears, their future. How your heart will exist outside of you, vulnerable to the world, breaking at every hurt your child feels.

And yet, women are expected to become mothers without question. To take on this enormous, irreversible responsibility simply because it is what is expected.