I think that being able to have a child is amazing. I believe that children are amazing and wonderful blessings. I believe mothers are there to love their children to the fullest.  I also believe that I don’t think I want to have children. I am not sure to be honest, I am still young and have a lot to think about before that happens but I don’t think that I want to go through all that pain and what I truly see as torment. A lot of people, especially mothers will tell you that all the pain goes away once you see the baby. However, even though I never went through it. I find it very hard to believe that’s the truth. That birth is just painless after the fact. I think this also goes into the fact that mothers want other women to be moms as well. I think our society in general thinks women are just moms waiting to happen if it didn’t already. 

I told my mother one day that I think having children is scary and sucks for the mother’s body. And she said that I will get over it and it doesn’t make sense to not want a kid. She said when I am older, I will want like 10. Then as I got older I decided I wanted to adopt because I want to be able to give a home to kids who don’t have one and she said…no…you will want your own first. I told her the adopted kids are mine and she said no they are not. It’s almost as if being a mother isn’t even enough. I must go through the process of pregnancy and birth to be deemed important or a real mother. Which makes no sense at all.

Also as a woman until you give birth and are pregnant do you learn all the terrible things that can possibly happen during birth. Like I did not know that your vagina can rip all the way to your anus or clit during birth. That is so crazy. I also did not know about the “after birth” which is sometimes more painful than the real thing. I just don’t find any of this appealing and the fact we don’t learn this in school, suggests that they dont want us to know the terrible, messy things. So that women will choose to reproduce and have more kids. I heard someone write they would rather regret not having children at all, than regret having them and I can not agree enough.

Mental health matters. Apparently that is what M.H.M stands for. Which is crazy because I had no idea that was a thing. I feel as though mental health is important until it interferes with your social life, or your academic life or extracurricular activities. Teachers and professors will swear up and down to take care of yourselves, and mental health is important but also seem to purposely make the course load hard and heavy, for the sake of force feeding the material down your throat. We talked a bit in class about how there should be less focus on attendance as a grade because sometimes people need mental breaks or a mental health day. However most teachers don’t have systems in place for mental health days. What I mean is that if you’re sick, you get a pass on coming to class and sometimes you have to have proof, so you get a note from the hospital and there you go…no penalty for you. What about your mental health? I feel like when it comes to your mental health the excuse has to be an extreme to get a day off from class like, someone died or some tragedy just occurred. And maybe it’s not as hard to get a pass off class for a mental health issue but it is hard to ask for one, because it also isn’t really all that talked about. 

I also wanted to discuss mental health in the household when it comes to different cultures. As a blasian woman, mental health wasn’t really discussed at all growing up. From my Filipino side, if you feel depressed, you’re not…you’re just sad and all you need to do is work harder and pray. For my black, African American side mental health has more of a negative stigma. It really wasn’t acknowledged at all. Mental health was seen as unlucky and if someone in the family was possibly mentaly disabled.. They weren’t, they would never actually get diagnosed until later. Two different cultures and yet the same reaction to mental health. Unfortunately knowledge and awareness of mental health has a long way to go.

I don’t know if the title should really be called this or not but I wanted to talk about how bodies are portrayed in different settings like I find it weird when I think of my body socially and then from a medical standpoint. When I look at my body compared to society’s standards… I am disgusted. I wish it wasn’t the case but I don’t like how I look. I could do a deep dive into whose fault it was to give me such an outlandish idea of what bodies should look like. Especially since every body type is different and made beautifully. However, that’s a lot to unpack so instead I will just say it is my own weaknesses and justified insecurities that make me this way. Welp.. that was dark…anyway… I wanted to talk about how when we think socially about our bodies certain thoughts come to my mind such as what style is in, or what body proportions are popular. Like all I see on social media is BBL’s or small waist coke body types and that’s what’s popular and that’s what everyone wants to look like. However, when I go to the hospital I don’t see that doctors explain the body in totally different terms. But what’s crazy is they are referring to the same thing. They are referring to the body. However, when they explain it to me it’s deeper than just body proportions or what clothes would look the best and fit the best or how tiny your hips are. In my opinion it’s more intimate when health professionals discuss your body. I start thinking about every cell and every vein \and how they all team up to help you breathe. I just think its wild how a body is just a body until a different context is applied.