I woke up this morning and, before I brushed my teeth or had my coffee, I changed diapers. I wiped butts. I breastfed a baby. I held my five-year-old so he could regulate his emotions.
Nothing about this morning was about my body, my choice. In fact, to be a wife and a mother is to accept that your body is no longer just your own—it becomes a part of something bigger. It belongs, in a way, to the people who depend on you: to my husband, with whom I share a covenant; to my children who were knit together in my womb and now find nourishment and comfort in my arms.
When we tell young girls over and over again that their bodies belong only to them, are we preparing them for the immense sacrifices of motherhood? Are we equipping them for the reality of pouring themselves out for others? Or are we training them to believe that their comfort, their convenience, and their personal autonomy should come before everything else—including their family and, ultimately, God?
Regardless of where one stands on abortion, the phrase my body, my choice has become a cultural mantra that conditions women to prioritize the self above the whole. It tells them that the highest good is personal freedom, rather than self-sacrifice. It teaches them that their wants and desires should come before their duties and obligations. It fosters an ego-driven, transactional view of life that is utterly at odds with the reality of motherhood.
If I were to tell my 7-year-old daughter, everything is your body, your choice, I would be instilling in her the idea that her decisions should always revolve around her own needs and wants. But motherhood is a calling that demands a willingness to surrender—to put others first, to give when you don’t feel like giving, to push past exhaustion and frustration and show up, day after day, for the little souls who depend on you.
Have you ever tried explaining abortion to an 8-year-old? It’s nearly impossible.
“So wait, Mommy—some people don’t want their babies, so they suck them out with a vacuum?”
“Yes, honey.”
That is a horrifying conversation to have. But just as disturbing, in a more subtle way, is the idea that we can train our daughters to see their bodies as wholly separate from their responsibilities to others. I want my daughter to understand that motherhood is hard and demanding—but that it is also the most rewarding thing she will ever do. I want her to know that she and her siblings are the greatest gifts of my life, that breastfeeding for more than 10 years has been an honor, not a burden.
And I want her to avoid the great regret of my early 20s: believing the lie of my body, my choice.
Motherhood is not about choice. It’s about love. It’s about sacrifice. It’s about embracing the highest calling a woman can have: to nurture life, to shape souls, to give of herself fully and completely.
That is the message I want my 7-year-old daughter to carry forward. That is the truth I want her to live by.
