HW 35

I didn't really have one specific focus during my interviews. I just tried to get everyones overall views of birth and some of the stigma's surrounding birth. First I asked about how they felt about birth and if they'd had any experiences with it. Then I asked a couple other questions like: how many births is it considered normal for a woman to have in our society and why do you think so? And: Do you feel that the physically healthiest age to have a baby and life goals conflict?
Most of the answers were somewhat similar. Everyone I talked to felt that birth is an amazing exciting thing. I think this was because it is the beginning of something new which can be very exciting. Everyone I talked to wanted to at one point have children/give birth at some point in life. I think this is because it can give someones life more purpose and joy to have make something with someone they love and take care of and love a child. Although none of the people I have talked to was there during a birth, but one was there when he sister's water broke and she explained it as very exciting. So I was really noticing this mutual feeling about birth as beautiful and exciting there was no one that didn't feel that way about it. When I asked about what they thought was a socially accepted amount of children for a women to have I got different answers. One said zero to five children seems like it would be socially accepted and then after five it gets weird. I asked why and she said "I think some people think that people are creating more than their share of mouths to feed. Which is perhaps not a reasonable perspective...but it happens. On the other hand...the more children, the more legacy the parents have." This made me realize that not everything is really just a stigma but has some logic behind and makes sense why it wouldn't be normal. The other answers were about three children would seem normal and the other answer was as many as they want, they didn't think that anyone isn't accepted in our society for having a lot of children. When I asked if the physically healthiest age conflicts with goals I got an answer that I completely agree with. "I've heard that the best time of life for women sexually is like 30. but anyway...women want careers and independence and money and status and fulfillment of dreams above family and motherhood, pregnancy and parenting really interrupt life." I think women nowadays don't want to be stay home mothers but they do want to have children at some point in life. They want to have a career and be independent and successful, so the healthiest age to give birth conflicts with that because that is a fairly young age where work is very important, but at the same time I feel like it is possible to have a strong career and have children because you can always have a babysitter to take care of your kids during the day while you're working. So the two may conflict each other I think that's why things like birth control pills, abortions, and condoms were developed, that way there are less babies for people at young ages.