If we continue to cut, we will eventually disappear

If you know me you know that I don't want kids. But you also know that I have the utmost respect for women that do. It's a hard and often thankless job. You bust your ass to create, breathe life into, and then raise the next generation and our society does very little to celebrate you, help you, or honor you. One day a year and 12 weeks maternity leave dedicated to mothers is not nearly enough to show the women out there who bear children that we love, respect, and are dedicated to them.

Child bearing is just about as natural a part of life as you can get. Women have been going through it for centuries of centuries, in what we would now consider unsafe and unhygienic situations. But you know what - they did it anyway, and some of those babies must of made it, because we are all here today as proof of their successes.

My body as a woman has the parts within to create and sustain life. From the age of 11 to whenever I cycle through menopause, as far as I know I will be able to bring about a child (given the necessary male contribution of course). My body will change, adapt, grow, shrink, swell and manipulate itself all to house a new life. And while I hope never to actually experience it, I think it's pretty damn amazing.

So it is with great sorrow and sadness for our culture that I read this article in the New York Times yesterday. We have created an economically profitable position in our society that revolves around making sure women are "feeling self-conscious or resentful about their appearance" post pregnancy. High end parenting magazines are running articles that describe "postpregnancy breasts as “the ultimate indignity”" All in an effort to promote the "Mommy Makeover". The cosmetic surgery industry is surging in post delivery liposuction, breast augmentations, and tummy tucks. Congratulations America, we have successfully disgraced and shunned the post pregnancy body. The same body that without its scientific, life giving processes we would not be here today.

This phenomena upsets me greatly. There is no stone unturned when it comes to attacking the female form. So far we have convinced ourselves that we are too fat, our breasts are never large enough, the laugh lines around our eyes and mouths indicating a lively life are now banished from sight. Mothers are paying for their teenagers nips and tucks. There is no stage, not maiden, mother or crone, that is safe from the prying eyes and scalpels of American ideas of beauty and happiness. And now, one of the oldest rituals and experiences of the female form - childbirth - has fallen under the knife. How do we survive in a world like this?