How to Know If You Want to Be a Mother (When You Genuinely Don't Know)
- Sophie van het Erve
- Jun 22
- 3 min read
At some point, someone will tell you that you'll "just know."
You've probably heard it already. "When you meet the right person, you'll know." "When the time comes, you'll know." "Women who want children just know."
With respect — and I mean that — this is not particularly helpful when you're standing in the middle of not knowing, looking for something more solid than a feeling that's supposed to arrive on its own schedule.
Because for a lot of women, that 'knowing' doesn't come automatically. And waiting for it to show up can keep you in limbo for years.
So what do you actually do when you genuinely don't know?
First: understand why it's hard to know
The motherhood decision is complicated by the fact that you're not just deciding about something external. You're deciding about your future self, your future life, relationships that don't yet exist, and a version of you that you can only imagine.
You can't test-drive this one.
On top of that, you're navigating all of this inside a culture that has strong opinions about what women should want, a biology with its own timeline, and possibly a partner, family, or social circle with their own needs and expectations layered on top.
Sorting through all of that to find your own voice is genuinely difficult. The difficulty isn't a character flaw. It's a reasonable response to a genuinely complex situation.
How to know if you want to be a mother
In my experience, the most useful thing isn't to ask "how do I know if I want to become a mother," or "do I want this?" directly. More useful is to ask the questions that live underneath those.
Ask about your values, not your preferences. What matters most to you in a life? Freedom, connection, contribution, creativity, stability, adventure? How does each path align with those things? This gets you below the noise of what you think you should want and closer to who you actually are.
Imagine both futures, honestly. Not the Instagram version of motherhood and not the worst-case scenario either. The actual texture of daily life, five years from now, on each path. What do you see? What do you feel in your body when you let yourself go there?
Notice where relief lives. When you imagine your life without children, what's the feeling? When you imagine it with a child? Relief isn't the only signal that matters, but it's a real one. The body often knows before the mind catches up.
Look at what keeps showing up. Not the anxious spiraling, but the recurring images and ideas. When your mind wanders without direction, where does it go? The answer is information.
Examine the stories you were handed. A lot of what feels like "your" desire is actually inherited — from your mother, your family, your culture, your religion, your peer group. What was motherhood presented as in your world? Essential? Optional? Admirable? Expected? Separating inherited narrative from your own genuine desire is some of the most important work you can do here.
A note about certainty
What might feel uncomfortable is that certainty might not come. Ever.
Many mothers didn't feel completely certain before having children. Many women who chose a child-free life didn't feel completely certain before closing that door. Certainty is rare in any major life decision.
What's more realistic to aim for is clarity. A sense of direction. A feeling that one path feels more like home than the other, even if both still feel uncertain.
Clarity sounds like: "I think this is mine." "This feels more right than the alternative, even though I'm scared." "I'm not certain, but I know enough to move."
That's usually enough to work with.
The questions that bring you closer
I created The Motherhood Question workbook because these questions — the ones that actually help — take more than a conversation to work through. They need space. They need honesty. They need you to move through them without judgment and without someone else's agenda.
The workbook has 150+ questions organised into themes: your past and the stories you inherited, who you are now, both imagined futures, practical realities, fears, and what your body knows that your mind hasn't caught up to yet.
It doesn't tell you what to choose. It helps you hear what you already know, underneath all the noise.
