by Sarosh Nandwani
adamant mothers question my decision to not have children and it is as if they are asking, please, please have a child so we can go through this sleepless wonder together and
I don’t want to. they are bold in their incessant questioning, but why dear, why would you not want children, and ask me how I could reject something so
beautiful. and I say, what is beautiful is that I have already been – am – half a mother. just not to my own. I have no remorse about not using the uterus I was given
but others feel the shame for me, project it onto me like I am the movie of their dreams. how dare you make a decision for yourself, how dare you not give your body
away, and it sounds familiar, the giving my body away. I work-from-home twice, building human trust in machines by day, and being what my parents think
a woman should be by night. can you help with homework, do the projects, set the table, load the dishwasher, wipe down the groceries, drop off the little brother,
and I say yes, because they have called me Little Mamma since I was 7.5 years old, when we brought home another body, small, warm, with a tuft of black hair, dark eyes,
and a laugh, infectious.
Sarosh Nandwani | @saroshnandwani
Sarosh (she/her) is a mechanical engineer and anthropologist, and is particularly interested in the overlap between those subjects. She loves experimenting with her curly hair. She is a reader for the Longleaf Review and Anomaly Lit.