How Do I Not Have a Baby?
text and image, ongoing
"How do I not have a baby?" was the first question my daughter asked me about sex. She'd noticed a family in our neighborhood expecting their fourth child and wanted to know. Not how it happens. How to stop it from happening. A negative construction. A question about prevention before she understands the act.
On the surface the answer could appear simple. But as I sat with it, both how to answer for her and as a larger question, the answer wasn't clear. How access to reproductive healthcare has been stripped away. How maternal mortality is on the rise and nearly three times higher for Black pregnant people. How sex ed is under fire and might not be available to her in school. How having a baby is about calculating resources and many people are choosing not to. Her question carried all of that without knowing it. I didn't have a simple answer. I still don't.