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Helen Mirren: 'Childbirth digusts me'
Filed under: Just For Moms, Your Pregnancy
A good friend of mine says she knew at a young age that she never wanted to be a mother. Of course, everyone told her that her feelings would change as she grew older, but they were wrong. She just celebrated her 50th birthday and has no regrets that she never had a child.
Although my friend can't say just why she didn't want children, some people can pinpoint precisely the moment their child-free destiny was sealed. Like actress Helen Mirren. The Oscar-winning actress says she was traumatized out of motherhood by a sex-education film she saw as a young teen.
"They sat us all down, girls and boys, in this horrible school hall. This tweed skirted, dykey sort of woman with short, cropped hair comes on, and tells us about the miracle of childbirth. Then this film comes on, which is a midwives educational film. There is a close-up of a woman having a baby, a close up straight up her vagina, and that's all you see, and these are thirteen year old boys and girls, and its bloody and disgusting. Within thirty seconds two boys had fainted and the lights went on and they were carried out. I put my hands over my face because I realized I couldn't watch this."
"I swear it traumatized me, I haven't had children and I can't look at anything to do with childbirth, it absolutely disgusts me," she says.
In reading this article, I realize that Mirren and my childless friend have something else in common: bad relationships with their own mothers. The way Mirren describes her mother sounds very much like the way my friend describes her own mother. "She was horrible, she could say very cruel things and it was difficult at home. I've sort of wiped it from my memory actually. She wasn't born to be a mother. She could be mean. She'd say just very, very hurtful, bitchy things. It was impossible for us ever to take a boyfriend home."
Gee, do you think that experience might have something to do with her feelings about motherhood?
Although my friend can't say just why she didn't want children, some people can pinpoint precisely the moment their child-free destiny was sealed. Like actress Helen Mirren. The Oscar-winning actress says she was traumatized out of motherhood by a sex-education film she saw as a young teen.
"They sat us all down, girls and boys, in this horrible school hall. This tweed skirted, dykey sort of woman with short, cropped hair comes on, and tells us about the miracle of childbirth. Then this film comes on, which is a midwives educational film. There is a close-up of a woman having a baby, a close up straight up her vagina, and that's all you see, and these are thirteen year old boys and girls, and its bloody and disgusting. Within thirty seconds two boys had fainted and the lights went on and they were carried out. I put my hands over my face because I realized I couldn't watch this."
"I swear it traumatized me, I haven't had children and I can't look at anything to do with childbirth, it absolutely disgusts me," she says.
In reading this article, I realize that Mirren and my childless friend have something else in common: bad relationships with their own mothers. The way Mirren describes her mother sounds very much like the way my friend describes her own mother. "She was horrible, she could say very cruel things and it was difficult at home. I've sort of wiped it from my memory actually. She wasn't born to be a mother. She could be mean. She'd say just very, very hurtful, bitchy things. It was impossible for us ever to take a boyfriend home."
Gee, do you think that experience might have something to do with her feelings about motherhood?
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
10-24-2007 @ 11:22AM
sandyone said...I'm with Helen Mirren. Childbirth *is* disgusting in the wrong context. I've done it five times and I love doing it, but I have precious little tolerance for or interest in watching it on video or seeing pictures of it. It's particularly stupid to show such graphic images to kids, unless it is in the proper context, such as preparing them for a specific birth event. The kids in that class were a captive audience and the only way out of viewing the images was to faint or cover their eyes. I'm sure it was designed as a way to convince the kids to not have sex because childbirth is so very awful. Instead, it caused at least one girl to have a very negative view of something she had no business even knowing about.
Why does anyone, other than someone who is going to be attending to a birth, really need a full-on shot like that? Yuck.
Helen Mirren has beautiful hair, though!
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10-24-2007 @ 11:27AM
Amanda said...I bet that was a big factor in her decision. I never really thought about it but my mother and I have always been close, we grew even closer in my early 20's and when I got pregnant with my first child in my late 20's I could not imagine my life without my mother. I saw her in a whole new light and all that other cliche stuff. I love being a mother myself and I think (hope and pray) that me and my two girls will have the same relationship!
I don't think there is anything wrong with women not wanting to have children, I don't understand it myself, but I kind of feel like, If you really don't think you want to be a mother, then you probably shouldn't be one.
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10-24-2007 @ 11:38AM
Nancy Toby said...I love her as an actress, but jeez, she's looking old for 50!!
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10-24-2007 @ 11:55AM
caitlin said...I was the sysadmin for my college's nursing department, and I hated winter quarter, because that was the OB-GYN rotation. They had interactive videos that were basically "Childbirth: When Everything That Can Wrong, Does". They were rather graphic. After seeing them several times a day, it put me off of having children for nearly a decade.
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10-24-2007 @ 12:28PM
Nicola said...Nancy, I assume that you were joking, but the author was referring to her friend. The 50th b'day. Of course, Helen Mirren is a gorgeous 62 and counting.
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10-24-2007 @ 1:45PM
Nancy Toby said...Ahhh, sorry, I was confused. Yeah, I hope I should look so good when I'm 62!!
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10-24-2007 @ 2:02PM
SKL said...I too have a friend who is pushing 50 who was so terrified of childbirth that she couldn't even consummate her marriage. Seriously. When she was a teen (in a developing country where information on such things wasn't readily available), a married friend told her that having her child was the most horrible experience anyone could imagine. That was enough for my friend. She also didn't have strong yearnings to be a mom - she lived with her nieces and nephews and felt that was quite enough. She is now a divorced, very successful, social, happy, and childless woman.
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