Maria Thattil: ‘I’m hot, fertile and not having kids’

Former Miss Universe Australia Maria Thattil claps back at online trolls who branded her choice not to have children ‘sad’.

In a recent Q&A I did on social media, a follower asked me whether I wanted to have kids one day.

When I said no, they asked why. After opting to share my choice, I was met with an overwhelmingly positive response.

Around 90 per cent of people resonated with or respected it. Ten per cent had other ideas.

“Glad she likes dogs, because I suspect that is all the company she will have in latter years,” one remarked.

Another implied that my choice means I don’t value “legacy”, while another tried to scare me into imagining my “last days in some room at home or an aged-care facility alone. Sad.”

Not to mention the comments reminding me the “biological clock is ticking” and I’m getting “older and less desirable with less options”.

Are we really still talking to women as though the entire point of our existence is to follow a baby-making blueprint?

A blueprint that harms not only those who choose not to have children, but also those who, for many reasons, can’t – treating them like second-class citizens for not ticking a box?

Maria Thattil: “[kids] deserve parents who can unselfishly raise them” Picture: @maria.thattil on Instagram

I shared my child-free stance in the hope of sparking discourse. It’s not just OK to not aspire to parenthood – it is your human right.

So when people suggest that my expiry date is looming and to strike while I’m “hot and fertile”, I tell them I’m more than how “desirable” I am to someone else, and more than the baby-making machine they imply I am.

When they tell me that a child-free life means I’m not fulfilling my “duty as a woman”, I tell them that my value isn’t conditional on whether I birth someone else, and my only duty is to myself.

When they suggest that my aspirations beyond child-bearing lack “real” purpose, I tell them there are more ways than one to leave a legacy – and it’s OK that what fulfils us differs from person to person.

And when people threaten me with fear of loneliness in my latter years, I tell them that I fear their decision to have kids just so they have someone by their side when they’re old and ailing.

Whether it is birthing my own or adopting children, if I ever decide to have kids they won’t be born out of any kind of pressure.

Having kids is about allowing individuals to come up in the world through you, not for you, and they deserve parents who can unselfishly raise them.

Little girls grow into young women who are constantly asked when they’re getting married. Married women are constantly asked when they’re having babies. New parents are constantly asked when they’re having the next one.

Maria Thattil’s latest column appears in this Sunday’s Stellar. Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar.

I say we stop asking those who are assigned female at birth when they’re going to hit these milestones, and start asking what they want to do with their big, powerful lives.

I say this as a “hot and fertile” 29-year-old. And I’ll say the same thing as a hot geriatric when I’m surrounded by golden retrievers and still championing a person’s freedom to choose – because we are more than just our reproductive choices.

Maria Thattil was Miss Universe Australia 2020 and is a TV presenter and writer.

Originally published as Maria Thattil: ‘I’m hot, fertile and not having kids’