A subject many find difficult to discuss, and which some women will get downright emotional about, is that of our continuing role 
as breeders.
In Ireland this has been particularly apparent to me. As I have travelled around this country for five weeks I have met and seen so many amazing women. 
Strong women.
Beautiful women. 
Adventurous women. 
Kind women.
Additionally, I have met a fair share of professional women. Executives running their own international businesses, career artists making a living from their creativity, women in broadcast media, women in the tech industry, health care professionals, even a couple of talented architects.
Yet many of them shared the pressure they feel to be a “successful” woman while also being a “super mommy”. This is not new, I know that. I felt those same pressures myself. In the 1980’s. However, I thought we’d somehow gone beyond all that.
Yet here they are, shining women, possibly talking on cell phones, pushing prams, riding herd over two or three other young ones, questioning themselves: “To breed or not to breed? Is that is where our worth still lies”. 
Ireland, long anxious about what they call their “brain drain” (the term used to represent the numbers of young, educated people choosing to leave Ireland to live and work in other countries), might want to transform some of that anxiety into educating and supporting its women, professional or not, who feel the pressure to pump out babies as if there is no such thing as global resource depletion.
Yes, I understand that men are part of the equation. I also fully get that this problem is not unique to Ireland. We have plenty of women running the same sad path in the U.S.
However, Ireland tops all other EU countries for birth rate with an average of 3 babies per woman, married or not. 1/3 of those babies are now being born to women who are single.
As a single mother myself for a number of years, I commend these women’s commitment and courage. It is damn hard work.
Still, while the average may be “3 babies per woman” (yes, I did see a lot with that exact number), there are definitely sisters who are going well beyond.
Many of the people I spoke with blame it on the Catholic church and it’s outmoded values around birth control. Others blame the government for its Draconian laws around abortion. These things may be true, but ultimately, its the women themselves who are the ones making that choice to breed. 
I suspect some of my readers are going to become angry with me over this post. I am sorry if you choose to become offended. However, my sentiments are not a secret and I am not going to keep quiet.
I think it is irresponsible, in this day and age, to choose to bear more than two children, the number required to keep growth balanced with the death rate, in the hope of slowing our world’s rampant overpopulation.
If you want more children, I support your thinking. There are hundreds of kids out there who need loving, safe families. You do not have to keep spinning your own genetic blueprint in order to have a large family. Foster or adopt. Everyone will be better off for it.
Okay. The next part: I understand the cultural and class issues connected to birth rates. I get that I hold this opinion from a position of privilege. It doesn’t matter. I feel strongly about this: our world’s resources simply cannot sustain this level of entitled breeding.
I am not anti-pregnancy. I say all of this as a woman who loved being pregnant. I remember my own times as a pregnant woman as being two of the most spiritual and magical times of my life. I loved my changing body. I delighted in the fact that I was creating beautiful, intelligent, amazing human beings.
I gave birth to my two at home, felt such peace while nursing them that I continued until each of them was nearly two, that they might receive full health benefits of mother’s milk. So I get it. It’s a beautiful feeling, unique to woman born women. Just limit it to twice, please. For everyone’s sake.
(Aware Irish woman with her two)
It’s just that these past weeks, seeing so many women, with so many children, as though they have no responsibility for the fate of the rest of human kind, has agitated my thinking. 
Yes, Ireland is a female country. It has honored the Goddess for centuries. 
But as I have listened to women’s doubts and anxieties about the issue of breeding versus developing a new identity for Irish women, it has made my heart ache.
Yes, my sisters, it is possible to have it all. But there is a price.
Do you really need to?