Dear Men Of Love Is Blind, “You’d Be Such A Good Mom” Isn’t The Compliment You Think It Is

“Do you want kids?” is one of those questions that people balk at if you suggest asking it on a first date — but when it comes to the Love is Blind pods, the question seems more important than ever. The Netflix reality show is all about finding your one true love by talking to them through a wall until they propose, so of course, kids and family planning and the future for these couples are all major talking points.

Sometimes, though, they become major convincing points.

Listen, I know there’s an air of desperation in going on a show like Love is Blind to meet your spouse. But in Season 10 of the show, I was not expecting to see one man spending 90% of his time in the pods trying to convince one of his connections that she should change her mind about wanting kids.

Contestant Emma, who was adopted as a child and underwent a good deal of medical trauma, shares from the beginning that she’s unsure if she wants kids one day. She cites everything from uncertainties surrounding her medical history and her own adoption story to simply not feeling selfless enough for kids, and honestly, these are all valid reasons. Even if her reason was, “I don’t want kids,” that’s valid.

But more than one of her connections simply couldn’t see it that way. These men want children — that’s fine! — and spend far too much time trying to convince her that, because she’s even thinking of what it means to bring a child into the world, that alone makes her a good candidate for motherhood.

“You’d be such a good mom,” she’s told over and over.

And honestly, that’s just not the compliment men think it is.

Because we know how society views “ideal” mothers: selfless, obsessed with her children, prioritizing family above all. And while being a mother was my own dream and changed me in such incredible ways that I am forever grateful for, a man trying to convince me to have kids by insisting that he knows I’d be a “good mom” gives me the ick.

It feels like they’re saying, “I know you’ll make a sacrifice for me.” It feels like they’re saying, “I know you’ll always put yourself last.” It feels like they’re saying, “I know you’ll give up everything.”

It feels like they want you to take on a whole new identity.

(Also, importantly, being worried about being a “good mom” is literally never one of Emma’s reasons for being on the fence about children, so it feels like a weird thing to keep encouraging.)

If the only thing I’m ever known as in my entire life is being a good mom, that’s 100% fine with me. But that’s my choice. I wanted to become a mom, I was able to make that choice for myself without being coerced, and I was able to make motherhood be what I wanted it to be.

Somebody who’s unsure about having children? That’s not exactly a label they want thrown at them when they’re still miles and miles away from a *potential* start line.

“You’d be such a good mom” as a convincing line to have kids further plays into the trope that this is all women should want out of life, all women are good for, all women should dream of ever being told. It gives someone a savior complex — they can convince us to do something because *they* think we need the ego boost from them — and it gives them a chance to argue later that we still made the choice... they were just there to cheer us on.

They think they’re being supportive. But really, they’re being manipulative.

A lot of us already believe we’ll be good moms — but that doesn’t mean we want to be moms. And considering what it means to bring a life into this world, to completely upheave your own to benefit another human, to consider all of your own traumas and how it could affect someone in the future, doesn’t mean we’d be good moms.

It means we’re just good, smart women.

And good, smart women know what’s best for them.