Jenny, I agree that makes you no less feminine. However, it is a typical trait for women to be nurturing of children. So I can see both sides here. It sounds like you know what’s best for you and your marriage. Best wishes!

I completely disagree that part of being feminine is “bringing forth life and investing in the next generation.” Not all women were created with the maternal instinct, not all women were meant to be mothers – having kids, biologically or adopted, is the absolute last thing I want and (more importantly) the absolute last thing that I or my husband or my marriage needs. I don’t know what to do with kids, I feel highly uncomfortable holding a baby, I get extremely stressed out when I’m around children. If I were to become pregnant, I would have very few options and none of them are pleasant, because I absolutely cannot get off my medications due to severe mental illness. And yet I am an extremely strong (the people in my life consider me to be the strongest person they know), empathetic to a fault, overly affectionate, unfailingly loving, fiercely loyal, and entirely feminine woman. I seek to have a “gentle and quiet spirit” that is beautiful to God, while at the same time donning a beautiful dress and earrings every day. I am a wonderful wife to my husband, I strive to honor God, but I have no interest in children whatsoever – and that doesn’t make me any less feminine.

I don’t follow…I feel we all have to prove ourselves on some level at some point. Society and culture play a large role this and seem to require much from men but women also walk a tight line….I can do anything just as well, if not better than you.

GOD be praised at my house we strive for equality based on what HE says about us. A man that has relationship with GOD is all man and well proven!

“I love it that being a woman is individual and totally free on the level of “what it means to be a woman.” It’s a major advantage we have. We can wear blue jeans, do our hair, not do our hair (hello six days of the week!), be a waitress, own a company; but no matter what, any woman is the definition of what it means to be a woman. Men have such a narrow definition of “what it means to be a man.” We are born women. Men have to prove they are men socially–at least that’s what I perceive.”

I think one part of being feminine is bringing forth life and investing in the next generation whether it is your own kids, nephews and nieces, adoptive kids or kids in the community. Women are also able to sacrifice a lot for other people without thinking it as a sacrifice (at child birth am putting my life at risk for the baby). I am also learning what it means to be my husbands helper…In marriage wife is the help for the husband, not vice versa. It does not make me inferior…i am just trying to be practical about it.