By Sharai Bohannon

Unsurprisingly, I realized I did not want kids while I was a kid. I was originally one of eight siblings and the first of two girls. My youngest older brother is eleven years older than me, so many of my nieces and nephews are close to my age. While I like some of my siblings and love all of the people who call me their aunt, this large family is part of the reason I knew at an early age I was not cut out to be a mom. Nothing about motherhood has ever appealed to me, even when I can appreciate my friends’ kids. This is one of the reasons why I roll my eyes at the momification of women in the media. 

I love when films understand that not all AFABs want to be mothers, and that people who choose motherhood don’t just go into the mom box. Contrary to popular belief, people can still be people after giving birth. They can still have careers and goals. They still have interests, friends, and full lives. This idea that the media has of motherhood being an entire personality has always bothered me. However, movies like Huesera: The Bone Woman give me hope. It understands that we are put into boxes because of the gender we’re assigned at birth. It also understands that when you question that box, and the life people think you should pursue, you end up in some dark places.

Michelle Garza Cervera’s Huesera: The Bone Woman finds a woman, Valeria (Natalia Solián), pregnant with doubt. Like most WOC, she has had a lifetime of being told motherhood is a requirement. It’s a box that must be checked at all costs. She’s married to a man who seems fine, but doesn’t seem to excite her as much as her ex-girlfriend. She assumes that she will eventually feel excitement about her pregnancy as she unsuccessfully attempts to gaslight herself into thinking this is what’s best. After all, her family must have her best interests at heart, right? They would not just ask her to perpetuate the cycles they fell into without thinking of her well-being. Like most of us, Valeria discovers that it is exactly what’s happening. I am one of the many women whose mother would rather she pop out kids instead of being career-driven. Unlike Valeria, I was lucky enough to call shenanigans before there was a baby on board.

We watch as Valeria’s family and husband continually try to mold her into something else. They tell her she’s not maternal enough. They hush her doubts about this pregnancy. They even try to stop her from cracking her knuckles, which seems to be a thing she does when she’s nervous or processing information. It is also a huge glimpse at the lack of autonomy she has over her body as this fetus continues to grow. Even her doctors tell her she’ll have to give up woodworking, her career that she seems to love, because the chemicals are bad for the baby. This is done with the offhand nature that is frustrating on so many levels. Her husband isn’t giving up anything, and his job isn’t treated like an annoying hobby.

So, it’s not surprising when Valeria begins to experience supernatural occurrences during her pregnancy. It’s also understandable that the problems do not magically disappear once she gives birth. This is one of the things I love about Huesera: The Bone Woman. Many of us watch people have babies for the wrong reasons every day. Some people assume that they are a magic fix for things they should seek counseling for. Which is why watching Valeria put one foot in front of the other and discover on the other side of giving birth that this kid isn’t the thing she was looking for resonates with me. 

One of the reasons Huesera stands out is because of the ending that I am about to ruin. I love that she walks out and leaves her husband with the baby he wanted. We do not get enough of these narratives, even though it takes two to tango. I wish we had more women leaving situations that do not serve them. Film loves to toss single mothers at us with abandon. They love a character whose sole purpose is to be a mother. Nobody wants to unpack that motherhood is hard, and not everyone is cut out for it. They try to force us to believe that women who tap out are evil and selfish. Meanwhile, those of us raised by people who didn’t want kids could tell them the truth is much closer to home. 

Cervera crafts some sick visuals as Valeria’s anxieties begin to manifest. Huesera: The Bone Woman is wicked and unsettling. Which scans for all of us who opt out of having kids. We get called selfish all the time for knowing we don’t want to have babies. We have friends and family who downplay our accomplishments as if there is some weird competition. This always feels like the calls are coming from inside the house to me. If people are so happy being parents, then why do they talk to the rest of us like they’re trying to induct us into a cult? In my more petty moments, I’ll point out some of my friends who have kids and aren’t miserable. However, for some reason, it is never received well by people who yell about how happy they are, though. 

I wasn’t as wowed by Arkasha Stevenson’s The First Omen as everyone else. However, I stand by it being a way better film than Immaculate. I also appreciate that Margaret (Nell Tiger Free) chooses an abortion over having a demon spawn. While her plans are spectacularly disrupted, she doesn’t hesitate to leave the demonic kid. These are decisions that make sense to me as a person with ovaries. These are also decisions that don’t get made when men are left alone to write these stories. The amount of movies I have seen where women clutch their satanic babies because men underestimate our will to live is too many. We need more reproductive horror that understands abortions (and adoptions) are real. Movies that know being a mom can be one part of an identity, but it is very rarely the only thing a person wants to be.

Another film where a woman finds out she’s not built to raise kids is The Lodge. Grace (Riley Keough) is seeing a man who has two kids. She tries to win the children over, but they are little terrors. When they are left in a lodge alone with her, they fuck around and find out. While Grace has a lot of trauma, and her breakdown was triggered by these kids, it’s not hard to see that there is an underlying message. This woman wanted to be accepted into a family so badly that she took on too much too soon. Her partner assumed his job was more important than continuing to fill out if this new dynamic would work. 

He left her unsupported to look after his two brats, and Grace tried to test drive the good wife and stepmom role before fully committing. Now we have a physiological horror that asks all of us if we really know what we’re getting into when trying to play mom. Do we have the bandwidth, and are we okay? This movie is three traumas in a trench coat, but it paints a more honest look at motherhood than most. It’s lonely, isolating, and requires more than most of us want to give. This is part of the reason the kids’ birth mom exits the movie early on. It’s also why Grace finds out the hard way that it’s not the idyllic lie society tells it is. Her jumping into a situation that would make her a stepmom was never going to bandage the unhealed trauma her own family left her.

Typically, when AFABs are written by men, it’s reductive and rage-inducing. Women characters are way too often sexually assaulted or moms with no other character traits. While neither is great, it’s harder to explain why everyone’s mommy issues are reductive and offensive. My saying I don’t want to see anymore movies where men mishandle rape culture just upsets men who wanted to mishandle it next. However, saying I’m not interested in movies where women are simply moms causes everyone to pause. The immediate reaction is “non-parents hate kids”, but it’s not that easy. I loathe how most moms in the media are written. No one is merely one thing, even if motherhood is a huge goal. Yet society has been gaslighting us forever into thinking that being a mom and wife is all we should aspire to. When we challenge that or point out it’s not something we’re into, we are viewed as defective. 

Last year, I was so fed up with the forced motherhood threads in horror movies that I could have screamed. I watched buzzy zombie films reduce talented actresses to underwritten mothers. I watched aimless indie movies that gave leading ladies nothing until they whipped out a baby and ended the journey on a maternal note. I hate these tropes almost as much as I hate watching filmmakers conflate sex with sexual assault in their movies. It signifies that they can create worlds filled with creatures and dangers, but are still struggling to picture women as people. Maybe sending male filmmakers to therapy should be part of the film school experience because there’s a lot to unpack there. That’s also why it’s so important to support movies that get it. Like Huesera: The Bone Woman, which understands motherhood isn’t right for everyone, and that’s okay.

---