Romb | Rachel Oates (a pro-choice, childfree poem)

The full text of this poem is in the video description if you’d like to read along! :)

I’d love to hear your interpretations of this and see if I’ve managed to get my message across well enough!

Thank you all for all the support and allowing me to share something to personal and something I care about so strongly with you all! ♥️

Thank you for voicing this in such a beautiful way

I absolutely love this poem. Amazing work from a great literary critic

Absolutely beautiful

I know this is a late comment but I'd still like to say how much I enjoyed that poem. It was beautiful, uplifting, and very well said. Thank you!

I was very interested in hearing this poem when you mentioned it in another video as someone who wants women to have the choice to be child-free without being judged or pressured or having their access to birth control be limited, but also as someone who is morally against abortion. Your poem helped me understand just a little more the perspectives of different kinds of women who are pro-choice for their different reasons.

Regardless of your opinion on what happens after conception, I think we should all at least agree that the limits on getting tubes tied is ridiculous.

This is stunning!

Wow, this made me very emotional. Amazing poem.

Was confused by the title ‘Romb’ before hearing the poem, but now I have to commend you for it. It’s very clever.

Rachel, this is incredible. I love it

You inspire me

This is beautiful Rachel. I’m 24, American, I live in arizona, and last year, the Supreme Court stole my right to my romb. I have endometriosis as health issues stemming from adolescent malnourishment, so the possibility of having biological children would be challenging at best, and deadly at worst. By the time I was 21 I had gotten pregnant 3 times and miscarried 3 times. All 3 were unintended, and all 3 got through 2 forms of birth control. To be honest, I don’t know if I’ll ever want children. But thanks to the ignorance of 5 people, none of whom were elected and 2 of whom are confirmed predators, my romb isn’t mine anymore. I am hurt, I am afraid, but most of all I am angry. Every day I hear cis men pontificate about bodies they don’t have, choices that are not theirs, and lives that they do not belong to them. They’ll never have to feel my pain or fears but they get to legally mandate them for me. Thank you for this beautiful poem. I hope one day to feel the same freedom you do.

Great job, Rachel, I can relate to this so much. A large portion of society knows zero boundaries when it comes to the reproductive choices of other people, even those of perfect strangers. I have known all my life that I never want to have children, and for many years I felt like the odd one out. It's so good to see more and more childfree women making their choice known. 💜

so inspiring as always <3

When you begin explaining why you love the quietness, everything became so vivid! I could literally see and sense how that feels ✨✨✨✨✨

Could I send you a short poem book that I wrote? I’d love for you to critique it.

the video version of this is soooo good. i love this poem so much. my mom also told me she loves it!

As a 29 yr old childless woman I thank you. I feel like I'm supposed to want kids. I'm still learning to be an adult. It's hard enough

thanks rachel, I'm a childfree man but even my actual lover has a tendency to hold some of it back from being shared and it's like ever since I watched zomgitscris about the whole thing there's been this awareness that even I myself am not told the woman's side of what our shared choice feels like anywhere near often enough.
LYssa made the same choices I did, she's also done it to maintain a polyamorous lifestyle, my own end of things I just have to deal with people who call me some unkind words-for it. I never thought to use her like a trophy though so I don't so much care I mean a lion doesn't lose sleep over the sheep's opinions and I have what I set out for.

We don't really get enough perspective from women making the same damn choice I did. I think lyssa just doesn't like to complain so it's only when she's really really hurting emotionally that I do hear about it.

but my mind is boggled because every other childfree woman has said that society is even worse to them than it was when they went atheist over so I'm like there has to be so much more going on than she even tells me.

I think a good analogy for the life of a kid would be a slave whom you can't free for months because the lock is on their side. When they burst out of their room, they start gradually acquiring freedom. They're leashed until deamed mature. I think the parent risked being involved in the slavery business. If she knows that she'd rather kill a slave over becoming a slave, then she should have taken slavery more seriously. Please respond if you disagree with surrounding abortion with this context.

I am forever grateful my family has fully accepted that the only kids I will have will be adopted cats. My little furball is my son, I treat him like a cat but I love him more than I could love a human son. I've known I don't want to be a mother since I was a little girl.

I didn't expect this video/poem to hit me as hard as it did, but damn. This makes me angry and emotional just listening. Absolutely beautiful and moving work, Rachel!

When you want to keep it, it’s a child. When you don’t, it’s a “pest” and “mold.”

This isn’t just good, it’s impactful. I love extended metaphors, this is exceptionally well done.

Wonderful poem ❤. I love the metaphor (and word play) of the womb as a room in your house. It really made me think about the concept of emptiness. Even an empty room is not empty. There’s light streaming in, sounds, air, walls, a ceiling, and a floor. It may be “empty” of what someone expects to see. But perfect for its intended use. A place to meditate. A yoga room. A quiet spot. A room that can change and become whatever you need it to be.

Other than it being rather meh, it's pretty disgusting also. I would argue an unborn fetus should not be compared to mould metaphorically or not, nor rather ironically should they have their room changed. As an adult I hold contempt to the idea we get to open ourselves up to who we choose yet deem it acceptable to close them off from the world. Yes we have a choice, yes we should have the freedom to explore ourselves but before doing so make sure there is no possibility, this way you won't find yourself in a position to take away theirs.

This poem felt so short yet its quite long. Felt short got being full of meaningful, real and deep things all people who choose to be child free emcounter, it hits home for us. Thank you for putting this into a wonderful art , maybe people who get to hear this and used to question us will understand a little bit more this side of the story.

love the comparison of a womb with a room in one’s house, truly beautiful poem ❤

I love this ❤️❤️❤️

Thank you for helping me feel less alone in this. 🥹❤

I love this. Simply, I just love it <3 Thank you!!!

What a wonderful poem! I don't like a lot of poetry, but this is amazing! Thank you so much for writing this and publishing it in this beautiful video, so well done! You're very talented <3 <3

Thank you for this poem ❤️ it perfectly describes how I feel when people start getting nosey about my choice on children.

I'm not a poetry person, but I gotta say I really liked this. Nicely done! Please keep sharing your talent and insight. The world needs voices like yours at this moment.

I really really want kids one day but wow this is an amazing poem that really spoke to how much other people feel they have a right to an opinion.

I’m so glad I finally managed to convince a surgeon to remove my uterus. I just wish it hadn’t taken the best part of two decades. I can’t imagine how much better my twenties and early thirties would have been without the constant pain and debilitating PMDD. Unfortunately, nobody believed me that I wasn’t going to breed until I made it clear that not giving me a hysterectomy was literally going to kill me. When my 29 year old childfree husband wanted a vasectomy it wasn’t that big a deal.

SO powerful Rachel. As a woman who doesn't want children, I'm constantly told I'd be 'such a good mum' and of course if I somehow found myself in the position where I suddenly had a child in my care with no other options I would look after them and give them the best life I possibly could, but I still wouldn't want that for myself and my life plans. I just don't think people understand that being an unwanted child to resentful parents is so much worse than never having existed.

"You'll change your mind" oooooo the amount of times I've heard that from strangers and OBGYNs... They still won't remove my uterus, even though that's where ALL of my PCOS and over-bleeding comes from, but at least I was able to get my Fallopian tubes completely removed when I was 29. My previous OBGYN refused to do even that procedure and was certain I would change my mind by the time I was 30 years old because apparently that age is some magic number that turns on the maternal switch. Well, I'm 33 now. I don't regret having my tubes removed and still would highly appreciate my uterus being taken out. I still don't want children of my own, but am more than happy to be the best aunt ever to my nephew and keep an eye out on other kids around me because I know it's impossible for parents to keep eyes on them 24/7. It takes a village to raise a child, and I'm plenty happy enough just being part of that village rather than having a kid of my own.

28 seconds in and I’m speechless… I hate poetry BUT WOW RACHEL

If you don’t want helpless little humans living in that room, that is your decision! You have every right to decide that. Btw it’s the same decision I made about my room.
BUT: if helpless little humans show up in your room because you were not even able to make sure the door to the room is locked… you think you have the right to kill that helpless little human just that YOU can be comfortable in your empty room again? Let me tell you a secret: if you kill a human being just because he or she dares to be in your house… I‘d say (and many will agree) that you are a cold hearted killer

This was absolutely genius. I am on the opposite end of the spectrum as far as children go. I’m a woman who has a child, and wants so many more in the future. But I want it to be on my terms, when I’m prepared. I respect you and I see you and I understand you. Beautiful and thank you so much for sharing!

i also interpreted this as intrusive thoughts violating the ‘safe space’ one creates in their head for escapism ; beautiful work rachel!

I am crying - I felt every word ring out in my own heart. Thank you for sharing this. You're an incredible writer and by sharing your truth it's really helped me feel brave enough to sharing my own. Love you girl.

make the earth your child 🌏

this is prose not poetry; and even more: more bitching more then prose.

wonderful rachel <3

So brilliant! such an important sentiment so beautifully channeled

poems that are just a really long contrived metaphor make me irrationally irritated

I’ve never heard Rachel’s poetry before and it’s really good!