You Don’t Get to Act Like a Man.

African aunties and mums bring pro‑choice conversations by rarely, and this isn’t just about keeping a child. It starts way before. You don’t get to choose to engage in sexual behaviour and get away with it. Why should you, as their daughter, get an option that wasn’t made available to them?

In the event that a mother comes across morning‑after pills, contraception pills, or any sign that her daughter is sexually active but also actively choosing not to be pregnant, she reacts immediately. She will confiscate and hide the medication, confront her daughter, and slut shame her. She will tell her daughter that she is sleeping around and that she’ll soon get what she’s looking for. Well ma’am, she’s clearly looking for pleasure.

Except how dare you. How dare you make the choice to have pleasure without the consequences of childbirth. They didn’t have that. They waited or didn’t wait, and they had you, and they regret it, understandably so.

They regret having been trapped in marriage because they got pregnant when they were too young to even tell if they really loved the man they were with. The man who had been with several other girls but had no consequence to pay because it’s “the nature of men.”

A man who could use protection if he wanted to, pull out if he was able to, deny the pregnancy if he felt like it, still be a deadbeat in the near future, or wait a bit longer and decide to leave one day, because the bar is in the pits.

But not for you, dearest daughter. You don’t get to “act like a man.” and get away with it.

You have to be five times better. A beautiful virgin who is educated, has a job, and lives religiously. Otherwise your mother will suffer five times.

First, for having you against her wishes.

Second, for not completing her education.

Third, for being humiliated by her family for getting pregnant outside marriage.

Fourth, for staying in a marriage she didn’t want so you could have a roof over your head.

And fifth, for carrying the blame if you repeat her fate, because in her mind she wasn’t strict enough, hard enough, or watchful enough.

Because every mistake you make feels like a receipt for the life she never got to live.

Pro‑choice starts when girls and boys receive sex education where there’s so much to cover: talks on consent, contraception methods, sexually transmitted infections and diseases, relationships, situationships, aftercare.

With education, a young adult or teenager learns that they have choices, but each choice comes with its consequences. And at the end of the day, they are not obligated to choose immediately.

They can wait until they are ready to assume responsibility. And if they don’t want to wait, they can still have access to safe options that protect them from the very outcomes their mothers fear.

It may be true that for some, abstinence and celibacy bring peace. Sex education doesn't automatically mean opening doors to sexual activities, it is simply giving tools in a shame-free environment so a girl or boy can tell when they're being coerced or groomed, and what to do in case they find themselves in such situations. What to do in the case of assault and how to seek help. To know they can always say no and stick to it, and know there's no shame in it.

In most homes and schools, the point is usually very clear : Abstinence. Contraception is for married women, hence the term family planning. Sex is for married couples, and so is abortion, though the lines are blurred.

Statistically, most abortions in Kenya are carried out by married women.

Choice begins when purity culture leaves the room. Purity culture treats sexuality as something that needs to be controlled, surveyed, and weaponised. Contraception becomes a threat. How can we get you to play by the rules when you have a cheat code?

When you can go out, wake up in the morning, pop a pill, and then go about your life as if you didn’t stain yourself. How could you get the pleasure of being with a man without having to take up his last name?

How dare you dip your toes in the water and decide, no, this pool is a bit too muddy for me… without getting stuck in the pool.

I didn’t get to choose. What makes you think you’re any better than I am?

It is all too insulting, too much for me to take in as your mother. So I’d rather let you get pregnant, stay away from school, learn your lesson, watch you struggle with the idea of being a single mother, watch you struggle with pushing out a child at a tender age; because you should have listened when I told you to abstain.

I would rather teach you to hate women who aren’t “pure” by societal standards.

Women who openly buy condoms at the pharmacy like it’s just sweets. Women who say they’re child‑free but still get to be in relationships with men. Women who love women. Women who never play by the rules. Women who get married when they’re well established and not because they are settling.

Women who choose to dress as they wish, date as they wish, leave when they want to and be unapologetically themselves without having to “suffer the consequences.”

Women who represent the one thing your mother never had: choice.