This is a very sensitive topic that while writing I choose my words very wisely because this is not an attack on birth control users. This is not talking down on anyone's personal belief or choices. This is not a judgment on any woman or decisions. This is simply an observation addressing the fact that girls and women face pressure from society to be on birth control.
Thinking back to being a teenager, I feel like there was a time that all the sudden every girl was on the pill, around the age of 14 to 16 years old birth control becomes less of a health choice and more of a bandwagon.
As I went through my teenage years I heard a lot of different reasons for birth control and some of them bothered me. Again, it's not my business to tell any person what to do and this is just a personal observation. I have heard more than one girl tell me she started taking the pill because she heard it makes your boobs grow bigger. Unsatisfied with how they are, these girls start taking birth control to alter the appearance of their bodies.
The most disturbing reasoning I've ever been told was that she was on the pill because everyone else is, that it is just something you do once you get to that age. As a young girl, you already face pressure from every direction. What you wear matters. Who you're friends with matters. And apparently, if you take the pill or not matters as well. It worries me that this has been the thought process for girls making a major decision for their bodies.
Don't get me wrong, I fully understand the benefits birth control brings to women who suffer from the wrath of their uterus. I am aware of the non-contraceptive reasons for taking birth control. Some women experience problems with regulating their cycle. A problem that is completely out of their control.
The pill can balance these irregularities. Some women experience excruciating pain with their cycle, and the pill can help decrease the pain they face each month. In these cases, women's lives are put on hold for their cycles and birth control helps give them control back in their life.
As I got older and went to college I often heard the response, "You're NOT on the pill???" Like I've missed out on something major. It has never even been a question for me though. I am not on the pill. Why not? My cycle is regular.
My cramps suck, but they don't keep me from everyday life. I have acne, but I put effort into treating it and taking care of my skin. Those are reason enough for me to decide that birth control medicine isn't something I need to take. Not that it is anyone's business, but in my circumstances, I've never found it necessary.
I really do not intend to be bashing or putting down any woman or their choice to take birth control, and if it seems that way I apologize. This is something I've thought about often, and I feel that it could benefit someone else in my shoes who might feel that social pressure to start the pill.
Nothing and no one should pressure you into making a decision about your body like birth control. I just wish it wouldn't turn into a social movement for young, impressionable teenage girls. I wish it was not so normalized to be on the pill, because I don't really understand the shock I hear in peoples voice when they learn I've never taken birth control.
Every woman is entitled to her personal choice to take the pill or not.
