Osho discourse on Being an Artist rather than a Mother

Question : The other day you said that Women create Children, and Men create arts and other material things. Is it unnatural or neurotic for a woman not to desire a Child, and to prefer to be an artist? I never wanted to have a child. Dance, music, poetry, theater and painting Were my passion and expression. Could you comment?

Osho : There is nothing unnatural in it. If you don't want to have a child, you have the right not to have one. If you want to put your creativity into painting, into art, into music, it is perfectly good -- far better than creating a child who is bound to be a burden on the earth. And who knows what kind of child will come out of you?

Adolf Hitler can come out of you. He is waiting, searching for a womb. Joseph Stalin can come out of you. Beware! -- that greasy Italian, Mussolini, is waiting. All these people are standing in line, in a queue. This is not the time to give birth to a child! A painting is harmless. Music is beautiful, dancing will do. No, there is nothing unnatural in it. It has been said by men again and again that it is women's natural duty to give birth to children.

That's how they have been able to keep the woman in slavery, because if a woman goes on giving birth to children, where is the time for her to paint? Where is the time for her to create music, poetry, drama? So on the one hand they have been forcing the woman to remain continually pregnant. Just a hundred years ago, every woman around the world was continually pregnant. One child takes nine months of her life, then she has to raise the child. And when the child is not even six months old, she is again pregnant. It is like chain-smoking. And even a single child is such a nuisance.... I agree with you. I have been asked many times, "Wouldn't you like to have a child?" I said, "Me? Either I would kill the child or I would kill myself; we could not coexist! A child in my room? Impossible!" Just to be alert, I have never married, because who knows? -- the woman I marry may want a child. Then trouble will arise.

There is no problem, unless you feel there is. Don't listen to anybody, what they say --that it is unnatural. It may be unnatural to them, so they can give birth to as many children as they want. If you feel good in painting, in writing poetry, in composing music, you are giving better children to the world -- children who are harmless, who will make many rejoice.