Just a Choice: LaToya Watkins on Motherhood

These days, I don’t like leaving the house. I prefer to work from home, shop from home, and visit with family and friends from home. I’m not an agoraphobe—I run every morning, visit my favorite cookie shop twice a week, and go to grocery stores and farmer’s markets during low traffic times. Nonetheless, I’m beginning to recognize my social limitations. My heart becomes a violent storm inside of my chest, I fidget, and sometimes I can’t control my breathing when I think about being in peopled spaces. I don’t know exactly when it started, but I have grown into someone else. Some days I wonder what happened to me, why I am this way.

I think this is what happened: I became a mother. Not in the “I just want to stay at home with my kids” sense—more like the “I’ve given birth to these black babies and now I have to keep them alive” sense. I feared that