Ashley is the eldest daughter of Caribbean immigrants who meticulously and sacrificially raised her — to be whip-smart, ceaselessly poised, and ruthlessly independent.

So she was. She was accepted to university at 16; was the first in her family to earn a degree; began earning six-figure salaries at 26; and celebrated a decade of marriage at 34. She is her ancestor’s wildest (American) dream, save for all that keeps her awake:

Crippling student debt. Cancer recurrence. Environmental degradation. AI. Genocide. Protests, hashtags, memorials.

Ashley is tired.

But she’s most exhausted by outrageous inquiries about — wait, surely that can’t be right — having children?! In this economy? Given the current maternal healthcare hellscape? With her melanin as an inheritable trait and target for violence, injustice, and neglect?

Since she took her first steps, she’s been taught that no one was coming to save her. But she could not reconcile bringing a child into the social, environmental, and political calamity she’s still working so hard to survive. Perhaps the key to her survival — more, her thriving — is sacrificing motherhood altogether. Perhaps a childfree future is her forty acres and a mule.

Thrillingly, her choice to be childfree has felt like a form of reparations — it has afforded her respite and opportunity she wouldn’t have otherwise. Without the responsibilities of a child, she’s nurtured her cherished marriage, invested in her health and retirement like never before, founded a co-living community, a business, and, in a lifelong dream, moved to Europe.

Part memoir and part manifesto, But You’d Be Such a Good Mother is a love letter to every overachieving Black and Brown woman burdened with the dreams of those who came before them, and affirmation for every woman facing unrelenting pressure to mother within a system devoid of support for them.