Therapy for Motherhood Ambivalence in Los Angeles and California
Some women know. You're one of the ones who doesn't — and whether to have a child is the biggest decision there's no undo button for. I provide therapy for women working out whether they want to become mothers.
No agenda, no ticking-clock lectures, and no assumption about which answer is the right one. The goal is that the decision gets made by you, not by time.
Ambivalence is two real desires, not a broken one
Not knowing doesn't mean you secretly know and won't admit it. Genuine ambivalence is two authentic pulls coexisting: a real curiosity about a child, and a real love for the life you've built. Most of the women I see with this question are thoughtful, established, and exhausted by it — they've read the books, polled the friends, made the lists, and the lists came out even. Lists do that, because this was never a spreadsheet question.
It's a values question tangled up with fear, history, and other people's expectations, and those strands have to be separated before the answer underneath becomes visible.
Whose voice is actually talking?
Part of this work is an audit. The voice that says you'd regret not having children — is that yours, or your mother's?
The certainty that you'd lose yourself — is that a preference, or a conclusion you drew at nine years old watching someone else's motherhood? The fear that you'd repeat what was done to you, the career you'd be betraying, the partner whose wanting is louder than your knowing: each of these deserves to be examined on its own, because a decision assembled from unexamined parts doesn't hold.
Fear is a terrible decision-maker in both directions — plenty of women have children out of fear of regret, and plenty decline out of fear of repetition. What I want for you is a choice made from the settled place underneath all of that.
The partner question inside the child question
Sometimes the ambivalence isn't about children at all. It's about this relationship, this division of labor, this version of the future with this person — and "do I want kids?" is standing in for "do I trust what parenthood would look like here?" Sorting out which question you're actually asking isn't a detour from the work. It often is the work, and it's far better asked now than during a pregnancy.
I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and women across the whole arc of this question are my practice — the ones deciding, the ones trying, the pregnant, and the long-since mothers. That range matters here: I've sat with hundreds of women on every side of the door you're standing at, and I have no stake in which way you walk through it. I use psychodynamic work, ACT, CBT, and mindfulness-based approaches, fitted to the person rather than applied to them.
Sessions are in person in Studio City or by video anywhere in California, with New Jersey clients seen under a separate license. Private pay, out of network, superbills provided — and no diagnosis required, which matters for work like this: not knowing whether you want children is not a disorder.
Questions women ask me about this decision
Is it normal to not know whether I want kids?
Yes. Ambivalence is a genuine conflict between two real desires, not indifference and not a defect. It's especially common in women with demanding careers, complicated family histories, or a partner who's certain in either direction.
Will you push me toward a decision?
No. I have no agenda for either outcome, and I'd be the wrong therapist if I did. The work is clarifying what's genuinely yours — desire, fear, values — versus what was inherited or absorbed, until the decision can be made from clarity instead of pressure.
What if it turns out to be about my partner, not about kids?
That happens often, and it's better discovered in this room than three years into parenthood. Untangling the child question from the relationship question is part of the work, and both deserve honest answers.
I already have kids and I feel ambivalent about motherhood. Is this page for me?
That's a different and equally real experience — closer to burnout, rage, or the guilt that comes from loving your kids and some days not loving the job. I work with all of it. Either version of the question is welcome here.
