Recently I've noticed the Selina tags often have posts stating that she doesn't like children or want a family.
I'm not going to pretend to be an expert by any means, however I have read several titles with her in it. I'd personally say she definitely likes children and having a family. She regularly unofficially adopts kids, she's regularly in a relationship with Bruce who has a bunch of kids, and no matter her and Bruce's relationship status - she's continuously been part of the Batkids lives, and the most importantly: Helena. I could be completely wrong, but the relatively small amount of comics I've read, I'd say it's more Batfamily fanon that's suddenly become popular.
I don't see how anyone can make the argument that Selina doesn't want/like kids when she has had her own children in both main canon and alternate universes before lmao. She also definitely has a soft spot for kids, even ones that are not her own. I honestly think it really comes down to how Selina gets so stereotyped, and people just don't think she's the "type" of woman who would ever have kids, get married etc , and they hide that under the guise of “concern” for her independence. It's a pretty regressive point of view.
There's a huge difference between being independent and being isolated. Being independent doesn’t mean that you’re completely deprived of interpersonal relationships. I think some people truly don’t understand this, at least as it relates to Selina. I've written about this in depth a couple of times, so you can read my complete responses here and here.
The tldr version is this: Selina is an orphan. In the comics she has expressed grief at having lost her family at young age and missing out on that stability growing up. Even when she had parents her household has often been portrayed as turbulent and at times violent. It's not a stretch to think that perhaps her not having had a stable family unit growing up, would actually make her more inclined to desire that. There’s also a difference between needs and wants, and I think this is something that she would want. She has said so herself, even in recent comics.
This is from the "I am Suicide" arc, and Selina is talking about seeing a picture of Bruce with his parents and imagining being part of their family as a child.
There’s also a difference between being independent and being a loner. One being a positive attribute and the other being (in Selina’s case) the result of trauma, and I think some people don’t understand the difference. When I say I love that Selina is independent I mean I love that she’s self-sufficient, resilient, confident, able to take care of herself, she has her own adventures, makes her own decisions, and is interesting in her own right. Having a family doesn’t stop you from being able to be or do any of those things. That’s just silly. When people say that Selina wouldn’t want a family because she’s “independent” what they really mean is they just think she should be alone. Considering Selina’s childhood I don’t know why that is something they would want for her, but whatever.
Selina being a loner stems from her being forced to become self reliant at a premature age in order to survive because there was literally no one there to take care of her growing up. She pushes people away, avoids getting emotionally involved, and keeps her circle small because she is afraid of losing people or them leaving her. That isn't independence. That isn’t just her being cool and aloof; it's a trauma response. She had a full on breakdown when Holly left Gotham. Bruce is also a loner, arguably even more so than Selina, and no one ever says he wouldn’t want a family 🙃. There’s a lot of subtext within her books that suggests that she may suffer from abandonment issues to some degree. You see a lot of this play out in Catwoman's third series. Suggesting that Selina needs to be alone in order to be strong or independent is romanticizing her trauma.
theartofmadeline
dededos
origamiaround
kaledo-art
pixelskylines
tangentwithtanner
ellievsbear
