Lifestyle - Childfree & me

I don’t ever remembering wanting to have children. Even as a child it was never really something that appealed (childishly I remember thinking it sounded painful so maybe I’d adopt/foster if it came to that as that’s how we’d gotten my lovely little brother).

In my 20s when asked I always brushed it off saying I was too young. In my 30s the pressure built and the stress of knowing, like all women do, that you only have so much time to decide/do something about it got stronger. I spent a lot of time gathering my thoughts and feelings about this – speaking to friends, reading books (I loved Childfree & Loving it by Nicki Defago!) and in the end firmly decided it wasn’t for me. This decision was made easier by the fact that I’ve never really had the urge (outside of societal pressure) but was backed by lots of other reasons as well. One thing I hear a lot is the fear of regretting not having children – for me though the fear of having a child and then regretting that far outweighs the FOMO – the thought that a child may have to grow up knowing/feeling that they weren’t completely wanted is heartbreaking and I would never risk that.

I refer to myself as “childfree”, not childless – for me, personally, there is nothing “less” about my life without children. This doesn’t mean though that I don’t like kids – I love my friend’s children and my little nephews and have so much fun spending time with them.

 Me and my youngest nephew 🥰

Being childfree I’ve faced a surprising amount of prejudice and am always staggered by how personally complete strangers and colleagues react to my lack of desire to reproduce. There are a few standard phrases and questions that you hear that I think sum this up perfectly:

1. Oh you’ll change your mind one day you’ll see! Not entirely sure how this person knows my mind/body better than I do but ok…

2. But you’d make such a great mum! I’m actually pretty f*cking good at a lot of stuff – that doesn’t mean that I should be doing it…

3. That’s so selfish! Hmmm, ok, don’t get me started…

4. What ever will you do with your life/all that time on your hands?? Erm, whatever I want!

5. Who’s going to take care of you when you’re older? This one feels a bit dated to be honest. I can understand this in a less developed country whereby a large family is required to sustain you into your old age by tending the land etc but this doesn’t feel relevant for 2022 in the UK/Europe.

It does feel like the perception around this is improving – I’ve certainly not heard as many of these phrases for a while (thinking about it though that may just be my age, now in my 40s, people probably assume I’ve given up trying and am instead planning on acquiring many many cats – not my plan for the record).

Being childfree/intentionally not having children is still not accepted by society as a whole but it is hugely on the rise for reasons including lifestyle, climate change, genetics and passing on illnesses, the state of the world etc. There is even a full series of articles about it on the Guardian website so do have a read - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/series/childfree