I am child-free by choice. AMA.

[DogWater]

I'm a 40 year old woman, and child-free by choice.

AMA.

Yes, I have a partner.

I won't be having children in my 40s.

I mean, yes, my mate was necessarily talking about not imaging life without her children specifically. But, she's just never had any adult life without being a mother (she had her first at 18) so I think she was talking more generally too.

Do you only read the threads that are directly related to childrearing? Because they are many sections on this site that cover a wide range of topics.

Do you have animals? I am suspecting you have a dog/s.

She couldn’t “imagine any adult without children”

Not the sharpest tool in the box is she

Ah, sorry - I meant she couldn't imagine any adult life without children. Like, she couldn't imagine any of her adult life without being a mother. Sorry

No animals.

What do you do for work? Women are often understandably impacted career-wise when they have children but a plus is this wouldn't have been an issue for you.

I'm an academic.

Well me and my sister are not in contact with our mother as she was physically and emotionally abusive towards us from when we were about 3-4 years old………and then she continued to control us, bully us and manipulate us throughout our entire lives.

Finally in our mid 40s, after almost four decades of being treated like this we cut her off and our lives are so much happier.

So we’ll have to agree that you and I are commenting on this post from having two very different experiences of childhood and parental relationships.

I’m very glad you have such a positive relationship with your children and I wish my mum had ever loved me in the way you obviously love yours 😢

This ALWAYS pops up on these types of threads and I’m amazed people think the forums are purely all to do with parenting. They’re clearly not if you have even a quick browse through the many posts!

Don't answer this if you don't want to!
Have you ever been pregnant and, therefore, had to have a termination? Was it emotionally painful or easy to stick with your intention in that circumstance?
If you haven't been pregnant, have you thought about whether, through accident, contraceptive failure, etc, you became pregnant how you think it would affect you emotionally and psychologically having to deal with it? Have you discussed it with your partner?
But please feel free not to answer if you'd rather not. Thank you.
Full disclosure: I completely support the choice not to have children and any woman's choice to terminate. I'm just curious about what you might have to go through in these circumstances.

@DogWater As in a student? * *

Has this not been done to death on MN? Surely no more questions to be asked! 🙈

I’m 51 and happily childfree so wasn’t particularly curious about that angle, but I wondered if you had a cat, which is a much more interesting topic, but I saw you don’t.

Actually I have thought of something. I’m nearing menopause & was worrying that like one of my friends, I might get a sudden urge to have kids before it was too late.

Luckily for both of us, I haven’t had it & she & her DH had the sense to recognise that it was hormones & wait for it to go away, which it did.

Is that something you’ve thought about & what would you do if it happened?

Thanks for framing this so kindly.

I had an accidental pregnancy while I was at university and terminated. It wasn't emotionally painful or problematic at all.

A few years ago my periods went a bit awry and I worried I might be pregnant. I wasn't. I would've terminated and told my partner as much.

What?! No, as in an academic 😅Specifically, I'm an associate professor.

No, I haven't really thought about this happening.

I'm not sure what I'd do if it did happen. I definitely wouldn't have a baby that's for sure 😅

Do you have nieces or nephews? Do you spend time with them at all and enjoy it, or avoid?

I actually disagree with this (you could be right but anecdotally not my experience). I'm child-free an honeslty it's not a hassle other than people's judgements espeically in my experience mothers - they start saying it's not natural, I'll regret it and that motherhood is a dream and just life-changing and that every women should do it (if that's you're experience fine, but I genuinely have hundreds of reasons not to have kids, and have a better life and a slightly more selfish one that way). It's just countless times when people ask, are you going to have kids and I tell them no, never - they get so shocked and basically tell me that it's unnatural because every women loves babies (don't get me wrong babies are sometimes cute, just not I'm a way that I want my own). Maybe it's also because I'm younger and so I get a lot of you'll change your mind (I've wanted this is I was a kid and my conviction gets stronger every year), you'll regret it (I often say they may regret having children) and who will take care of you when you're old (as if its a given children will do this and not a good enough reason to have kids). So maybe that's why, but in general I find parents to be very judgemental when I mention it, but could just be my experience.

I don't because I don't have any siblings.

DP has nieces and nephews, but he's not close to his siblings so we don't see them (siblings or nieces/nephews).

Do you think creating such a narrow world for yourself is healthy?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'narrow world'. Can you explain this to me, please?

Please elaborate

Very nosy questions from me:

1. what do you do about contraception? Would you ever ask your DP to have a vasectomy, or have your tubes tied (ie make the decision very final)?
2. what was it about your friend's mum's experience of having a baby when you were a child that looked off- putting?

I can’t speak for OP but for me (also 40s and child-free) it had a lot to do with it being a decent discussion forum, pretty fast-paced.

My previous favourite forums were the IMDB boards (now closed) and Digital Spy (General Discussion now closed). I am on Reddit too but that can be too specific on topics when you just want a chat read/discussion.