“When/why did you decide not to have children?”

[sammylady37]

I’m wondering if others would answer the above questions similarly to me. For me, it never actually was a decision I had to make, in much the same way as I never actively decided not to run away and join the circus or become a nightclub promoter or get an exotic pet. It was never something I had to consider and weigh up pros and cons for. I just simply never ever wanted children, and I’ve lived my life with that in mind. I never felt any sort of longing or urge or even the faintest curiosity about it. I’ve observed friends and siblings have children, I have been very involved with them and haven’t once had a pang of longing or envy.

I was eventually sterilised at 40, after having lobbied unsuccessfully for it many years earlier.

I’m curious to know if other childfree posters have a similar lifelong absence of desire, or chose to be childfree for practical reasons?

I grew up thinking I would have children because that's what people did. You finish education, get a job, get married, have children. It wasn't until my mid 20s that it dawned on me I didn't have to follow that path at all. Around the same time I joined MN and began reading about the daily life of parenthood. I quickly realised I didn't want either children OR marriage.

10 years on I'm not only childfree but single by choice. Maybe in another 10 years my outlook will change again but I'm dubious.

My husband has never been asked why he doesn’t have kids. He’s been asked if he has kids and when he says no people say things like oh good for you, you’ve made the right choice or how did you get ‘the wife’ to agree to that. I am often asked why I don’t have kids and have been told I’m wasting my life, I’m a disappointment to my parents, my husband will leave me for a real woman and asked what the point is in me being alive. So…. very different responses

I think ive known since I was a child. Children weren't so something I wanted as a kid, teenager, adult. I still have fertile years so it's possible that may change. But I remember always feeling sense of sadness and grief for people once they either married or had children. But I am quite free spirited.

As others have mentioned, pregnancy, breastfeeding and birth all horrify me and always have.

I remember after sex education a very strong inner voice saying 'I'm NOT doing that'.

This bugs me so much, as though we are supposed to climb Mt. Everest or discover a cure for something to make up for the fact that we didn't reproduce.

I'm also in the camp I've known my whole life I didn't want them and wasn't meant to have them. I disliked children when I was a child; I know this is a thing childfree people aren't ever meant to admit, they're meant to say 'oh I like children I just don't want my own' but I have genuinely detested children my entire life.
There are of course other factors, but they all came later (the inability to, the moral imperative not to pass on my genes anyway).

LOL, OP!! I had to look twice at who wrote the OP as your story is so similar to my own.

I have an older brother, who had 2 kids with his first wife, they are now in their late 20’s. My husband of 25 years has 2 sisters, he is the middle child, and the elder one has a nearly 17 year old. The younger one’s longest relationship is about 6 weeks.

I was a secondary science teacher for 16 years and I was regularly challenged by parents about how could I be a good teacher if I’d never been involved in bringing up a child. My stock response was always “Are parenting and teaching the same then?” Usually made them think a little.

A colleague once even challenged me when he’d been moaning about the friends his teenage son had made, and how he had banned them from coming to the house. I suggested that this might be counter productive and he scoffed and said “What do you know about it?!” My reply was “I’ve never had syphilis either but I’ve read about the symptoms!” and then left the staff room as break was over. Other colleagues said he hit the roof!!!

Still makes me laugh now, 13 years later.

I’ve had people suggest that “real” womanhood only comes with motherhood. That one really sets me off. Because they usually say pregnancy first, and I challenge on behalf of infertile adopters like a close friend who menopause’s aged 21.

Not a derail so much as worthy of its own thread for a full discussion because so many of us have been through this.

Yes - or the expectation that you are a high-flyer in your career. I've had a respectable but modest career so far; worked hard and made the best of the job roles that have come my way, but I am not cut out for the six-figure-salary type job, more a plodder than a visionary.

I can safely say my career played no part in my decision to remain childfree -if it were financially possible and allowed by my employer I'd jump at a year's sabbatical (for clarity, I know maternity leave isn't a sabbatical, I'm speaking purely of the career impact of being away from work for a year, for whatever reason, which would not bother me).

I swear one of these threads pop up every single week...would be easier to use the search bar.

I wonder why people choose to ask this on Mumsnet...the forum dedicated to mums...🙄

Maybe you should look at the sub forum you’re posting on.

Argos appreciate you probably saw this in active but you are in the all new Childfree Mumsnetters' topic 😂

Oh dear. If only you’d used the search bar. Or had a look at what sub forum you posted in.

"I wonder why people choose to ask this on Mumsnet...the forum dedicated to mums...🙄"

I swear this moronic comment pops up every week...it would be easier to use common sense.

I wonder why someone would post a stupid comment like this on a board for CHILDLESS MUMSNETTERS

So it's totally different to the usual question

So maybe instead of 🙄 & pointing people to the search bar you might want to actually check what forum you're on 🙄

I remember thinking as a child I woudn't have children.
This was because my mother was hospitalised for years with a severe psychiatric disorder when I was young, my father also had anxiety/depression/suicidal thoughts.
They were also both alcoholics.
I had the idea I may end up like them or my child might inherit their illnesses.

I never wanted them. I don't really like children, I didn't like them when I was one.

Ooh is Argos the first ‘this is MUMSnet!!!’ poster on this board? She should get a prize 😁

A lifesize cut out of Theresa May

I remember having thoughts about not wanting them as a very small child. Even then I could see the drudgery of it and didn't understand the appeal, but as I got older I assumed I woukd have to have them, as that's what everyone seemed to do. It felt like there was a prison sentence approaching and so I'd better do all of the fun stuff beforehand and then have a kid and accept that it was over.

Around mid 20s I realised that it was optional, and ended up later breaking-up with a long-term partner who wanted kids as I became more and more sure that I wasn't ever going to have them.

As time went on I also developed antinatalist "sympathies", I remember always thinking that the idea that we were all brought into existence against our will and then expected to get on with it to be kind of awful, but those thoughts really formalised over time.

Things like the climate crisis, rising cost of living, housing shortages, covid, etc all just strengthen my convictions that bringing new people into this world to inevitably suffer and then die isn't something I want to be responsible for having done. Not something I'd usually talk about in public, though, doesn't tend to go down well with parents.

It was a decision I made when I first left home, along with eat wholefoods, wear natural fibres, avoid plastics, don't drive just because you can. Even then it was clear to me that the planet didn't need any more human beings, and so I did my part.

I also didn't have the greatest parenting, and was determined not to pass any of that on. The longer I was away and able to be myself, the less this was a worry, and it faded within a few years.

By my mid to late twenties i was helping raise other people's children, and it was clear to me and others that I loved it, it came very naturally to me. So I rethought, and bolstered my original decision with 3 criteria. If I met any 2 of the 3, I might consider children after all. I didn't ever meet 2 of the criteria at the same time. So, resolve not tested, and no children of my own.

I've done a fair amount of parenting though, and you can hand me anything from a newborn to a teenager and I do just fine. It's like activating a different part of myself, if there's a need, I step into parent mode. I've had a chance to know the part of me that is a mother, and I feel very lucky in that.

I've also never had that possessive urge, the need to have children which are my own. I've never understood that, tbh, especially the preciousness of some parents, when they're not remotely interested in anyone else's children. How else to love any child, other than as your own? It's a universal thing, to me. I once said to a friend that I though the real 'earth mother/father' archetypes were people like me, who could shapeshift and parent any child.

I could feel a bit melancholy if I try. It might have been nice to spend more time being a Mum than I've been able to, and to now be surrounded by future generations. However I feel blessed by what I have had.

I still feel clear and happy with the decision I made. Ultimately I cleave to the planet first. Choosing not to have children is my expression of love and care for our beleaguered Earth. It's one of the things I'm most proud of.

If you’re happy to be involved in events where your friends with kids are attending, just make sure they know that, or at least one or two of the “planners” in your social circles. It’ll be fine - my experience is that you decline more invites than events you are excluded from.

I've found my friends who don't have children vital - they remind you of who you were before.

I never even thought about having children actively when I was in my 20s; rather I just assumed they might be in my future - I was having loads of fun. By the time I had hit 33 I was sick of douche-bag boyfriends and longed to meet a good man that would support me. I still didn’t really think about having kids. When I got with my husband, I was very happy. But then friends/people I knew started asking “are u having kids?” And I said “yeah someday” and they said “well you better get on with it because you’re mid-thirties now” and that’s when I started to think “oh shit! I’m not actually sure I want them!!” This back and forth thinking and ruminating carried on until my late thirties and in the end I went to see a counsellor and we worked together and I decided I didn’t want them.

I agree with others on the lack of ambition point. I’m a lawyer so people assume that I sacrificed kids to get where I am - I didn’t, I just didn’t want them then ended up in a medical trauma which means I can’t have them.

I also have a very boring life - I don’t have exciting wild hobbies like you’re expected to without kids. I just live a very quiet pottery kind of life and I’m happy that way.