I am so happy not having kids

[ForestGoblin]

Had an existential wobble but now I'm of an age where the window is closing I'm feeling real alignments with this life.

No life is perfect but I really feel it's a blessing to have had this choice. Thank GOD for living now, when we can really live as our authentic selves.

High five to everyone who is living the old Polonius lifestyle, whatever that looks like for them.

No broodiness here ever. I can see they give my friends great joy but have no idea why. I'm 58 now and am glad every day that I don't have children.

No broodiness here ever. On the way to the shops I exchanged waves with a toddler sitting outside the coffee shop with her dad, and that's about the level of interaction I can manage with children. Hand on heart I can say that in the last 50 years I've probably spent 10 minutes wondering what sort of mother I'd have made, but not regretting at all that I never got to find out.

I'm 49 and experienced broodiness with my ex husband for about a year or so in my late 20's. Thankfully - because he was an abusive twat - he was infertile and I suffer from PCOS so we were told we'd need IVF. That put us off so we half heartedly looked into adoption, but luckily they saw how unbelievably unsuitable we'd be. So we stayed childfree and split up a year or so later anyway.

I look back on that time now and it's like it was happening to someone else. I don't think I wanted kids at all, just felt it was the thing to do.

I was broody when DH and I got married. It was still considered weird and/or selfish not to want them back then, so I think social conditioning was playing its part too. We did the whole IVF thing and I’m relieved it didn’t work now - I’ve come to realise I’m a noise hating introvert who needs a lot of me time!

There's a great sense of liberation when you come to terms with your personality and what it needs and planning your life to accommodate them, isn't there?

'There's a great sense of liberation when you come to terms with your personality and what it needs and planning your life to accommodate them, isn't there?

YES! And you let go of the 'shoulds' and get much more comfortable with who you actually are and what you actually need

Abso,utely. And in the realisation of the role social conditioning plays.

I’ve never felt broody; I had a brief period in my life where I was in a relationship where I liked the idea of being a family unit but I’ve never felt broody for one minute. I spent a lot of my 30s worrying that it would kick in and I’d have “the baby hunger” as a friend described it, and that it would be too late, but thankfully that never happened. I do actually feel really glad that I’ve never wanted children.

I had a friend who was also adamant that she didn’t want children, I can remember talking about it when we were in our 20s. However, she went on to have three - not sure why, whether it was that her hormones kicked in or it just seemed like a good idea - but she constantly seems exhausted and unhappy. I genuinely feel very sorry for her, and I see the bullet I dodged.

What a nice surprise to stumble across this board. It’s been placed in an odd section, but glad to see it’s been created.

I spent yesterday reading the thread that requested this site. I would have added my support, but TBH I’m kind of glad I missed it. Although I’ve had my share of unwelcome comments over the years irl, it was really unpleasant seeing some of the vitriol laid out in black and white. Thank you to everyone who rationally pushed back.

I’m in my fifties and am childfree by choice. I have always been certain I didn’t want children, not even a hint of feeling broody at any point in my life. I have, on the odd occasion, felt a twinge along the lines of there’s no one after me who can continue to hold the stories of my ancestors and that does feel a bit sad. But that’s it with regards to feeling any “regret”.

I don’t hate children - it winds me up no end when that sentiment gets casually thrown around. I just don’t have any real interest in them and definitely not for me raising them. I am self-aware enough to know that I wouldn’t have the patience for them, though this wasn’t why I didn’t want them. The “why” can be hard for some people to understand. I’ve never wanted or had a desire to ski or ride a motorbike, I never think about those things, it just is!

In summary, I’m definitely happy that I don’t have children and it’s great to have found this board.

'In summary, I’m definitely happy that I don’t have children and it’s great to have found this board'

I'm glad you found us too! Welcome 😁

Thanks. One thing that’s making me smile is my brain’s now automatic reaction to how I read CF in my head - the first few times I was thinking “how rude” 🤣

I find it sad that people assume if I'm child free by choice, that means I hate kids. Nothing could be further from the truth. I like them in the same way I like ice cream. Sometimes I'm in the mood, sometimes I'm not. I believe a child deserves more than an ambivalent parent. I had one of those and I never knew if she loved me. Dad did, but Mum....she died with me still feeling that I'd always fallen short somehow.

Why would I risk a child of mine going through the same?

Welcome to the board, @Furries! Happy cat servant owner here, too.

Good points. I know I would not have made a good parent, I haven't the patience, haven't any interest in talking to children and I cannot stand noise. Why inflict that on an infant when there's no saying I would even feel any love for them to balance it?

I don't think I've ever honestly felt broody for a child. For a puppy or a kitten-or a raccoon-yes. Babies? No.

I think I tried to force myself to feel broody recently. Everyone around me really wanted me to have kids, and to feel broody so much that I even started to convince myself that it was the right choice for me when I knew that it wasn't. It ended up being a trap-and once I jumped down the rabbit hole, it was hard to climb back out.

I remember just feeling dread at the prospect of having a child-and knowing all the things I would have to give up. I remember lying on my bed, staring at a pile of unread books (reading is my comfort zone) and thinking, "If you have a kid, you can kiss goodbye to those books. You'll never get a chance to read them then." I remember feeling distinctly sad about that and having to convince myself that I was giving them up for something so much more valuable. I quickly realised that if the prospect of losing time for reading was enough to dissuade me-my urge to have children must have been non-existent 😂

I hear a lot of people say things like "Your life doesn't change that much after kids," or "you can still do the same things as you did with kids," and I just don't see it. Not one bit. I've seen how much having a child has shaken up my brother's and his fiancé's life (and they adore their son) and how much it has changed in less than a year-and I don't see how people can say that life can remain the same. Surely not if you're doing it right? If you're half-arsing parenting, maybe, but why do it in that case?

I wouldn't want to have a child knowing I couldn't or wouldn't give it all of me and I know that I couldn't. It wouldn't be fair to the child. I also see a lot of magical thinking that goes on in these types of conversations-where a woman gets pregnant in less than ideal circumstances and people just say it'll all work itself out. Or she's trying to get pregnant in less than ideal circumstances-and people say the same thing. Well, what if it doesn't magically work itself out?

Also the PP that mentioned that women having children with less than favourable men-and posters always asking "Well, why did you pick him to have a kid with?" Absolutely bang on. Because women don't have a wealth of time to find a partner and have kids and because they're constantly pressured to get a move on-is it any wonder when women just take what they can get? When you're fed the idea from young that your sole purpose in life is to be a mother, you've got a "expiration date" and if you fail to meet it you're a "failure as a woman" it's really not surprising so many women fall into the trap of getting into and staying in sucky relationships just to have the child.

I also see a lot of magical thinking that goes on in these types of conversations-where a woman gets pregnant in less than ideal circumstances and people just say it'll all work itself out. Or she's trying to get pregnant in less than ideal circumstances-and people say the same thing. Well, what if it doesn't magically work itself out?

I used to get the magical thinking a lot when people were asking me why I didn't have/want children and I'd say something along the lines of I don't really like them (didn't even when I was one) and I couldn't see myself as a mother. I always got 'well, it's different when they're your own,' and 'you love them regardless,' and 'well, you say that now, but just wait till you give birth'; but I never got an answer to 'but what if I DON'T love them regardless? what if despite them being my own and having given birth I still don't like them?' there seemed to be this thinking that being a mother I'd be sprinkled with a magic fairy dust that would erase any previous doubts and I'd be delighted to be a parent.

No-one would ever admit that the inconvenient truth that some children were neglected, abused and killed* by those people who were supposed to love them proved their argument had gaping holes and that actually, my stance that I'd be pretty stupid making an irrevocable biological decision based on what I MIGHT feel after the event was a reasonable one. All they did was trot out the platitudes.

I get it. If everyone thought like me no-one would have children, but it just wasn't a leap that I was prepared to make and probably bitterly regret.

*Pretty certain that would have been DB if we hadn't been living with DGM at the time he was born. He was a very difficult baby, screamed all the time, hardly slept and there were times when DGM bodily took him away from DM when she was at the end of her tether.

I have, on the odd occasion, felt a twinge along the lines of there’s no one after me who can continue to hold the stories of my ancestors and that does feel a bit sad. But that’s it with regards to feeling any “regret”

I'm just wondering who's going to have all those family photos I inherited from DM 😖. Nephew might but he's likely to be childfree as well.

I wouldn't want to have a child knowing I couldn't or wouldn't give it all of me and I know that I couldn't. It wouldn't be fair to the child. I also see a lot of magical thinking that goes on in these types of conversations-where a woman gets pregnant in less than ideal circumstances and people just say it'll all work itself out. Or she's trying to get pregnant in less than ideal circumstances-and people say the same thing. Well, what if it doesn't magically work itself out?

you see it trotted out on here over again that “you never regret having a child” even though there is a wealth of evidence on here to the contrary. It’s delusional thinking.

And the victims of that lie are the children mainly

Yes, my mum has got stacks of old photos, feels such a shame that they’re not going to be relevant to anyone. There’s one album which I know what I’ll aim to do with it. It was my grandfather’s who was in the RAF. He’s handwritten dates, names, places under many of the photos - some fascinating shots from around 1938 in places such as Baghdad, Tripoli, Italy, etc.

I feel sad that no one will appreciate my many photos of my awesome cats and dog 🤣

Museums might love that. Especially local to him if they have exhibition from that era😱

'I'm just wondering who's going to have all those family photos I inherited from DM 😖. Nephew might but he's likely to be childfree as well.'

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain
They'll probably disintegrate by then anyway, mine aren't even in albums in the loft! They'll probably be damp by the time dcs see them in their adulthood! At least theirs are digital, but even then there's that bloody many!

If any of you change your mind you can have my dc, they're bouncing off the walls today 😂 I say this on 4 hours sleep from the youngest being up most of the night 😴

I remember replying to someone on MN insisting that it’s irrational to be CF because nobody regrets having a kid with “my mum did - she told me many times”. They replied “well you’ll know exactly what not to do when you have yours ☺️” and I just wanted to scream.

I honestly think for some people there’s no ability to see beyond their own nose. It’s like they’re programmed to always return to “must recommend have babies”.

There's pretty consistent data across high and middle income countries that 8-10% of parents regret parenthood, in the sense of saying they wouldn't become parents, if they could have their time again.

They'll probably disintegrate by then anyway, mine aren't even in albums in the loft! They'll probably be damp by the time dcs see them in their adulthood! At least theirs are digital, but even then there's that bloody many!

Mine are in one of those plastic storage boxes. They go back to when DM was a child in India and was in the army in the Far East and most of them haven't anything on the back about where these places are or who these people are. Plus loads from my visits to Oz when I can't even recall what the places are. I've been through once and binned a load, need to steel myself to do another pass.