Reasons you’re childfree by choice?

[DownThePubWithStevieNicks]

For me, the main reason is I have never particularly had a maternal instinct. There are scores of secondary reasons backing up the main reason, including:

• Having partners who for various reasons (being useless, inflexible career) would not have been truly equal parents
• Really valuing my financial and physical freedom to live as I please, go where I want
• Hating thought of pregnancy and childbirth
• Liking sleep
• Worries about passing on familial MH problems and/or poor parenting
• Concerns about the state of the environment and national and global politics
• Fear that a child could be disabled and require lifelong care
• Not wanting to be a single parent in the 50-50 eventuality that relationship broke down.

I am at the very end of my fertile years now and have no regrets! I’m lucky in that I am rarely asked about having/wanting kids, and when I am ‘I never wanted them’ is always accepted.

Did you have other reasons I missed?

My parents didn't seem to like it much.

There are enough people already on this planet.

(Plus everything peeps have said upthread.)

I just never really wanted to have them. Now, when I see my friends spending time looking after grandkids I am so grateful that I didn't change my mind. I've nothing against kids, I just didn't want any myself. Animals are far more my thing.

I find it interesting how there's so much debate and hang wringing about why the birth rate is declining whereas when you ask childfree women our responses are remarkably similar.

I wonder if another factor is that many people used to have children in order to have someone (normally a daughter or daughter-in-law) take care of them when they're older. Now we can all see that there's no guarantee of that. In fact I'd much rather be childfree than have kids who stick me in a care home and barely visit.

Engrossed in a career and not with the right person at the right time

At some point:

Someone will demand to know what we’re doing on Mumsnet.
Someone will tell us how great it is to have kids.
Someone will warn us that we’ll change our mind and / or regret not having had kids.

Now that’s out of the way, I simply never wanted them. I couldn’t stand the idea of living with anyone else, I have a lifelong phobia of messy eating & whatever maternal instinct I have is completely focused on my cat.

I've been with my husband 20 years. We're 40 and 42. We've simply never wanted to go for it enough to bother.

I've always asked myself "Would I be willing to make a single compromise to have this experience that everyone else seems to want?" The answer is always a resounding 'no'.

I don't care about babies and children. I mean, I'm obviously always kind to them, they're just not an interest of mine.

Now we're in our early 40s, my husband and I are very financially comfortable, have interesting holidays, have a beautiful clean and tidy home that doesn't take a lot of work to keep on top of, have a great sex life, and both have the time and energy to maintain a fitness regime and eat really well.

We also get a lot of peace and quiet and rest. Not sleep - I'm a terrible sleeper - but rest. I can spend a whole Saturday dossing around on the sofa watching films after a busy week at work if I want to, and often think I'd burn out without that option.

My sister has a wonderful young teenage son and they have the most sweet relationship and he's really cool. So I of course understand that I'm missing out on that type of experience. But I know what sacrifices it took to get there, and my sister is now mid 40s with no career, no financial independence and no autonomy over her own life. It's not a choice that would have worked for me.

I just never had the inclination, and although everyone says it’s different when you have your own and maternal instinct would kick in, I didn’t want to risk it. When a child is there, you can’t send him or her back.

Plus none of it looks appealing - the crying, the tantrums, the sheer drudgery of it all, even when kids are happy they’re LOUD. I‘m glad I am at the end of my reproductive years.

I'm the eldest of 6 children the first three of us less than a year apart in age, then three more a couple of years later.

I loved the babies and enjoyed being the big sister in charge of them but by the time I left home at 16 I knew I'd never choose to have a child of my own. Too much worry and responsibility, and there was so many more things I wanted to experience.

In my 60's now and have no regrets, I was able to spend my "childbearing years" doing a job I loved, traveling, sports and generally having a wonderful time revelling in the freedom.

I knew from teenage years I didn't want children as I was scared of birth but more importantly I didn't want a 3rd generation of fucked up parenting... .I was so messed up I didn't want to continue the cycle.

Then I met partner..great man who i felt ..OK, he wants kids and he would be the strength if there was a deficit in my ability.

We tried naturally, looked at assisted route but intervention freaked me out. I basically still didn't want kids enough to go that way.

40 for me was cut off and there we go. Generally no regrets...sometimes a minor 'what if' but I'm glad my feelings as a teenager are still my over riding feelings. I'm too in my head and emotionally fucked to deal with someone else's needs.

Does it count if it’s partly by choice?

Apologies for length.

I have fertility problems but I decided not to try to do anything about them because I wasn’t sure if I wanted children. I used to think that I wanted them but later I began to lean towards not wanting them.

One genuine reason is the environment and that the planet is a mess and I don’t want to produce another person which is about the worst thing you can do in terms of climate change and neither do I want to leave them to deal with a dying world.

2. I need my space. We all do but I’m autistic, I have other disabilities too and some mental health problems and space is so essential to me. My dogs have been bothering me this morning and though I adore my dogs and they get plenty of love and attention, I’m going slightly bananas because they won’t give me a break. Thankfully they just chased each other up the stairs. I would never get enough space with a kid around. I need so much of it and their noises and all that touching would trigger sensory overload.

3. My Father is autistic and I’m autistic and there’s a very high chance that any child of mine would also be autistic which would be fine up to a point but I’d worry that I’d find myself with a child with severe needs and I couldn’t cope with that. I’d rather have no child. I’ve been a carer 3x now and it almost broke me. I’d do it again for people who are already here if necessary but I don’t want to deliberately produce another person to take care of. Parenting alone is difficult enough without throwing being a carer into the mix.
   And no, in spite of what people say, you don’t always cope. I’ve seen friends utterly broken by caring for their severely disabled child.

4. Too much uncertainty. See above. Also I live in fear of producing a person who would be actively detrimental to the world e.g Someone who abuses their spouse for example. Also I am a very quiet person, what if I produce a loud child and they’re constantly triggering my sensory issues or they’re a bully or they’re miserable and share my depression, anxiety and other mental health issues?

5. I don’t want a partner. Sure I could go it alone and I’d prefer to but I’d feel guilty about not giving them a Father and then of course it’s much harder to get a break.

6. I like the spontaneity of child free life. I like being able to get up and go somewhere last minute or alternately not worry about staying mostly indoors for a week because I couldn’t do that with a child. It wouldn’t be fair on them.

7. I don’t have the patience for children. I am far from a patient person and while I sometimes think that parenting looks appealing when I’m out in public, the second a kid starts screaming or tantrum, I think to myself I’d have to leave them in the carpark and only return when they were 21.

8. The noise and other kids. I’m not fond of children generally and they come with other children because it’s only fair that they have parties and friends over but I’d hate it.

9. The anxiety over something happening to them. I already have a diagnosis of anxiety and worry near constantly about family members. I cannot imagine the level of fear you must have that something terrible would happen to your child. I think that I’d go insane with all the what ifs and worry about them being unhappy.

Overall although I think that I might have enjoyed parenting if I could guarantee a single quiet, bookish, generally compliant child(As I was) there is no such guarantee that my child would be anything like that. And I don’t think that I’m sorry that I didn’t become a parent for the above reasons and others. I look forward to being able to live life the way that I want to with minimal compromise. I sometimes feel bad about not giving my Mother a grandchild as I’m her only one but she says that she’s genuinely not bothered either way.

It counts, @AllPlayedOut.

I was glad my brother had kids because I know my mum loved being Grandma.

Thanks.

I don’t think that my Mother is the doting Grandmother type. Don’t get me wrong, she’s very loving and caring, I couldn’t have had a better Mother, and would enjoy seeing them now and again or taking them out occasionally but she wouldn’t want to do regular childcare(I don’t blame her) or have them constantly visiting.

It’s interesting when I talk to relatives and my Mother’s friends who are Grandparents. Yes they love their Grandchildren and enjoy seeing them but they’re also even happier to see them go and find them and the expectations that they’ll provide regular childcare, overwhelming.

I have just never wanted them.

To quote Sarah Millican - "I can't have kids. I don't like them".

Also I'd be stuck with exh for the rest of my life if I did have them so I'm very pleased with my choice!

I'm the same I just never had the urge. I knew from a really young age I wouldn't have any. I was open to the possibility that as I got older I might change my mind but never happened. Also I have pcos so never had to deal with any accidents and making a choice whether or not to keep a pregnancy. I met my husband when I was 35 it's the only time I think I might have considered it if it had been really important to him. But he and his ex wife had struggled with infertility foelrover ten years and he'd made his peace with being child free. I'm 48 now never had the urge and no regrets. Have some great relationships with friends kids and my nephews but still feel the same.

I will add I don't think I give off a maternal vibe I've only ever had one person (my mum) ask me why I didn't have children and that was more in curiosity than any judgement.

For the same reasons in the OP. Although I had a mostly happy childhood, I longed to be an adult, and I don’t want to put someone through being a child, and possibly having the same issues that I did. I also agree that the world is a hostile place to bring children into, and the last thing the world needs is more population.

I do like being with children though, as long as I can hand them back!

Same. I've barely ever been asked about it, and certainly not for YEARS now. I've never felt any societal pressure at all.
My own parents have never even asked!

I was too heavily involved in raising my siblings because my parents were both addicts and useless parents. I did the demo version of parenting and there’s absolutely nothing that could compel me to do the adult version.

I get asked about it a lot because people tend to assume I’d be great at it and won’t accept that some women don’t absolutely love children.

I don't like children, and parenthood looks like a tedious, life-ruining chore.

Parenting just looks fucking awful. Boring, monotonous and constantly being at somebody else’s beck and call. I prefer to have freedom.

• Hating thought of pregnancy and childbirth

This. And all gubbins that parents have to cart around with a baby.

I love babies and think they're adorable but once they hit the toddler years I find them unbearably irritating - crying over nothing, tantrums, screaming, hitting. I appreciate that these are normal child behaviours but it just doesn't appeal to me in the slightest.

I remember seeing a very graphic child birth video at school, when I was about 14. That probably put the tin hat on it