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?

Loud and smelly when babies.
Annoying and energetic when small.
Constant work and entertaining until teens.
Think they know it all and argumentative until uni.
Pregnancy scares, drugs, alcohol etc until marriage.
Divorces, stress, stupid decisions until old.
Waiting for you to due to get your stuff from then on.

No thanks.

It's that, or holidays, and absolute freedom for myself.

*die

Nearly all of the above.

Also see how it changes couples' relationships. Being childless means people with kids tell you the truth rather than others with kids for fear of being judged for saying it. Many also say it has ruined their relationship to an extent even though they love their kids.

Also what if you have a kid/s you secretly dislike and prefer your nephews or nieces?

I'm grateful for my freedom tbh.

I do like babies. I love toddlers, like children up to about 10 or so. I was engaged very young to a man who wanted 4 children, and if we’d stayed together, I would have no doubt have had a couple with him. But we split up and I married someone who was adamant he didn’t want children. 30 years later I’m perfectly happy with the decision not to have any, never felt the urge to. I borrow other people children and grand children these days which is enough for me.

Never had a particular urge and was actively frightened of giving birth. During my marriage, there was no push to procreate from my ex. Subsequently my partners all had vasectomies. Currently facing the prospect of DP’s child having a family. The prospect does not appeal. I have no idea what to do with small (or big) children and would much prefer they had animals instead.

It’s very interesting to read everyone’s reasons.

I have to admit that I still struggle with it sometimes, and I can find it very painful when friends have babies but I’m not sorry that I didn’t pursue fertility treatment, and I think I’d feel the pain much more if I had and it didn’t work but I am sorry that I have fertility issues and that I didn’t really have a choice in that respect(If that makes sense, probably not.)

Good points about how horrendous pregnancy and birth are. It seems so cruel that women have to go through so much to produce a baby.

This. ⬆️

Same here too. I'm sure my DF in particular would have loved grandchildren, but he never once mentioned it. I can't recall anyone ever asking me if I was going to have kids.

It ultimately boiled down to:
I can't be arsed.

Still working through a lot of childhood trauma in my late thirties
Don't think I'd be any good at it
Can't afford it!
Feel fine about not having kids so don't see it as anything to worry about

I don't feel that I should have to give reasons, because it feeds the narrative that there is something "odd" about choosing to be childfree.
Let's face it, nobody asks a parent why they chose to have a child, do they?

In actual fact, nobody should have to justify their reasons either way.

I think people who have chosen to not have children are people whose logical side of their brain has won out over their emotional side.

Personally it's the freedom ' and even if I had them' the hours and hours invested and the hope they become responsible adults and with the world as it is ' I've not been fussed having them' plus if I was too have them I'd want to give them a good upbringing and have funds Available to give them as best as possible '

Absolutely. Being a grandparent doesn't look at all rewarding to me. I have friends whose lives seem to be governed by the need to be on tap childcare.

I never wanted children. I'm quite fond of my younger friends ' children but I only see them for short periods. I did wonder whether I might feel differently when my contempories started to have grandchildren, but it's convinced me that my decision was right for me. They can't even go on holiday because they're at their daughter's beck and call all the time, and they have to support financially too. Not for me.

Exactly this.
I have felt extremely maternal at times. But I always managed to picture all of the other practicalities and think, 'nope'.

Because I am quite happy being the 'fun adult' occasionally but as for the rest of it?

for ever and a day? No thanks.

I love peace and quiet
Having money in the bank
But the biggest is i love my personal freedom.

That too eight

Yes absolutely fair point, and I’d probably give a particularly smart-arsed answer to anyone asking IRL. No obligation to share here!

What I say to other people: I like my life too much as it is.

As much as that's true, I also really don't like kids. 'But you must adore little nephew/neice/godchild'. Nope found every one of them irritating and slightly icky when they're in the snot phase. Obviously don't go round saying this...

Same. When I've had a fleeting hour or two over the years where I think it might be nice to have one child, I always play "Imagine the day...".
I think "OK, so I'm currently having my morning coffee in bed - what would change?",I"And now I'm taking the dog for a leisurely walk at 8am before I start work - what would change?" and so on.
It's always been very effective in shaking me out of it!

I think that's true in some cases, but not in all.

I've never experienced any sort of broodiness or reproductive urge, not even the slightest inclination to consider it. I'm not talking about libido, because that's always been perfectly healthy, and it's not the fact I can't get pregnant because I also know that is not the case, I've just never, even for a moment, ever had any inclination to procreate, so there was never any fight going on in my brain to begin with.

I knew when I was a child myself I would never have children, and I've met other adults who have said they felt the same, so it does still annoy me a little bit when adults say to children "oh you'll change your mind when you are older and meet the right person", because for some of us that is, and always was nonsense.

I couldn't bear any child to be like me.

Whenever I pass the school pick up, people standing in the cold making awkward small talk I feel relief.
Also I have anxiety (including health anxiety) so I would probably have ruined my child's life by worrying about it and not letting it move.

I simply never had any desire to do so. Nor even the slightest curiosity about what it would be like. I never had to actively choose not to have them in the same way I never had to choose not to get an exotic pet or become a nightclub promotor to pursue a career in the arts. It just was never a consideration.