Feedback welcome

[Othersideofthechannel]

My childless by choice friend has just had this published. She's interested in feedback from parents: here

Anna!

How exciting!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

whoops! meant to write . although you might as well get stuck into the while you still can!

keep this thread watched, there will be a pregnancy announcement in the fish household before the year is out

maybe before the month is out?

I very much believe that lots of people are happily childless by choice - and I remember the day when I realised that it would in no way be the end of the world if I didn't have children and how many of my worries (about money, living in a tiny space etc) would be solved if I didn't have them. Big relief as I'd been having lots of sleepless nights about the biological clock thing.

In some ways, for me, this realisation made me take the decision to try to conceive as it was a choice then and not me blindly following my biology. It still felt very odd and scary the first time we had sex without contraception though...

I was lucky to get pregnant very quickly but I had my doubts (again, the money thing) throughout my pregnancy and I still couldn't quite imagine the baby and actually being a mother - so alien!

Now I have my gorgeous ds and dh & I spend literally hours gazing at him in wonder and congratulating ourselves on creating this marvellous little thing. We are so skint but we will get by and the trade off is so worth it. Money could not buy the joy I feel - even when he's got a cold and isn't sleeping for more than 2 hours at a stretch like now.

I believe that I would have hugely regretted remaining childless if I'd let my worries (my head) make the decision for me. I read your letter in the Guardian on Saturday and I'm afraid my impression was that you might feel the same.

As usual, I spent so long bloody typing that the thread moved waaaaaay beyond me!

Just wanted to say that I will be putting this on the fridge for those hard days when I wish for solitude and quiet - just to remind me that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.

I have been looking at a few message boards on childless by choice sites (google and a load come up)

I have to say, and it might just be a perspective, they in the main sound bitter and slightly twisted .. rather than being a celebration of a positive choice it is a woe-is-me I stick out in society and aren't children just horrible and who do parents think they are daring to let their child breathe the same air as me

maybe the internet just attracts the extremists .. but so far I haven't found a group that I'd be proud to belong to ...

I've seen a few blogs like that, Twiglett.

I want to post "OK, if you're happy with your choice, that's lovely. But do you need to sound so miserable about it?!" Some of them are really twisted loathe the world rants.

TOTALLY unlike what AnnaFish has written, I hasten to add, which was a lovely article - I mean it!

Anna Fish - I can completely understand anyone's reasons for not wanting children and yours (as posted later by Othersideofthechannnel) make sense - deciding to have children is a huge choice, that for some may seem too overwhelming to make (I wonder how many more would end up childless if the decision wasn't taken out of their hands by an accidental pregnancy?)...however, what really stikes me about what you've written in your Guardian letter, is that you sound like you'd be a great mum....your ideas of things that you'd do with you child, your sensitivity and perceptiveness make me feel that were you ever to have a child, they would have a very loving, wonderful parent in you, even if, like you guess at in your letter, some days are awful and hard work. Brilliant writing. Hope you're happy childless or not. x

oh what a nice thing to say, ellaroo. and i'm inclined to agree with you, you know.
also re the supermarkets... i go off dd in supermarkets myself, they're horrible places for children. hot and cold, noisy, they can't touch anything... solution? shop local, go to the farmers market, get shopping delivered, get a veggie box... do whatever you can to avoid supermarkets and your own blood pressure will be lowered as a result.

She would make a great mum! She's so kind and creative.

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