WE ARE CHILDFREE

I’m a 41 year old Brazilian woman living in London. I moved here when I was 28, and at that time I still thought that kids would be on the way.

I was absolutely sure that the clock would tick when I reached 30. It had to, right? That’s what everyone kept saying. “You will want a baby. You’ll see. When you’re 30, you will feel the need, desperately.”

My 30s came, but the clock did not tick – or maybe it ticked the other way around. As more and more friends started their motherhood journeys, I was more and more certain that it wasn’t for me. But I had one major concern: my husband. What if he wanted kids? He didn’t seem bothered but I couldn’t be 100% sure. So I kept saying when people asked if we were going to have kids: “Maybe, we’ll see”. I was too afraid to say no.

One day I realised that if he wanted a kid, I would break up with him, that’s how sure I was about not being a mother. So I asked – the sooner, the better, right? And, to my relief, we were on the same page – turns out he wasn’t worried about having this conversation as I was, simply because no one kept asking him the question they asked me.

I feel immensely happy and fulfilled as part of this two-person family. There are times of loneliness, of not being on the same page as friends, of not being valued. But I would not step into motherhood because of that.

I am now at the point where younger women come to me to ask for advice and to ask about how is life with no kids. They are still suffering the same kind of pressure, they still hear the same “advice”: you will regret, you will be alone, motherhood is the only and true love that exists.

Now that I am on the other side, I can truly tell them, from lived experience, how amazing life is with no kids.