WE ARE CHILDFREE

I always thought that one day I would have children. This is the normal way of life. I was raised that way… to get married and have children then, although my parents divorced when I was 8. I put a lot of pressure on myself about it.

After graduation, I was convinced that I would work for a few more years and then surely get married before 30 and have 2 children. But then everything turned out differently.

Today I can say I’m happy about it, but it was a bad time back then. I lived in a very toxic relationship and ended up struggling with depression. I realized that the world wasn’t working the way I imagined it would.

At the age of 26 I was alone and had to find my peace first. I succeeded and I fell in love again. Actually, I would now have had the opportunity to do everything as I originally wanted with family etc. But many things had changed in the meantime.

I wanted more from life, I wanted to discover the world and feel more about myself. For about 4 years I traveled a lot and discovered the world together with my boyfriend. I was very happy and I pushed the decision to have a family of my own further and further forward. But society, friends and family always put some pressure on: you are getting older … don’t you want children? It’s about time, you’re in your prime.

When I was in my early 30s, I had another crisis: a career and traveling or a family with children? At that point, I was unhappy with my job, stressed out and had the feeling that the way out was having children. Luckily I didn’t have any children back then.

After a long trip it happened: I fell in love with a colleague, from one second to the other my entire life changed. I broke up with my boyfriend and got pregnant unplanned. From the first day I knew that this was not my life that i wanted to live. After many discussions and long deliberations, we decided together to abort the child. We haven’t regretted it for a second. Since then I have known how I would feel with children and it has confirmed to me that I do not want that.

Every day confirms to me that I definitely don’t want to bring any children into this world. I wouldn’t be happy with it, my partner wouldn’t be, and neither would my children. It took some time to understand all of this. Today I am very happy about it. I still love to travel, discover the world and spend time with myself. There are so many things that are more important to me.