WE ARE CHILDFREE

I was about 14, talking to my mom and she said something along “You will get it when you have your own children”. I, without missing a beat, said “I will not have children”. I remember that it wasn’t in anger, it wasn’t to talk back to her, it was just simple, matter of fact, informative comment. She would of course say that I will change my mind. I remember even making a bet with her that if I don’t have children by 25 she will have to buy me a car (she never did :P).

I grew up in Poland where many of the girls from my school had children in their early 20s. The sign of success was having a corporate job, a car, a house, getting married and having kids. None of that was appealing to me. (It’s completely different now, I think that I was born in the wrong generation :P)

So I moved from Poland aged 23 and, after travelling for a few years, I ended up in Norway. Here I’ve met many people my age that still didn’t have children and I felt like a new person! We were meeting for dinners, travelling, generally having fun and for once in my life I felt like I fit in. What a great feeling.

Along the years children started popping up among the group of my friends and the culmination happened during the pandemic and now there is NO ONE left without a baby or being pregnant.

“Losing” friends one after another forced me to think again about my natural feeling of not wanting to have children. I spent a lot of time wondering if I am sure, like really, really sure, that my decision is the right decision for me.

Am I going to regret it? Will I end up lonely and bored? Will I end up in poverty and in sickness with no one to help me? – I DON’T KNOW

Do I feel excited about the things that being a parent entails?- NO

So even if for the sake of that child, my rational decision is not to create a child by a mother that is not going to be excited about what that child brought to her life. If I will be sad and lonely in the old age, at least I will know that I didn’t make that hypothetical child suffer.

Being childfree for me is simply choosing rationally what makes me happy and what makes me feel uncomfortable. My goal in life is to improve it step by step and I am sure that having a child would definitely not be an improvement for me.

Now the only thing that is missing in my life is friends and couple friends that think the same way. I am hoping to find it in this community :)