WE ARE CHILDFREE

I grew up in the country (Kyrgyzstan) where it is taught to girls that they have to be mothers in the future. I’ve never really considered that I have a choice.

I was always told that I should take care of my health because in the future I would be a mother. When I was 16 in one of the biology classes the teacher showed the girls (only the girls), a video about pregnancy – how beautiful it was, etc.

My classmates were in tears and they really loved the video, except me, I thought it was not cute at all. I didn’t like the idea of it. But I just let it pass and never really thought about should I have children or not.

Years passed and I moved to live in another country. Here I realised that the majority of people my age don’t even think about having a family or children.

In my country, 22 was the age to get married and have children. But here in Argentina people said that I was still a baby.

Well, at the age of 23 I fell in love and at 24 I got married. It was by choice and wonderful. But we both were religious, we went to a Baptist church and there it was considered that somebody who is married should have children.

So one year later I started to feel bad, because I realised that I don’t want to have children. I told my husband about it and he said : “Why do you think that you have to be a mother? You always have a choice.”

Well since that moment I decided that I don’t want to have kids. Fortunately my husband doesn’t want to have them either.