“Many young women who are struggling with the question of whether to have children fear having regrets. I have none.”
I’m 73. I decided to be “childfree” before it was even a word!
Now I’m my 70s, I can tell you that a movement affirming the decision not to have children would have been unimaginable when I was a young woman. I am grateful to have lived to see it.
My divorced parents both struggled with mental health issues and were unable to raise a child, so I lived with my grandmother. Because of those circumstances, I always felt different from other children. Perhaps that was one of the reasons that I was able to make different choices and follow a different path as I grew older.
Oddly enough, I don’t feel as much that I made a conscious choice not to have children as that I was determined not to get pregnant! I enjoyed the sexual freedom of the 1960s and 70s, but always used contraception.
I have had a satisfying professional career, and a life of creativity, adventure, and freedom, for which I am very grateful. I have no regrets about not having been a mother.
In the process of putting together these thoughts I’ve realised that I don’t recall having had many deep, substantive conversations with anyone about this issue. It isn’t because it feels taboo or uncomfortable, because I welcome talking about it. I think it’s just because it is a non-issue for me.
I’ve also realised that while I have friends who have children and grandchildren, my closest friendships are with women who do not. That has not been a conscious choice, it seems to have just evolved that way, through work, other friends, common interests, or neighbourhoods.
It seems that many young women who are struggling with the question of whether to have children fear having regrets. I have none and am more than happy to talk about that.
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