By VeronicaOfOsea
When I was 18, I was told that I was too young to know that I didn’t really want children, that I would have just to wait for the right person to come along. The argument didn’t change during my twenties just as my opinion didn’t. As soon as I turned 30, the argument stayed the same, but added the twist of my age and that “my time was running out.” The angry feminist in me gloated when people gasped in shock when I said that having children wasn’t for me, that the idea sounded confining to me. I never really got along well with other children when I was a child myself and, having grown up under the influence of a very toxic and neglecting mother, I couldn’t imagine myself having any maternal instincts.
But in some way the people who told me that my opinion would change were right because when I met the right person, I could imagine having children. But as Murphy’s Law goes, at this point I had suffered a horrible miscarriage due to a domestic violence incident years prior, and I had gotten diagnosed with endometriosis. None the wiser, we tried, and I got pregnant last year. It was crushing when I lost the first child I ever genuinely wanted through an accident when I was 18 weeks pregnant. To be honest, I’m still grieving, and for the first time being childfree felt like being childless.
A few weeks ago, I was diagnosed with stage 1 cervical cancer, and one of my first questions was how the treatment would affect my reproductive abilities. It’s not impossible, but as of right now we’re getting accustomed to the idea of a life without children. Of course, it’s not easy to say goodbye to an idea which had started to sound good, but isn’t it what I had always wanted? And yet there are some moments where the sadness rears its head and asks, “What if?”
Even though my health issues make the term “childless” seem more appropriate, I love to think of myself as being childfree. I’d rather endure the arguments of the parenting bubble that being childfree is egoistic, that I might end up alone and what not than to tell them all the reasons why I can’t and don’t want, to be met with pity or advice I don’t want to hear.
I have to admit that some of the reasons why I’m childfree have changed: some wore off in terms of significance, others have increased or have been recently added, especially when it comes to economic and political developments. And with the increasing number of friends and acquaintances who decided to have children, I saw more what disparities parenting—especially motherhood— comes with. With the rise of antifeminist rhetoric, policies, and laws, I find it truly hypocritical when men like American football player Harrison Butker speak of being a “wife, homemaker and mother” as the highest vocation for a woman when in reality the life of a stay-at-home wife and mother is one of the biggest poverty risks for women. I resent the idea that having children is some kind of “natural duty” for me as a woman and that something is wrong with me for not having heard that calling all my life. And weirdly enough, it’s only us women who are being asked why we don’t have children yet or why we don’t want them at all. Believe me, it crashes quite every social gathering if you start asking every man in his thirties why he isn’t a father yet. I know, it’s petty, but sometimes I get so fed up with having to defend and explain my decision that I crave to make them feel the same pressure.
At the end of the day, I live a pleasant life without children of my own. I’m extremely fortunate to have an incredibly supportive partner, two amazing cats, nieces and nephews to occasionally take care of, and that we can travel as long as our work schedules allow it. As I’m concluding this piece, I asked myself how I feel and the answer is: I feel free. Being childfree is freedom for me, and it’s the right choice for me.
VeronicaOfOsea (she/they) is a bisexual woman living in Northern Germany in a monogamous bi relationship and battling the clichés against m/f presenting bi couples.