By Amber Ballweg
Why do people feel like they are owed this information? What are they hoping to hear? That I hate children? A heartbreaking story of how I tried to have children and am now living a life sadly devoid of them? That I had them and had to give them up at some point?
I have to imagine that most people who do not have children have reasons they do not feel compelled to share with the masses. The possible reasons are incredibly varied, and my own are multiple and make up a journey of discoveries through my adult life, including late-in-life discovery of my bisexuality and polyamorous identities.
As a college student and a newlywed, I was very careful about using protection. We could barely afford our own bills, let alone bringing a baby into the mix. At that stage, I was still checking boxes—college, marriage, work. As our lives and relationship moved into a more mature status, my reproductive health declined. I was having very heavy and long periods. After seeing a few different physicians for over a decade, I was diagnosed and treated for Polycystic Ovary Syndrome by a gynecologist. He gave me instructions to come back in six months if I was having problems getting pregnant.
I never went back. I’m still on the same treatment, fifteen years later, in perimenopause. However, as my cycle went back to normal after years of irregularity, I had been procrastinating getting pregnant. I realized I did not want to have children with my husband. I also had doubts about my own ability to parent. My not having children was also leading to weird, sometimes emotional, discussions about fostering and adoption with well-meaning people. People who were not going to be the ones living my life.
Life moves on. My friends, sister, and sister-in-law had children. I liked the idea of being an aunt, but I definitely was not missing out on having my own child. My marriage ended, and two of the things I’d gained from it was a need for control and minimalistic belongings after years of living in a near-hoarding situation. Visiting homes with children frequently created anxiety for me, and I was happy to go back to my less chaotic, childfree space when visits were over.
I went through a series of life changes in a short time, many involuntarily, that led me to moving to another state near my best friend and her family. Her family included five children and a foster child. Within two months of moving, they added a second foster child. A year later, they took in two more. Within the next year, all four foster children were permanently added to their family. My childfree self was now spending loads of time with so many children, ages baby to adult.
I consider my best friend to be a platonic poly partner. She and her family are incredibly important to me and who I am. I fill in taking kids to soccer practice or singing lessons when needed as well as providing general child care. Even before I had the language of adding that label to our relationship, the polyamorous/consensual non-monogamy community was always better at recognizing my need to treat her like a partner than the monogamous community did.
As things opened up after the pandemic in the U.S., I joined a Meetup group for Childfree Women. We go on walks, to brunch, visit breweries, etc. It offers me a chance to engage with other women in a social setting where children are not the major topic of conversation or even discussed at all. We talk about travel, work, hobbies, and pets. Almost all of us have pets. But we understand we all have made decisions to be where we are in our lives without children. Whether the routes involved all of the turns mine had or they were simpler or more complicated, I have never been asked the question of why am I childfree by any of the dozens of women I’ve met through this group. I have to imagine they are all just as exhausted by responding to the question as I am.
Why am I childfree? I’m not giving this story to near strangers. Am I happy being childfree? Simply, yes. I do not tend to dwell on the past and have few regrets. I cannot go back and change things, so I need to learn and move forward. I cannot say that if I had made a decision to have children that I would have also done the therapy and work that would be necessary for me to be a better mother than mine was to me. I may not have made decisions that would have brought me to where I am now, including recognizing my sexuality as bi+ and relationship orientation as solo polyamorous.
I am a very different person than I was before coming into my identities. I focus more of my time and energy on building and supporting my communities. I am more confident, which has been noted at work, when I advocate for LGBTQIA+ people. I speak out, making sure representation of the bi+ and polyamorous communities is given. As I tie my growth in these areas to creating space for myself, I believe having had children could have hampered this growth. Can I say that for certain? No. However, the life I live now would certainly not have as much space to do the things which make me feel fulfilled.
Amber Ballweg lives in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area and has two cats.