When I knew I didn't want to have children

When I was 5 years old, I knew I didn't want to have children. I would

be pestered about it by older women, assuming that this was any girl's

dream, just like getting married should be her dream. I would defiantly

say "no, I have other things I want to do with my life" and didn't

understand why women didn't want to do other things than cook,

clean, change diapers and watch over kids. All I saw was drudgery

and work to raise them and a whole lot of heartache. My mind wanted

to paint, read, travel, do other things. I couldn't believe that other

women were buying into this way of life, which seemed to me a road of

suffering. 

It didn't help that I was living in a developing country at the time and I

heard stories about women being left with 5 babies to care for and not

a lot to feed them with. Yet there was this collective trance that a

woman naturally was to grow up to be a mother.  I just couldn't believe

this was all there was to my life. Why did I seem to care about things

other than everyone else?


Thankfully, the child-free movement has been growing and I've found

a place in this world of women's reproductive liberation and women

meeting their potential aside from motherhood. Now I'm not saying that

being a mother is a bad thing.  I would suggest that for a woman to be

fully free, she would need to feel she actively has chosen whether or

not she wants to have kids, separate from how she's been socialized.

If she can be an active, conscious, caring mother, than great! The

world will be a better place for it and she will be a happier woman.


What do you think? Please share your thoughts or story about when

you realized you didn't want to have kids on my Facebook page:

The Child-free Heart