Childfree Explained: What’s Wrong With Women Who Don’t Want Kids?

Society is freaking out: there are more and more women out there opting out of motherhood! The horror! Why would any woman do such a thing? Isn’t motherhood a woman’s main purpose in life?

Well… no.

It can be, but it doesn’t have to be.

As a woman who voluntarily opted out of having children, I can tell you why I did it, plus why more and more women chose to do it.

Of course, like most women who decided to stay child-free, I was told repeatedly that I am egotistical, that I’m denying my god-given purpose, or that I will regret it later.

You know, the usual platitudes.

I can’t say it bothered me much. I learned early that exercising free will generally angers people and those found defying nature’s call to reproduce are seen as aberrant and bizarre.

More than anything, it bored me. The same clichés repeated over and over again are mind-numbingly boring.

I always knew I wasn’t doing it out of selfishness, quite the contrary. I always knew I’d never ever regret it. And the god that I choose to believe in supports individuality and didn’t give all women the same purpose.

I didn’t do it because:

I come from a toxic dysfunctional family. I was afraid that no matter how much I try, I would never be able to prevent my child from being affected by my trauma.

I believe humans destroyed the earth beyond hope and we’ll see a climate collapse during our lifetimes.

These are the 2 main reasons. The following are secondary, but they still add up to my decision:

I’ve never felt the need or urge to have children and it’s not because I’m lacking maternal instinct. I feel very protective and nurturing towards anyone or anything in distress or treated unfairly.

I’m afraid of the whole pregnancy and giving birth ordeal.

People thought I would ‘get over this nonsense’. I knew I wouldn’t.

My reasons run deep and I made a point of cutting out of my life the people who don’t care enough to respect my choices.

I’m 42 now and I’ve never regretted it. I never felt I missed out on anything.

So far I’ve had a very rich life from a lot of other perspectives except the one I’m not interested in: motherhood.

I also didn’t have any enriching experiences in the field of bungee jumping, fighting crocodiles in swamps, or defusing bombs. I’m sure it can be very enriching and fulfilling, and maybe I’d be great at it. I just don’t want to do it.

And although I’ve expressed my opinions and choices loud and clear, the keepers of the status quo still insisted to pester me on the matter.

Until one day, I decided to be as rude as they were.

‘Mona, my daughter just had another baby. When do you think you’ll have one?’

‘When do you think you’ll keep your big nose out of my business?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I will not excuse you. You’re being rude. My uterus activity is as private as my sexual activity. It’s also directly correlated. I’ll never have one, so don’t ask me again.’

After you do this a few times, they only judge you from a distance.

But in case there are still some people who need further explanations as to why more and more women don’t have children, here’s a list of reasons and an in-depth analysis of the most threatening and confusing creature on earth: the woman who chooses to stay childfree.

1. Different priorities and a lot of choices.

Believe it or not, some women’s main goal in life is not to be mothers.

As society evolves, so do priorities, and in the past few years women have decided they’ve given childbearing a fair slot on their list of priorities. It’s time to try out careers from now on.

Maybe they would have given it a chance a few centuries back if only they would have had the opportunity to get out of the house and have other functions in society than wife and mother.

But they didn’t. Not until now.

And now that they do, they’re going for it. Natality worldwide is dropping at a steady pace, because when people have more than one choice, some will choose the non-traditional options.

Despite the commonly held belief that all women want to be mothers… their present choices are showing us that they don’t really.

Some do, and that’s great. And some don’t, and that’s great.

See the problem here? No, you don’t. You don’t see it because there isn’t one as long as we keep our noses out of people’s uteruses.

2. Climate change

Some women have chosen to not bring a child into a world they believe is ending. Whether it’s ending fast or slowly nobody knows, but climate change is at an all-time dangerous place and even the UN said it’s our final chance.

There are voices who think it’s already too late.

So what are women supposed to do? Ignore the warnings? Maybe you can do that when it comes to your own life, but bringing a baby into a world you’ve been warned is on the brink of collapse seems incredibly cruel to some people.

My friend Nancy has a 7-year-old girl.

I don’t talk to her about climate change on purpose, because I supposed it would be a painful subject for someone with a child.

Turns out, it’s not.

When the subject accidentally came up, Nancy waved it away without a shadow of a doubt:

‘It’s fine’, she said, ‘I’m sure scientists will come up with something.’

Some people find a way to look away from life’s harsh realities. Some don’t.

3. Financial reasons

Babies are expensive. I mean — one of the most expensive things you can do with your life.

And the way the world is going, with people not being able to afford a home, with food prices rising, and inflation exploding faster than diarrhea in a tropical climate, it’s only natural to say no to having children.

Sure, some of you might be thinking that things will work out. And that optimistic view on life is very commendable, but you know… sometimes things don’t work out.

Sometimes there is war, famine, home, and life loss, or utter poverty. It’s happened before.

And some women can’t live with the thought that they’d be subjecting their children to that.

4. Knowledge of what being a mom is really like

For a very long time, women had no idea what motherhood was truly like and the impact it can have on your life and health.

Since women’s diseases were not a priority for a male-dominated medical world, they just didn’t know. Women’s symptoms, both physical and mental were dismissed as the exaggerated blather of the excessively emotionally weaker sex.

So there weren’t a lot of scientific correlations made between women’s health and pregnancy-related issues. Just like nobody was talking about what an emotional toll becoming a mom takes on your life.

Take, for example, Lorraine. She always wanted to have a baby, but for a while, it just didn’t happen for her.

After a few rounds of IVF and a lot of praying, Lorraine fell pregnant and it was the happiest day of her life.

She couldn’t wait for her little baby boy to be born so she could hold him and love him.

And then… he was born. And Lorraine was devastated by what motherhood was really like.

She told me this story many times, with tears in her eyes:

‘I didn’t know it would be like this, nobody ever tells you. They’re always talking about how wonderful it will be and how much you’ll love your baby. But I didn’t. I was dying to have him but I didn’t love him. For the first 4 years of his life, I even hated him and hated myself for my feelings. He was always crying. No matter how much I held him and fed him and nurtured him… I was living in constant noise, constant pain, and severe depression. I hardly ever slept those first 4 years. The baby was nothing more than a lump of meat that was using me as a resource. I felt guilty and horrified at the same time. And no matter how much I love him now, I’d never ever go through this again.’

Her boy is almost a teenager now and Lorraine loves him dearly. She’s a wonderful mother and doesn’t regret her choice of having him.

But she does regret going into it uninformed, believing the general lies about how motherhood is all sunshine and roses and not having a well-established support system for those 4 tormenting first years of her boy’s life.

5. They don’t like kids

Hear ye, hear ye, the truth has been spoken! Some people don’t like kids (the horror). And some of these people are women. OMG, the monsters!

Why are kids revered as the one thing we should all adore?

There is no problem with not liking kids. Actually, there is a problem with everybody liking the same thing. It’s called indoctrination and most often than not it’s fake.

Women won’t tell you that they don’t like kids because they get so much backlash as if they just committed a capital sin.

No, some women don’t like kids, just like some don’t like the beach, or ice cream. Too noisy, too sandy, too cold, whatever the reason, they’re entitled to their own preferences, and your need to judge those preferences is fascist.

Let people be.

6. They’re with the wrong men

Maybe the men aren’t wrong, maybe they’re just the wrong men for those specific women, but having children is a big deal. And nobody wants to have them with the wrong person.

They might love the guy, and they might even marry the guy, but if they feel like he wouldn’t be a good father or a positive influence in their babies’ life, some women will opt out of procreating with that individual.

And I commend them for it. It takes a lot of self-control and maturity to say no to something you truly want to do so you wouldn’t hurt someone else. In this case, the baby that you’re bringing into the world.

7. They don’t want to ruin their bodies.

If you think that’s a selfish reason, keep in mind most of us haven’t signed up as organ donors, don’t give blood or do charity work regularly, so we’re all selfish.

A pregnancy will more often than not result in weight gain, a belly pooch that is almost impossible to get rid of without surgery, and 10 years of wrinkles added to your face.

If you imagine that’s not a problem for a lot of women, you’re wrong, It’s one of the most common things that mothers with young children talk about: ‘When will I get my figure back?’

A woman whose looks are very important to her will be terrified by the idea of losing them and honestly, if that’s how she feels, why give birth to a child that she will later resent?

Women don’t have children for a plethora of reasons. All of them safe and sound. What’s more, no woman needs to justify her reasons to people who are hell-bent on judging them anyway.

However, the trend is clear. More and more women are opting out. And that’s wonderful. Because when society finally gets used to women being responsible for their own choices, that means only the women who truly want to have a baby will have one.

And that’s the kind of mother all babies deserve: the kind who really wants them, who loves them unconditionally, who is prepared to take care of their needs.

Being a mom really is the most difficult job in the world. It’s not for everybody and a lot of women get it horribly wrong. Don’t be one of them. If you want to do this job make sure you are prepared for it.

Children deserve more than the world has given them so far.

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