Having Kids is Not a Mandatory Stage of Your Life

Contrary to popular belief, no you do not have to have kids to complete your life.

I never gave much thought to having kids when I was growing up. I hated those stupid dolls that you could take care of as if it was your own baby. Who thought that was a good idea? Toymakers were already trying to shove that "have babies" mindset into little kid's faces, huh?

Boys get cool remote control cars and action figures. Girls get dolls that subconsciously tell them what they should do with their adult life, teaching them at a young age how to care for the eventual child society tells them they should have.

I'm here to tell you that society's unhealthy expectation for women to have babies is bullshit and should be abolished. Not all women are meant to be mothers. Normalize that.

My life, my decision

My kids have paws. I love my dogs far more than the idea of having my own child. It doesn't make me a terrible person to love dogs more than kids. That doesn't mean I go around being mean to kids. It just means that if you ask me to hold you baby I'm probably going to say "no thanks" and if a kid starts talking to me out of the blue or latches on to me, I'm going to be uncomfortable.

A nervous smile and dumb sounding laughter will be my outward response. My inward response will probably be various tones of screaming.

I think I decided in high school that I wasn't going to have kids. Things that involved children, like babysitting, never came easy for me. Sure I did it and tried my best, but I never grew to like it.

In fact, I'm pretty sure my aunt was annoyed with me about it when I was ten or eleven. She took me and her step-grandson, who was probably four, to an indoor pool. I loved swimming and just wanted to play, but apparently, she brought me to help her keep an eye on the kid. That hadn't occurred to me so I didn't really help with that and I remember overhearing her say something about how frustrated she was at having to watch the kid the whole time.

At ten years old I was still a kid too though. I hadn't yet started any babysitting so I'm not sure why she expected me to help with that.

The point is that I don't quite know how to deal with children, they make me uncomfortable, but for some reason, they tend to like me. I don't speak baby talk to them because, you know, they're just little people. They know what's going on. They can judge you. Maybe that's just another part of my social anxiety talking, but either way, talking to them normally seems to make them like me more.

Case in point, at my cousin's wedding my other cousin was a florist and setting up the flower decorations at the reception hall. Another cousin about my age and I were in charge of watching the florist cousin's two young kids. I think one was around four and the other around six. The four-year-old was acting fussy and crying and I asked if he wanted to see his mom, not in baby talk, and he nodded and took my hand. When I brought him to his mother, she told me she was very surprised to see him with me and holding my hand because he never did that with anyone other than her before. Apparently, he was afraid of people but took a liking to me for some reason.

I was fifteen at the time, I think after I had already been babysitting for neighbors for a couple of years, so maybe I was just getting used to interacting with kids. I still didn't like it though.

Things people say that annoy me

• You'll change your mind - Probably not.
• But having kids enriches your life! - Yours maybe…
• Well, I would have a baby/another baby - Then have a kid for me.
• Don't say things you'll regret later - I don't think I'll regret not having screaming kids around all the time.
• But there will be no one to take care of you when you get old - Yes I have thought of that, thanks.
• Then why did you get married? - Marriage isn't just for having babies anymore. This isn't the dark ages where we "need to procreate."
• But you'd be a great mother! - Probably, still doesn't mean I want to be one.
• Better get on it, you're only getting older - Thanks for the unneeded reminder.

The takeaway

I enjoy my freedom. I like being able to go anywhere whenever I want and not have to find a babysitter or figure out what to do with my kid. A couple of my friends have multiple kids and always have to plan way in advance if they want to get together with friends. I don't want to live like that.

Normalize the idea that women do not have to birth children in order to be complete. Normalize the idea that a family can be complete without kids.

If you're one of those people that gasp in abject horror when someone says they don't want kids, stop that nonsense. You don't know someone's circumstances. When you tell someone they should get to having kids soon, you might actually be bringing up a personal and sensitive issue. Maybe they tried to have kids and had three miscarriages.

Don't assume to know everything about a person just by looking at their appearance or their choices in life.

A family can absolutely be a dog and their human parents. Or any pet for that matter.

Let's normalize pets. Everyone should have a pet.

Oh, you're allergic? That's something I couldn't have known about you just by looking or by hearing about your decision to not have a pet. You're afraid of animals? That's something personal that not everyone wants to divulge.

Stay in your lane and let people live their lives the way they want. Not every woman is meant to be a mother and that's okay.