Hey friends, some of you worry about my future emotions around the topic of not having kids. I’ve thought about this a lot! I definitely don’t want kids. And I think I’m going to be fine. Here’s a blog post to explain further, if you’re interested.
Why I don’t want kids
Two people in my extended family were raised by alcoholic parents. I noticed that as adults, they chose to be teetotal their entire lives (one is 98!) This despite the heavy drink culture we have in the UK and the strange comments one always gets if one is not drinking. I think they do this because they had to live through what this problem does to the children affected by it, and to the people closest to them, and let’s just say it was bad.
They are committed to *never* doing the same to their own families, and so they never, ever drink, even though they probably could, and they wouldn’t actually become alcoholic or do any of the things their parents did. Even though society pressures them to do it nearly every day, and after all what’s the harm? Aren’t they missing out on a key life experience? Nonetheless they simply refuse to have any part of it, because they’ve been permanently scarred.
I am the same. I was raised by neglectful parents, which badly affected me, continues to affect me and people close to me, and let’s just say it was bad. I am resolved to *never* make that mistake with my own kids. Having reviewed the literature, it’s apparently quite hard not to make the same mistakes that your parents made, especially when you’re under the kind of pressure that having kids puts on you, and so the only option for me is to not have them.
But even if that weren’t a factor, I am resolved to have no part of it. I want the risk of scarring my own kids to be zero, and the only way to achieve that is to not have them. Despite the pressure that society puts on me on a near daily basis to do it, to have the experience, otherwise I’ll be missing out, to explain exactly WHY I’ve made this RADICAL choice even though I’d probably be a good parent etc. etc. I simply strongly believe that the only option for me is to not have kids at all, because I’ve been permanently scarred by my own experiences.
There are also a bunch of other factors.
Other factors
Climate change is one (yeah, yeah eat me). It’s becuase I personally am scared for my “retirement years” because I believe we may be in for a very rough time due to climate change, even if we mostly avert it, and the worst part is that I’ll be old when it happens, and may die before my otherwise healthy full lifespan because of it. My kid will be decades beyond me when it’s time for them to be old and die and thus are more likely even than me to grow old in the after effects of it. I don’t want them to suffer from water shortages or looting or refugee crises or anything else, like I will.
When I thought about my future children, I wanted to be a youngish parent, because I enjoyed my parents being close in age to me, compared to some people I know whose parents were entering retirement age about when they left school at 18. Having old-ish parents when you’re a kid seems rubbish, and having infirm parents in your 20s sucks big time, so I resolved my maximum age to have kids would be 28, or not at all.
I used this resolution to run a science experiment on my self to figure out if women really do get more broody as they get older. I also wanted to see if placing my personal cutoff age much earlier than my reproductive cutoff age would have any effects.
I’ve definitely had some changes over time, but by far the biggest change is to be way more horny and want to have way more sex, but not so much with the cuddling babies. When I turned 28, then 29, I was no more mature or settled than at 18 or 19, and I knew then I would probably not have children in this life.
Why I’ll be ok
I’ve had ten years to reflect on this arbitrary, made by 15-year-old-Jess cutoff point. I didn’t want kids at 18, I didn’t want them at 28, and I don’t want them now at 38, even though in this last bracket I came to love kids dearly and enjoy interacting with them.
What I *do* want is to be in the lives of children, and be a neutral adult for them to relate to in ways that would have helped me very much when I was as a child. Having someone responsible to talk to, who they are very close to, who are NOT their parents is a very good thing for kids to have in my opinion, especially when a teenager growing to adulthood. I have a nephew and a goddaughter, and I hope to be around for all my other friends’ children when they come and maybe even be within a polyamorus co-parenting situation in the future. I figure there are not many people who want to parent other people’s children, but I do, so HMU.
I am also playing my part in parenting or re-parenting the adult people I meet in life, including and especially myself and my own parents. This takes effort and time.
Practically everyone is fucked up in this world, and many people need all the help they can get in this regard. I’ve already played a role in helping a few “adult children” as I like to call them grow and heal, and I will do this for many, many adults thanks to having the time available, because of not being a parent myself. This impact on others seems far greater than having my own one or two children.
During the ages of 28-38 I have been blissfully free of the baby mania that other women seem to go through, the tragic desperation of the people who want kids but for whatever reason it hasn’t worked out, and they are approaching the end of their repoductive window. To be able to not even think about it all, to have no emotions about the topic whatsoever, has been a true blessing, and I’m grateful to all the past me’s for living with integrity to myself on this issue (and giving me a decade to change my mind).
For all this time I have been actively thinking about how to fill my life with the same sorts of experiences that being a parent gives you, AND the sorts of experiences that being a parent prevents you from doing, and I’ve come up with some good options to try. I am quite certain that I’ve thought about it all far more than your average person does.
I’ve been careful to find friendships with other people who chose not to have kids who are older than me, and to ask them about their experiences. I’ve also considered projects and life goals that have the same kind of weight as having children would have, and fill my life with those.
Finally there’s plenty of side benefits to not having kids which I don’t even need to list, but having a fully intact vagina and clitoris for the rest of my days is chief among them.
Thank you
To sum up, thank you for your concern my dear, dear friends for checking, but I’m not having kids this time and I think I’m going to continue to be fine with it.
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