Embracing the childfree life

By Nina Steele 

The other day, I received a very positive and uplifting message from Maryanne Pope, the founder of pinkgazelle.com. One line in her message read and I quote: “I think your message of being grateful for what you do have and embracing the childfree life is only going to get more and more popular’’.

That got me thinking. I always refer to myself as childless, because that is the term I feel most comfortable with. For one thing, I didn’t choose not to have children and even though, I am now an advocate of the childfree life, I still don’t have a problem with the term childless.

I have found myself in a unique situation in that, I now realise that all along, I wanted children not because I had a deep longing for them, but simply because I was trying to fulfil what I saw as my duties as a human being and above all, as a woman. Just like many people I know, having children is something you automatically do once you get married. Very few people I know, ever ask themselves whether they truly want children. You just have them and hope that something in you will kick in and make you love and care for them in a way that will make them and yourself happy. Of course many parents succeed, while others fail.

I now feel so detached from motherhood that I sometimes wonder how it could have taken me 9 years to understand that mine would be a different path. I suppose another explanation could be that, because I have always connected with children and teenagers alike, I saw myself as a natural. I mean, how can you be so good with children and not want any of your own? Well now I can see how that is possible.

To be childfree is to know yourself well enough to understand that you can live a fulfilled and happy life without children. It is a complete acceptance of who you truly are as a person, as opposed to what society wants you to be. You also grasp without ambiguity that contribution to society is more than procreation alone. And of course being childfree, as I have witnessed first-hand, does not automatically mean that you dislike children.

And so, in the same way that I have embraced my new life as a childless person, I am now ok with being referred to as childfree.