This is what we childfree folks hear all the time but studies and anecdotal evidence, including my original research for the Childless by Choice Project, tells a different story.
Like the experience of this over-40 couple living in Canada, where the majority of married couples live in "child-free" households. Here is what Barbara Fletcher, a happily-married childfree woman, writing for YZ, had to say:
It’s a tough thing to say out loud: I’m a happy non-mom. I grew up in an era where life’s end goal was to find wedded bliss and have a family, and an awkward procreation question can still surface when meeting new people at parties. Being a non-mom can feel peculiar when 99 percent of your friends are parents — and really great ones: the kind of attentive, loving moms and dads who pour all of their energy into making their children’s lives enriched and, well, pretty damned amazing.
I suspect that I’m the kind of person that married parents might not want to hear about: married, on the other side of 40, childless and happy . Not happy because I am childless, but happy in my childless life.
Being happy is largely a choice we make as we make conscious decisions about what we do or think. Happiness is not conditional on the number of children you bring into the world.
Unless you make it so...
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4 comments:
Absolutely! Couldn't agree more. I'm 47 this year, and have NEVER regretted choosing not to breed ;-)
Sharing stories "beyond 40" is so important for young women who don't want kids but hear about future regrets, and this makes them wonder, and sometimes they second guess their own instincts. Hearing from those who have made it down the road already and look back without regret helps them to envision their own future.
In a moment of serendipity, I have 1 of those word-a-day calendars and yesterday's word was "fletcher" which means "a maker of arrows." One might think of Cupid's arrow or Robin Hood's arrow--out to help the poor. With this post, I'd like to envision your arrow as words of wisdom shot into the world, in an effort to enlighten.
Good for you! I'm 57 and I gave up on waiting to feeling any pains of regret a long time ago. Thrilled to be child-free.
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