Ode to Freedom: I feel sorry for people with children

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Yes, it’s true: when I hear from parents who are chronically deprived of sleep and free time, suffer too often from their children’s viruses and are constantly covered in sticky food residue, I feel one thing above all: pity.

But before they chase me around the village with pitchforks and torches, I love children, some of them very much. I just don’t want to have my own and never have. But ever since I met my partner in my early thirties, I’ve had to justify my life plan. Wanting children is the norm. But if a woman decides to live without children, many feel empowered to join the discussion. Especially when a woman is in a relationship or nearing the end of her childbearing years. Then it’s time.

My parents can mourn the grandchildren they will never have.

The belly swollen by the lenses is looked at meaningfully, they awkwardly hint at it, and sometimes they even quite openly ask: “What does it look like to you?” OK, thank you. I plan my next trip, spend money on fun hobbies, and sleep.

Of course, an independent person free of children also has difficult moments: my family’s desire to have offspring from their own child or sister is legal. I had to learn that my parents might be mourning the grandchildren they would never have from me. And they were again able to feel how full their daughter’s life was without children.

Childfree women are not frustrated or selfish

According to popular belief, a child and pregnancy are luck. But also living independently without children. Women who choose not to have children should not be frustrated, career-driven, or selfish. And they are, of course, no less than women.

But these are all judgments made about people without children. It is absolutely absurd that people who are not involved in what is happening believe that they are allowed to discuss what is going on in the stomach and life of another person. Sentences like: “You only experience this kind of love if you have children.” That might be true, but it doesn’t matter to me when I roll over in bed on a Sunday morning.

Source: Blick