Hello everyone - I'm so happy and relieved to have found this forum. I am the only person I know who has chosen a lifestyle that does not include children, and I am being made to feel like there is something wrong with me - and you know as well I I do how effective a self-fulfilling prohpecy can be! I always get the patronising simper followed by the 'one day you'll change your mind' comment, or the 'why don't you want kids?' conversation (which I find both offensive and intrusive), in which I am meant to justify my decision in a way that satisfies my child-clutching peers. I would never be so rude as to question their lifestyle choice in such a demeaning manner, and ask them 'why do you want kids?' - though I certainly feel like doing just that sometimes, just to demonstrate the fact that I find their desision to have them as puzzling as they find mine! I am so happy to find that I am not alone - thank you to the founders of this website and forum, I shall now be a frequent visitor! :)

Welcome to the forum, Hippy Pie!

I used to get the same reactions when I was younger - people like that will never change.

Hope you find lots to interest you at BellaOnline.

Hi Hippy Pie !

Just like men are supposed to compete with Money, Land, Power and Armies...

Women are supposed to compete with Beauty, Fashion and Babies !

What has that gotten us ?

The brink of WWIII and WWIV !!!

I totally agree, Hippie Pie! It is so degrading to have your life choices questioned...I had my mom say to me once "You're wasting your life by being stubborn about having children!"

I know, somehow it's worse when the comments come from family - my mother says 'it's just a phase, you'll settle down one day. I'm almost 30 years old and I decided I never wanted kids when I was about 9!! It makes me feel like a silly little girl who doesn't know what she wants - I know exactly what I want, and I'm so content with my life it's unreal! They were more accepting of my brother announcing his homosexuality than of my decision to enjoy my life without children! Perhaps they're a bit envious, as they don't know what else to do with their lives other than raise a family, and people who have a fantastic life without children do other things? Who knows... :)

Oh dear, well by those standards I'm a complete washout as a woman! Hahaha

Same here...well, maybe younger...when I was little, my mom took away all of my stuffed animals and replaced them with dolls...hoping I'd take up the "mommy" role and play with them if I had no choice...I drew whiskers on them with a magic marker and told my mom they were kitties...ah..silly desperate parents...

OMG, that happened to me too! Or a very similar thing - I always preferred stuffed animals and teddys, and one day my mother bought my one of those Tiny Tears dolls! I was terrified!! It was the most hideous thing I'd ever seen! lol

Hello Hippy Pie. Welcome!

Society still hasn't fully accepted that women can make lifestyle choices, and many women choose not to have children. It is getting better, but there is still a ways to go to being accepted for our choices when we don't do what is expected. I commend you for sticking to your convictions and knowing what you want out of life. Good for you!

Thanks for the kind words Debbie! up until this point I honestly thought I was some kind of freak, and I was always embarrassed to say that I never wanted children (and that I didn't particularly like them either!). It's wonderful to read all these posts and realise that's it's ok and normal to be this way - I don't feel so isolated anymore, so thank you once again. :)

I just googled "Tiny tears Doll"...holy [censored] those things are creepy!

Hippie Pie....my story was first poured on here two years ago when I was member name Cassie67 (I changed my member name to my real name when I became an editor this year). I was with my soulmate for 19 years, 16 of which were married years. I married him at 26 years old and two weeks after the wedding I changed my mind about having children, breaking my husband's heart. He stayed with me for many years, not leaving me when I asked him to, and finding other things to keep him busy. He agreed after a while that not having kids was ok. He was almost 40 when he had a midlife crisis.....the need for kids came rushing back to him, and at 42 years old I was not up for starting a family. I told him I'd try for a year, but if I did not get pregnant my husband was going to leave me anyway, so we got divorced. He is remarried to a much older woman with grown kids and he thinks she will give him a baby. He is dillusional.

I went through a lot in my marriage, defending my choice and getting some pressure from his family. I stuck to my beliefs and what was right for me, and it was the best thing I could have done. If my husband had truly loved me for me, then he would not have divorced me because I was not a baby factory. I can live in peace without kids, knowing all along that they were not right for me. I am an aunt, and that is enough. At almost 45 I have no regrets for the decision I made at 26. You have to be true to yourself, and I am glad I was.

Hi Debbie, your post almost moved me to tears - I can't believe what you went through with your ex-husband, and how string you must be for keeping true to yourself. I have so much admiration for you, and your post has both inspired and encouraged me. I have always known that children are not for me, and have gone through life thus far feeling incredibly isolated and outcast. I have been made to feel ashamed for my indifference towards children, and my lack of desire to become a mother. All of my friends around me have had children, and I have drifted away from them gradually, as we have now become too different people to enjoy each other's company - all they talk about now is their child, and I do not find this endless baby-talk any more enjoyable than my partner would find a conversation with me prattling on about bras or periods. I live in fear every day that one day the same thing will happen to him as it did with your ex, that he will suddenly wake up one day and realise that he wants to be a father. We talked about this very early on in our relationship, and I made it crystal clear that if he stayed with me he would never be a father. He assured me he too favoured a life without kids, and we have now been together almost 7 years - however he has still not proposed, we are not even engaged - and I can't shake this nagging feeling that it's because he's holding out to see whether I'll change my mind. I will not. I relish a peaceful, spontanious life with no-one but ourselves to worry about. Thank you for showing me that I am right to be true to myself, and for confirming what I already knew deep-down - That I will not regret this decision.

Hippie Pie.....if you really do not want children then you will never regret your decision, even if you lose the man you love. My husband had the nerve to say I broke my marriage agreement with him, but nowhere in my vows did I promise children. If one or both of us had been sterile (we never did find out) we may never have been able to have kids anyway, unless we had the money to adopt, foster, or use other means, which we never could afford.

Even with that said, had I had a baby just to make him happy, I would have been the unhappy one. Everyone deserves happiness and peace, and raising children would have made me insane. I felt exactly like you.....bored with baby talk, indifference towards kids, etc. And believe me, it is not that I don't have a lot of love to give. I am far from cold hearted.

If your man is not committing to you and marriage is what you want, then maybe you need to sit down and have a talk with him. You deserve the truth, and so does he. If he is holding out for something that will never happen then you both need to move on.

You can find someone else who respects you for who you are and wants to be with you because he loves you, and that is enough to sustain the both of you. I found a wonderful man who loved me for who I am right before my divorce was final. He had a young daughter he'd have custody for every other weekend, but otherwise he was not looking to have more children. It all worked out fine. I felt valued and cared for. Unfortunately he had poor health and I lost him in just under two short years, but it was a blessing to have had him in my life for as long as we were together.