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I have never really felt like I fit in with women. I have always been fiercely independant and interested in doing my own thing. I suppose this is why the "peer pressure" to have a kid has not been a huge issue for me.

This forum has introduced me to other women that seem to be like me. I wonder, are the majority of women who choose to be childfree very independant? Have others felt they don't fit in and prefer to go their own way?

Every once in awhile I will get depressed about my inability to make female friends. My husband tells me that I am intimidating (which is amusing since I am 5 feet tall and 110 pounds!) and that it would be very difficult to find the close friend I am seeking, because the person I would click with would be as independant as me--and therefore doing their own thing all the time and never available to to get together. When I was younger, I would try and fit in-and wound up being miserable...and bored.

I would love others thoughts on this. From reading everyone's posts it seems like us child free women are independant and bad a**. It is a nice contrast to the neediness and insecurity I often encounter.

I was just thinking about this yesterday. My husband's on a snowboard / ski trip with a friend and mentioned he'd like to see me take my own vacation with a friend. Problem is, I'm not close enough to any of my female friends for this to be an attractive idea.

I've never fit into the general populace, but tend to be on the same wavelength as other musicians and artists. I also feel like I fit in here, which has been a very pleasant surprise.

I'm very independent.

I am also the kind of person to not want to do things that everyone else does. I used to like TV show A but then EVERYONE started liking show A so I switched to show B, etc. So I am definitely not a follower.

However, I have friend who is almost exactly like me in every way and she and her husband built an addition to their house with children in mind (even though they are waiting another 5 years or so.) That I don't understand, because she's never around children and doesn't get along with her family, and her husband doesn't get along with any of his sisters. I've never discussed her reasons for wanting kids (it's not a subject that comes up often, she totally understands me and respects my decision) so I just don't know why she wants them.

For me, it comes down to something both simple and complex.

I hate being told what to do. I hate the idea that I'm just some giant uterus meant to squeeze out some children. I hate being told that I'm not a real woman until I am a mother. That I will never get fulfillment from life if I don't give birth.

I am fortunate that I have a few friends who are child free and want to stay that way. They travel all over the globe and do things I aspire to do. And they are HAPPY! I may not speak with them often, but I feel so close to them and admire them. My friends who do have children seem so tired, stressed, and lonely. I hear that from them all the time. Doesn't make me want to follow their path.

I think society, family, school, church, etc.- any of those institutions have a strong influence on encouraging women to have children or be damned. I'm not saying all women should not have children- quite the contrary. I feel that women should have a personal, heartfelt, and uninfluenced choice as to whether they want children. It shouldn't hang over their heads like some kind of child-scarlet letter!

So yes, I view myself as a non-conformist because I hate being told what to do! Its nice to see others who feel the same way.

I've felt the same way. I've always only had a few good female friends - not a lot of female friends and acquaintances. It's always been difficult to fit in. Most of the things that I find interesting, other women don't. I work for a museum and have always been way into history....it's rare to find women who feel the same. Same with television shows, music, books, etc. Of course, now those few female friends are having kids....

I had a hard time socially in school from 2nd grade well into high school --- not only because I moved often, but because I was earnest, into learning, not afraid to use the multi-syllable words I knew, and utterly unable/unwilling to second-guess myself by asking "Will the other kids like me if...?".

Other kids were often mean to me. I knew they were popular, but I really just thought "Damn, you need to get a hobby. When do you dream up all this crazy @#$% you do to other kids?" I was too busy learning and talking to the few kids who seemed open, friendly, and worthwhile to even think about how I might best defend myself from their attacks. Best of all, when I more or less played possum, they moved on. Fortunately, as a girl, I only got taunted; if I'd been a boy, I'd likely have gotten the stuffing kicked out of me.

The idea of being "in", "part of the club", etc. has always appealed to me very, very little. If I'm a fan of a certain band and they all of a sudden were to get popular (haha----my favorite rock artist is Todd Rundgren and I listen to a lot of jazz fusion, Brazilian jazz, and central European a capella choral music---THERE's mainstream for ya!), I wouldn't run away screaming; I wouldn't stop being a fan just because they'd become popular. But the idea that I needed to gain entry into an already popular group (just because they were popular) never struck me whatsoever.

The gratifying thing is...those "popular" people from high school? Most of them *peaked* in high school. The are now living B-flat-average suburban lives, doing absolutely nothing of any use to the world at large (other than having bred...as I've said before, get back to me when the kid is 30 and let me know if that's actually amounted to a "contribution"), hoping that their child will become the most popular cheerleader or quarterback, thinking that even if their kid does reach those dizzying heights, it might mean something to them in terms of long-term quality of life.

Meanwhile, I did eventually form a weird art mafia/"band f*g" (their term, not mine) crew. I eventually fell in with them during my junior year in high school; we were into appreciating each other's work and tenacity, not hanging together because we all had the right designer jeans). These folks have turned into the following:

a columnist for the Boston Globe
an award-winning jewelry designer and maker
a founder of a high-tech kite company (retired a millionaire at 35; now a teacher)
an architect who consistently gives his free time to charities
a videographer for public TV
a music teacher at an arts-oriented high school (that's me)

You can't fix dumb...and the relentless anti-intellectualism espoused by most of those bullies is "dumb" as it gets. The best revenge is not having to live in their stupid little boxes --- and never having done it in the past, either.

Elise

Hmm. I'd consider myself independent and have never had a ton of girlfriends either. I enjoy my own company or that of one or two close friends. I think you guys might be onto something!

I agree. I've always had more male friends than female, found my way into a male dominated industry - engineering (although I'm in marketing which is mostly female, however I am a department of one at my company). DH is an engineer - very logical thinker (to an annoying degree at times).

I think this is why I am so bothered when my few close female friendships fall apart. I do have one current friend of 10 years now who is very similar to me in thinking. Of course she's still single!

LastingONe, I also HATE to be told or expected to do something because "that's what you do" -- I have always taken that as a challenge to be proven wrong!

I'm very independent. Less so when I was very young, more and more as I age. Have always had plenty of both male and female friends. Like both. I have a close friend who always tells me she prefers men as friends and at work because women are too petty, gossipy, etc., but I have found men to be just as much so and really feel offended when she talks like that. People are people and some are just jerks. Also, it's her female friends who have been there to help her out during REALLY tough times, not the males (nothing against males, just describing this particular situation).

I don't like shopping together and many "girly" activities so I just don't do them. My female friends & I find plenty of other stuff to do and no one seems offended because we don't share every interest.

One of the hardest things for me growing up and then being in high school is that most girls never wanted to appear too intelligent (part of this could be because I'm from the South and women aren't really encouraged to show too much intelligence here). They always acted silly and far less than intelligent than what many of them were. Consequently, finding female friends was always hard because I wasn't able to "suspend" myself just to fit in. And I could never wrap my mind around why most of the other girls did this. I always had more male friends when I was young. I'm sure I seemed weird. Heck, I'm sure I still seem weird. I think that the difficulty of making female friends growing up has made it more difficult to make female friends as an adult. And not wanting children has just reinforced that difficulty.