On Being Child-Free

No, I will not change my mind.

When I was little, I spent a whole lot of time fantasising about being grown-up - envisioning the grand old age of fifteen. That was when I’d marry my first and only true love, Luke Perry (RIP) and win my first Oscar. The fact that Mr Perry was twice my age and teenagers rarely won Oscars didn’t cross my mind. Sitting through yet another boring math class, I envisioned the three of us - me, Luke, and my Academy Award - sailing off into the sunset, to live happily ever after. And that’s where my fantasy kind of…ended.

There were no kids in that fantasy, or in any subsequent fantasies of mine for that matter. Sure, I did ponder baby names - the only part of having children that seemed fun to me was naming them - for about five minutes in seventh grade. But throughout my own childhood and adolescence, from playing princesses to actually getting to fifteen and the hot drummer in my music class taking Luke Perry’s place in my dreams, children weren’t really part of the picture I painted for myself. And unlike winning an Oscar (well, there’s still time!), that is one part of my childhood visions that has actually come true.

Me in Morocco. You can travel with kids, sure. But I prefer not to have to.

For a long time, I didn’t realise that I could simply opt out of having kids. It wasn’t until my late twenties that it hit me: I didn’t have to. I could just say no.

My lack of maternal instinct never bothered me growing up. I figured that at a certain age, when the time was right, the desire to procreate would hit me like a ton of bricks. In the meantime I lived my life, dancing in clubs in LA, eating pizza at midnight in Tuscany, getting drunk in sketchy hotels in NYC, doing God knows what in Milan, and just letting things take their time. “When you’ll meet The One, you’ll want to!” people told me. I was a tiny thing of 24 when I met him. He had sunshine in his hair and bright, green eyes and I knew I’d do absolutely anything to hold his hand every day for the rest of my life. But…I still had no desire to make a baby with him. Or anyone else.

I told him as much. “That’s okay,” he said. I suspected that, like everyone else, he expected me to change my mind. I reiterated that I probably wouldn’t, and he repeated that it was okay. I brought it up again in four years, after a dark December night in Venice’s San Marco square, when he had pulled a ring out of his pocket and held it out at me. It sparkled on my finger when I reminded my husband-to-be that being married to me would mean being a party of two forever. “That’s okay,” he said, yet again. Years later, he told me that he been on the fence - but with time, he’d realised he was child-free, too. “Do you want a baby?” I asked him a couple of years ago, when a friend of ours had gotten pregnant. His response? “Hmm, no. Maybe just a Corvette for now.” I always bring up this conversation when people accuse me of having robbed him of fatherhood.

And accuse they do. Boy, you’d think I’d held a gun to his head at the altar. Like most other child-free people, I was honest from the start and have always given him the option to walk away and choose parenthood. But for many reasons, he hasn’t.

The reasons truly are endless - the environment! childcare costs! not having to ever listen to a single song from a cartoon! - but generally, for most child-free people, our motivation is simply that we don’t feel a desire to have children. That’s it. There is no lofty philosophical reasoning. We just don’t want to. We are, like one of my favourite Substack writers

Emma Gannon

says, excited to be child-free by choice.

The only ones spilling stuff on these fancy clothes will be us

“But what if you change your mind?”

There’s this image of this regretful elderly woman (it’s always a woman!) who never had children and now withers away in a depressing retirement home, all by herself. Despite the fact that the depressing facility probably will be all I can afford, that image doesn’t scare me. The sad truth is that many elderly people with children are still devastatingly lonely. But most importantly, I don’t live my life for when I’m 80, I live my life for now. My decisions today are about what will make me happy right now. And right now, I’m choosing Prosecco over Peppa Pig.

I believe that far from everyone is meant to have children. The world is massively overpopulated, with devastating consequences for the environment and wildlife - surely this was never the plan? In my view, people like me, who are devoid of parental instincts, exist to prevent this from happening. It’s just that in a world where we’re constantly taught by societal norms that we need to live in a certain way, many people don’t stop to listen to themselves and ask whether they really want that life. They just go ahead with whatever path has been laid out for them by society. If only our society was less judgemental of those who choose not to procreate, and more open towards choosing your own path in general, maybe we wouldn’t have forums like this.

Part of why I don’t believe I’m mum material is my extremely anxious personality. When looking after friends’ dogs and cats, I’ve realised that I’m probably not suited to being a companion animal guardian, either. The panic that rises in my stomach every time the pup or kitty appears to eat something they shouldn’t, or run too far off the lead, is torture. I spend about 50% of my dog-sitting time having fun and the remaining half worried to pieces that something might happen. That “unconditional love” parents talk about? Yeah, for someone with anxiety issues like myself, that just sounds like living in a perennial state of fear. I already have that with my husband, who’s a fan of dangerous sports and motorcycles. Adding even more dread to my life? No thanks.

In Iceland, one of the most expensive countries I’ve ever travelled to. Had I had kids, this would have been a photo of me sitting on a hill in Sussex.

Plus, let me just admit it: I’m selfish! I love having long, slow weekend mornings with a coffee in bed. I love playing gigs with my husband every Friday night. I love travelling all over the country (and internationally) to speak at festivals. I love going to London for a concert, organising big and elaborate birthday parties, spending all day hiking, or planning January getaways to beach destinations. I love booking the cheapest flight I can find, even if that means sleeping at the airport. I like my life the way it is, and my precious selfishness plays a huge part in that. I have every intention of living for myself, every day until I end up in that retirement home. And even then I’ll probably be planning half-day hikes with the other old ladies.

And finally: who can afford to have a baby? Are you mad?

Jokes aside (although I wasn’t really joking, it is bloody expensive), I believe there are a million ways to have a fulfilling, joyful, meaningful life. What makes someone happy will make someone else miserable, and vice versa. I’m genuinely over the moon for my friends and relatives who are parents. I love their kids! It’s just that my journey is a different one. And what a boring world it would be if we were all the same, right?