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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

One time I when I was in my 30s I was talking with a neighbor of my parents, a woman probably born in the early 1950s who had two sons, and she asked if I thought I would ever have kids, and I said that I doubted it. She immediately replied, "That's so great. I never wanted children."

I never thought of her as a bad mother, and she I'm sure muddled through, but why should anyone who feels that intensely about it be forced to have kids just because society thinks that's what she should do? And why should I have been forced to have kids if it wasn't something that either DH or I had any real interest in? 
[/quote]

NP here who is childfree - "only" 32 years old, but showing no signs of changing and I have pretty strong personal preferences for no kids over the age of 35 (I know that can change, but I actually would have preferred to have kids before 30 if I was going to have them, and still feel that way now even though I'm over 30). So solidly on the way to making it permanent and will make it permanent after I'm 35. DH feels the same.

Anyway, I asked my grandmother, who is not a warm & fuzzy people person, about this. She totally said "It's just what you did" and indicated that she didn't enjoy being a mother and wouldn't have had kids if she didn't feel the social pressure. Her life is NOT happier now for having children, and her kids/grandkids most certainly are not the light of her life. I love my grandma, but she would have had a much happier life child-free (however, my grandpa, now deceased, would have been devastated without kids).

I'm glad I have the choice. I'm also an only child of an only child and was the only grandchild on both sides until I was a teenager, so I come from a long line of "not very child friendly" people. I suspect that makes it easier. [/quote]

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