No Kiddies

I hate the terms "child free," "childless," "non-breeder," and even "child-friendly."  I also hate the term "breeders."

I don't have children.  This is a defining factor in my life, just as having children is a defining factor in other people's lives. I apparently told my mom when I was in kindergarten that I wasn't going to get married or have children, and she believed me.  She never questioned it or suggested I might change my mind.

If I had children, I'd be in a pretty miserable state right now.  I'd have an ex-husband married to his child bride and have had an inability to leave the small town we lived because of both his parental rights and my inability to support myself and children in a more populated area.  I'd have had to choose between staying there and working as a civil servant secretary mom or living in the Boston area as a proposal writing divorcee.  So I made the right decision.

However, I'm not hugely thrilled with the concept of a childfree movement.  Many people choose not to have children, and many change their mind as they age.  When I try to meet people to date, they have to work around divorce visitation schedules to decide when they'll see me. This is much easier to do with men then women - men are far more likely to only have visitation every weekend or every other weekend while women generally only have availability every weekend or every other weekend.  The reasonings behind that are a whole other kettle of kiddies that I'm so not ready to contemplate in this post.

Anyway, as I was saying, I dislike the concept of choosing not to have children being a movement.  It is a simple fact of life, and people have been choosing it for years without it becoming a huge ordeal. I am not part of a "movement." I am an individual who made a decision decades ago, who has thought about that decision and re-decided things every few years, and who doesn't think the world needs to start a movement of not having children. I think people should spend time deciding if they want to be parents before just doing it. I think that when possible, people should also try to do it when they have the ability to support their kids (although it doesn't always work out that way, life is kinda trickie).

A great thing about being a 40 year old divorcee is that it's been a few years since anybody has told me that I'll change my mind or that I shouldn't worry because there's still time. As a single 40 year old woman, I instead get people who ask if I have children, I say no, and they say they are so sorry to hear that because children would be such a blessing in my life during a divorce.  Umm, what? Has anybody watched their friends get divorced? Divorce sucks. Divorce with children sucks even worse. Children may be a joy in your life, but they are not a blessing during divorce. They make it more complicated and mean that you are stuck with your ex FOREVER.  They make the court proceedings more complicated, and it means that the kids go through hell at the same time as you!

So if you find it necessary to ask a woman of any age if she has children, and she says no, just continue the conversation on another topic!