Runny noses. Sticky fingerprints. Lego stuck in unnatural places. These are all things that people who decide not to have kids never want to think about – and never have to. But the decision not to start a family is not without its problems…
1. People always think that not wanting kids makes you a child-hater. Not the case. Kids are fine – I just don’t want to be around them every single day.
2. You hand your sister’s baby back at the end of a family visit with an acute sense of relief. The smell coming from that nappy is your problem now, not mine.
3. People just assume it’s a phase that you’re going through. Because dismissing someone’s major life decision is a perfectly fine thing to do.
4. What you imagine others experience as broodiness, you experience in different ways. Such as with puppies. Or Louboutins.
5. It’s difficult for other people to get their head around the fact that what you want from life might not be the same thing that they want. You want two girls and a boy? That’s fine. I want a sports car and crayon-free walls.
6. Or they assume that you, ‘Haven’t met the right person’. Damn, you must be right – why hadn’t I thought of that?
7. You learn that there is no right time to tell your partner how you feel about starting a family. Although the first date certainly isn’t it.
8. Well-meaning friends and family often choose you to babysit in an effort to change your mind. This is not going to work.
9. You’ve been called, ‘Selfish’. And the definition of that word is still contested to this day.
10. Some people think that, ‘Won’t’ is the same as, ‘Can’t’. I can. I just don’t wish to.
11. You’re less likely to get time off during July and August, because the people with kids book it all. But hey, you can go any time during term time without the education system fining you, so there’s that.
12. You have to give a list of reasons why you’ve made your choice. Does anyone else have to justify why they’d like to have kids?
13. You’ve been asked who will take care of you in your old age. Probably the monkey butler that I’ll be able to afford to pay because I didn’t have kids.
14. The very idea of giving birth makes you clench everything. Nope. Nope. Nope.
15. Occasionally, you think that maybe you could or should have children.Then you realise that you haven’t watered that houseplant for five weeks, and maybe it’s not such a great idea after all.
Written for Pretty 52
Constant Spinner 
