Childfree Wrimos

Well hello, stranger :) Funnily enough, I am childfree too. My cat is a lot less demanding for most of the day than children, and gives a lot back. She's currently sitting between my hands as I type, tapping her tail eloquently ;) I think it's time to go to bed :D

I don't have kids, never want them and don't like children. To be honest, I feel threatened by them. I'm not sure why, in fact I have no idea why, but I do. I am going through a stage in my life when I'm losing a few friends because of them having kids . . . and I don't want anything to do with the kids and they seem to come as a package deal. Like the free steakknives with your FitBall.

So this is my first NaNo, I never write but I seem to be making a good fist of planning for this and I'm really excited. I live in Australia, Perth to be exact, with my cat and no one else (can I get an "AMEN"?). I have also just quit my job and am finishing on the 9th, so I will have time to write! I've got annual leave clocked up so November is MINE, ALL MINE!!!!

And I feel smug about that :D

I love lots of other stuff, too - gardening, I'm passionate about food ethics and grass-roots social reform, ceremonial magick, crocheting/knitting/sewing, painting, and heavy metal. I am a study in contradiction :D

Thanks for the thread, Zel :) Nice to see you again :)

\m/ Kat

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I AM a child. Does that make me child-free?

Okay, so technically I'm not a child. I'm seventeen, and attempting this with school and two twelve week old kittens running around my laptop. And a fifteen year old brother, but he's completely understanding, so I shouldn't have a problem there.

Being childfree doesn't make me feel smug or superior in any way. But with NaNo coming around, I must admit that with a job and school on my schedule, having to come home and tend to the needs of a child (which is far more important than any hobby,) would probably prohibit me from doing NaNo at all. So I'm certainly thankful for my free time. :)

Hello, all.

I'm Childfree as well. Have been (openly) so since I was eighteen. Yay me.

Come NaNo time, I feel genuine sympathy for those who have to try to balance kids and NaNo, then I feel very grateful that it's something that I don't have to deal with. I don't quite mind kids, I just think that because I am neither willing nor able to give a kid what they require, it'd be best that I do not have any.

That is, if that reason makes sense.

~To learn your ways, I don't mind cutting the roots of the future~

*I* was never a squealing child. I lived in fear and trembling of my parents :D and would never have behaved like that!

I love that you say you're "openly" childfree LOL

\m/ Kat

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I love the concept of NaNo, but I don't think I could complete a novel in a month if I had children at home: I am easily distracted.

I decided that I would remain childfree when I was 20 years old. As a Catholic, I knew that meant no premarital sexual intercourse, but it was only till I was 35 or so that I realized that being childfree and a practicing Catholic would mean that I would remain celibate and chaste for life, or at least until menopause. (I'm 43 now.) After all, artificial birth control is a sin according to the Church and most practicing Catholic husbands want children.

Anyway... I like children, in moderate doses. I teach religion to sixth-graders (11 and 12 years old). The kids I am teaching this year are quieter than the ones I have taught in past years. But I am glad that once class is over I can leave the children and not have to worry about them too much. The two cats that have me are much easier to care for than a human child :-)

Kat: ah, the friends who drift away when they have kids... I'm young enough right now that it's not as much of a problem for me, but I can see it happening in years to come. Thankfully I have childfree friends too; most of the people I work with are childfree. (Whoo!)

Miniwhinny: "Childfree" is a term we use to mean that we don't want kids, rather than simply that we don't have them ;-) Although, it did come to be originally because the term "childless" implied that we were missing something.

Hello to all!

Gee, my name sounds masculine. I'm actually a woman.

2007: Sick Bacchus (won!)
2008: Nocturne (won!)
2009: Like a Drug

I'm also childfree. I just couldn't see myself being a writer AND having kids. I felt they would limit, or even render impossible, all the things I wanted to do. Most of my first cousins are also childfree...the second generation is actually larger than the third generation in my family.

It hasn't been a problem for me, but it apparently has been for some people I've met. It really seems to bother some people. I've seen exhausted parents, whose screaming brats were literally on their last nerve just moments before, launch into some amazing sales pitches, trying to convince me to change my mind.

http://elfriedabijoux.wordpress.com/

http://www.artfire.com/users/elfriedabijoux

I know what you mean, elfwriter. It's a sore point, isn't it - for both those of us who choose not to invite children into their lives, and also for those who do. When the two viewpoints cross there seems to be no common ground. I am always being called upon to defend my choice, oddly enough.

And yes, I couldn't possibly give a child what they need. I also couldn't devote as much time as I do to study, contemplation, and my myriad hobbies (most of which are not child friendly in terms of materials :D). I personally think that not enough people are prepared to think deeply and honestly about the prospect of procreating, and as a result there are a great many undisciplined, unloved or unwanted children in the world. And I think that's incredibly sad.

\m/ Kat

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Married, divorced, never had kids, never really wanted them. I live with several cats, whom I love dearly, and who are good company. That's sufficient.

When I tell people that I don't have kids, they sometimes react as if I'd just said that I have Stage 4 cancer. They think it's very sad. I remember when I was in the hospital having a tonsillectomy of all things. The nurse asked how many children I had. (Note, she didn't ask if I had any, she asked how many.) I told her I didn't have any, and she said, "Oh. I'm very sorry." Like never having been pregnant was equivalent to having someone die.

People seem to be offended if I tell them I never wanted any rugrats, er, kids, so I just sigh and nod, as if being childless is such a sad situation, but what can you do?

2005 In Back of the North Wind WINNER!
2006 Leopard's Paw WINNER!
2007 The Old Straight Track (finished) WINNER!
2008 The Other Side of the Wall (finished) WINNER!
2009 Dark Inheritance

I agree, Kat, it is incredibly sad.

I've never understood what these people think they're losing because I don't have kids. I just don't understand what they think the "problem" is.

Are they telling me that I'm just not "enough" for them, all by myself? I need an entourage to make up for whatever they think I'm missing? : 0 )

Maybe I should nag them to write novels. Tell them that "everybody" should write as many novels as possible, that if they don't write novels, who will take care of them when they're old? If they don't write novels, they'll be lonely! That writing a novel is a very trying, but incredibly worthwhile and REWARDING experience! And they'll never feel totally fulfilled unless they write AT LEAST one. If they write novels, there will always be someone who loves them, it'll be lots of fun, and they can have big get-togethers at holiday time. And that they'd better get started, before they're too old to write.

http://elfriedabijoux.wordpress.com/

http://www.artfire.com/users/elfriedabijoux

I've had people act that way, too.

It's like they can't imagine anyone being different than they are. It's too much for them to process.

http://elfriedabijoux.wordpress.com/

http://www.artfire.com/users/elfriedabijoux

Especially love your last bit ;-)

Not that I'm bitter about this at all. I'm only 28, for Pete's sake - I've got a lot more years of more and more urgent exhortations by almost complete strangers to get started soon! Best I resign myself to it, huh?

\m/ Kat

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I always enjoy the look on someones face when they ask me why I don't have children.... I ask them how the heck am I supposed to attach a child seat to a motorcycle. The looks I get are priceless :-)

Kids are great... for short periods of time. But can you imagine the trouble I'd get in for leaving a 5 year old home alone all day long while I'm at work.

I'll stick to dogs and cats :-)

Thanks, Kat!

And let's not forget...even if you don't think you want to write a novel now, someday your BIOLOGICAL CLOCK will start ticking and then you'll change your mind!!

http://elfriedabijoux.wordpress.com/

http://www.artfire.com/users/elfriedabijoux

I'm childless (although not necessarily by choice). Not only do I get to write without feeling like I'm neglecting anyone (except maybe my husband), but this year I'm also unemployed. I feel like I have all the time in the world. I just hope I put it to good use. :)

Debra
Blog- http://debrapantspublicdiary.blogspot.com/

[laughs like crazy] I love it! And the funny thing is, I mostly write short story collections, not novels.

Unlike many childfree people (I'm not crazy about the label "childfree," but whatever), I love kids. But I love little kids. Big kids, not so much. The ages I like simply don't last. Plus, I don't like the way the world is going or how our culture is changing; it's getting so I wouldn't want to raise kids in it anyway. And then there's all the conformity forced on all parents, which they have to buy into so their kids will be all right... There are many other reasons, but they're too complicated and numerous to list.

Instead, I have guinea pigs. Two beautiful little guinea pigs. I think of them as my babies.

2007: Brainiac High (35K, unfinished)
2009: Downtimers (and Other Stories)

I wouldn't have minded having nieces and nephews to spoil, or to relate to from a distance. It would have been nice to sew and crochet stuff for them. My cats won't wear anything I make. They seem to think that their lovely fur is enough.

People seem to think that if you don't have kids, it's a pathetic thing, and you should be lonely and unhappy beyond measure. A happy childless person seems to be an oxymoron to them. And often these are the same people who kvetch endlessly about what a bother their little rugrats are. It's like, "We're miserable, so how dare you be happier than us?"

I bought a three bedroom house a couple years ago. I wanted one with a master bedroom, a home office, and a spare room. That seems sensible to me. But I'm constantly getting, "Why did you buy such a huge house? There's just you. You don't have a family. All you need is a three-room apartment. You don't need all that space." Again we go back to the idea that a childless, single woman is a pathetic case who should be living an unhappy life in miserable circumstances.

2005 In Back of the North Wind WINNER!
2006 Leopard's Paw WINNER!
2007 The Old Straight Track (finished) WINNER!
2008 The Other Side of the Wall (finished) WINNER!
2009 Dark Inheritance

There are actually studies that show that people who don't have children are on average happier than those who have them. So why are we oh so sad? XD

Nah... Occasionally I feel a bit guilty that I won't be giving my parents grandchildren, as I understand that's when having children is meant to actually pay off (when they breed and give you grandchildren, I mean). But I think my sister plans on breeding, and my mother really understands it. I think in some ways she feels like she missed out on a lot of life because she got married and had kids, and she didn't even have kids till she was 30. I feel kinda sorry for her. My dad doesn't get it, though.

What really gets me is when people say "you'll regret not having kids". Yeah, maybe. But it's way better to regret something you can actually remedy (through adoption, etc) than to regret having kids. What are you going to do, shove them back up there?\

And I gotta say, the thought of being pregnant actually disgusts me. If I ever DID have kids, they wouldn't be incubating in MY uterus, I tell ya that.

I love my cousins, though. I'll be happy to have nieces and nephes. I get along with children - mostly, I think, because they like it when someone treats them like a person. (I don't understand how so many people forget what it was like to be a kid.) If I'm at an extended-family-and-friends do where there are kids and adults, I'll hang out with the kids, thanks. They talk about interesting things, like cartoons and video games. The adults just talk about kids!

Gee, my name sounds masculine. I'm actually a woman.

2007: Sick Bacchus (won!)
2008: Nocturne (won!)
2009: Like a Drug

When I was a child, I always hated it when adults treated kids like they were drooling half-wits. I remember thinking at one adult (too shy to actually vocalize it), "I'm not stupid, I'm just really young." I always try to talk to kids (when I have to) as if they were intelligent beings, not half-formed creatures.

I do admit that it's a disadvantage when you have a child character in your novel and you don't know how different ages react. I have a 12-year-old girl in my last novel, and I'm going to have to get a beta reader who has more familiarity with kids than I do.

2005 In Back of the North Wind WINNER!
2006 Leopard's Paw WINNER!
2007 The Old Straight Track (finished) WINNER!
2008 The Other Side of the Wall (finished) WINNER!
2009 Dark Inheritance

I hear you there thorhammer.

It irks me when parents of horribly misbehaving children see my dislike of their brats and write it off to "Oh, Laura hates children."

Not true. Not even remotely true. I like children just fine -- so long as they behave like I behaved as a child. (I was the child all the parents wanted to be friends with their children because they hoped I'd be a good influence on them.)

Screaming, wailing, selfish, rude, destructive, irresponsible, monstrous people on the other hand, I don't like regardless of their age.

(I've been told that my parents were "successfully too strict" with me and that, as a result, my standards for human behaviour in general are too high.)

Laura Rainbow Dragon
http://rainbowdragon.ca/

NaNovelist Woes
(a video about NaNo and beyond)

I think this speaks heaps to the whole "guilt" issue.

I have known since as far back as I have conscious memories that I did not wish to have children.

When I was younger, my parents used to tease me about this. They fed me the whole "biological clock" line and, when they talked about me having my own children when I grew up, and I invariably responded with, "I'm not going to have any children," they would hoot and shout out, "Get a tape recorder! Can we record you saying that?"

I would answer, "Absolutely. Record me saying it. Get your camera and film me saying it. If you want, I'll write it down and you can frame it and hang it on your living room wall. I am not going to have any children."

Still, my parents chose not to believe me. They also had a penchant for trying to cast me in maternal roles. They'd give me a baby doll and try to pretend I was its "mother" and I'd think: No. I'm a child. And I prefer playing with Star Wars figures!

One time my father brought home a baby bird which one of his colleagues had found abandonned on the side of the road. I was trying to feed the bird, and my father made some crack about me being the bird's "mother" and I immediately pushed the bird away and made other people look after it after that, I was so offended my father had suggested I was its "mother". (Then the bird died, and I felt guilty that maybe it had died because I'd rejected it - and I was angry at my father because he shouldn't have said that about me being the bird's "mother".)

Now, thankfully, my parents appear to have accepted the fact that their 38-year-old, happily childfree daughter is never going to procreate. (Plus, their son did procreate, so at least the "desire to be grandparents" issue is out of the way.)

Much as I have always rejected society's attempts to pressure me into having children, however, I did give serious consideration to whether or not I felt a personal obligation to procreate. I have been conscious for a number of years of the fact that I have good genes. Really good genes. I have greater physical, emotional and cognitive health than most people I know. Do I have a responsibility to pass that genetic health on to the next generation?

If I was male, I would do it. I would donate sperm and be done with it. But our society asks a whole lot more of mothers than the donation of genetic material. Even beyond the nine month period during which a fetus is a parasite living inside its mother's body (a serious evolutionary maladaptation if ever there was one) women are both expected and pressured by society to sacrifice a whole lot more of their lives to the care and raising of offspring than men are -- and Virginia Woolf was correct: Those sacrifices are too great.

So I am guilt free about my decision to remain childfree, because the contributions I am able to make to the universe by choosing not to burden my time, energy and health with motherhood far outweigh any contributions I could make through procreating.

Laura Rainbow Dragon
http://rainbowdragon.ca/

NaNovelist Woes
(a video about NaNo and beyond)

I may not be that successful as a writer, but I still think I make a better writer than a mother.

My mom hated kids. She hated us. Then she couldn't figure out why we decided not to have families. Giving her grandchildren was a requirement. She didn't want to have anything to do with the brats, but we were supposed to have them nonetheless.

2005 In Back of the North Wind WINNER!
2006 Leopard's Paw WINNER!
2007 The Old Straight Track (finished) WINNER!
2008 The Other Side of the Wall (finished) WINNER!
2009 Dark Inheritance

I'm only 19, but for now I've decided on being child free. Plus I want to wait till I have some money so I can hire a maid and nanny to watch the kids. :P

Physically I'm unsure if I would be able to have a pregnancy ... I'm so frail, LOL. Though the whole idea of childbirth scares me because they play up hospital birthing so much and downplay the fact that it's not as safe as we used to think it was!! Arrrgh! I'd need a midwife!

My sister-in-law's friend who is the same age ALREADY HAD A KID. And is pregnant. AGAIN. You know what? I don't have to worry about having children (unless I want them), because other people are having them before me!

A dog is enough of a baby to deal with. :|

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Oh, goodness. I don't ever plan on having children... if my bio clock kicks in someday, so be it, but neither my husband nor I have any desire for children. I love my pets though... I love animals and have a deep desire to care for them -- heck, I've been told that I'm one of the most nurturing people my friends know -- but it has nothing to do with human babies or children. Sometimes I wonder if something's wrong with me, but recently read a report that talked about how the medical field is currently researching whether the predisposition toward childbearing may actually not occur in some people. Something to do with genes & DNA... anyway, it was interesting, and I plan to keep my eyes open for more information about that in the future.

Certainly, I get plenty of rude comments from other women about my childfree decision -- especially since we've just passed that year and a half mark of marriage, and there are at least 5 other ladies in my circle of friends who are currently pregnant -- but I figure I can just reply with a witty remark and make the awkwardness fall in their direction! At this point, my parents have given up on me having kids (yay!) and are counting on my brother and his wife, who both love children, so the pressure is off of us in that respect.

Now my mother-in-law, on the other hand... *sigh*. I suppose I'll have to break it to her eventually...!

There are actually plenty of books out there these days for women who don't want to have children. I plan to track a few down and share them around with certain individuals, if necessary. :)

Literary Coldcuts on Toasty Buns

glad i found you guys! i haven't wanted kids since i was about 8 years old (then, you know .. you've got the baby doll ... the whole thing is very confusing).
thankfully, i've got a husband who shares my childfree passion. we're happy the way we are ... 5 and a half years married now :)
yeah, people ask me all the time when i'm gonna have a baby, and i tell them "never" and they don't believe me. and when my co-workers or family members get together and talk about childbirth ... i have to leave the room. it's like a physical aversion i have to the whole topic ... it's extremely distressing. maybe i've got a phobia. who knows.

but i can live in a tiny apartment in the middle of the big city, leave delicate(breakable) things out, and i don't have to arrange for a babysitter if hubby and i want to go out to dinner. it's good times! the only thing i'm missing is a cat (then i'd have to put away the breakable stuff...).

2008 - The Silent Treatmet - WIN!
2009 - Awake - outline finished ... we'll see!!

There's a pregnant girl at work (she's hilaaaaarious, swears like a sailor and then [jokingly] tells us off for talking about certain things "in front of my unborn child") but she's the one who doesn't like to talk about childbirth, because half of us there are childfree and we have a tendency to linger on the whole "your vagina tears" or "the doctor actually cuts your vagina" parts.

First time I found out about that, I swear XD "WTF. I am NEVER having children."

Gee, my name sounds masculine. I'm actually a woman.

2007: Sick Bacchus (won!)
2008: Nocturne (won!)
2009: Like a Drug

I'd tell people that I didn't want kids, and they'd give me this little knowing smile and say, "Ohhhh, you'll change your mind." Well, I'm 55. It's too late, anyway. And I never did change my mind. I kind of regret not passing on my genes, but my brother did, and his genes are very similar to mine. And I have lots of cousins. Two of my female cousins, though, also never got married or had kids.

Another thing that irritates me is when people say that my cats are baby substitutes, and I'm really pining for a screaming, pooping, spitting-up human child. No. My cats aren't baby substitutes. They're cats. I don't make babies out of them. I let them be cats.

Besides, considering that there are going on 7 BILLION of us on this planet, I think a decision not to add to that total is a smart, environmentally sound decision.

2005 In Back of the North Wind WINNER!
2006 Leopard's Paw WINNER!
2007 The Old Straight Track (finished) WINNER!
2008 The Other Side of the Wall (finished) WINNER!
2009 Dark Inheritance

Babies are just inferior substitutes for cats ;)

Gee, my name sounds masculine. I'm actually a woman.

2007: Sick Bacchus (won!)
2008: Nocturne (won!)
2009: Like a Drug

Besides, children grow up so fast. Cats don't go off to college. They don't abuse alcohol or drugs (except catnip, if you let them have it) and if you have had them fixed like a responsible person, cats won't have any teenage pregnancies to worry about. Yes, I'd much rather have cats than babies!