Disliking children — my story -
I didn´t like kids as early as I imagined. I´ve always avoided them whenever I can. It´s not like that I blame them for existing, it´s just that I don´t want to have to do anything with them regularly. These days I am fine with talking to teenagers, but for me, children who are younger than 10–12 years are just daunting. And I´ve never felt any interest in the development of children as they become adults at all.
When I have to do anything with kids, no matter what I do, it feels like they drain my energy like water which is flushing out of a pipe. Half an hour with a toddler makes me feel as drained as I´ve run a social marathon and I need to rest for two or three days with almost zero social interactions.
During my teenage years, my cousins were in their early 30s and I ended up with two nieces and seeing them almost ten times a year. As the oldest female person who hasn´t reproduced herself, I was forced to sit next to these crying, annoying beings all the time. I tried to spend as little time on the dining table as possible and helped with food preparation and such stuff as much as possible. I did everything in my control to avoid being close to them, because I hated them at this young age.
But my family did everything to force me to touch them, to hold them, to pamper them, to play with them. I complained several times, but like half of my family told me this like it´s a law of nature: “You are becoming a mom, you have to learn how to take care of kids. The younger, the better.”. These scenes repeated over and over, but as I was a minor, I had no chance to avoid these events. My family was so persistent that it was more important to “learn how to be a mum” by interacting with a niece for a few hours at grandma’s birthday then preparing for an exam at school the next day.
When I moved out a few days before my 18th birthday everything changed. For the first time in my life, I had control over what events I wanted to attend and which not. So I´ve “missed” one or the other family event by intention because officially I was busy with school or university. It was one of the most freeing experiences I ever had.
I´ve spent the majority of my 20s away from my hometown, living in different places and moving regularly. During this decade I learned a lot about myself and, the expectations of mums, and found out about the childfree-by-choice lifestyle by incidence on the internet. I´ve grown a self-awareness that I would rather die alone, than with a partner who wants to have children.
This realization changed everything for me. I quit an engagement, left 90% of my stuff behind, and moved 600 km away. Starting a new life without a romantic relationship back in 2019 was one of the most freeing experiences I ever had.
Now I am 33 and my female tribe is splitting between those who reproduce and those who don´t. So far it seems like approx. 2/3 won´t reproduce, which gave me confidence in our long-term friendship. I´ve already lost three friends because of motherhood, so I am glad that I feel like I won´t end up without friends.
But my perspective on children has changed during the last 5ish years. I don´t hate them anymore like in my teens, now it´s more “disliking”. And a friend’s garden party has taught me this lesson: I was fine to entertain a toddler for 5 mins while the mum was using the bathroom. This was very surprising for me. I guess it was because the dad was nearby. These minutes were still mentally draining as hell, so I spent most of the time during the party with the dog’s parents instead. My energy level was +/- 0 after the party, despite two toddlers and a primary schooler at a party of about 15 adults. It still enforces my decision to stay child-free, but I guess I am getting a little used to kids as it feels different if the child’s parent is a relative or a friend of several years.
The final point this year that made me realize that childfree is my way to go early this year: I´ve become an aunt in February. To my surprise, I´ve never felt the urge to see or hold her. Not back then when she was a few hours old, not now. Most likely never. I am not even interested in seeing photos of her.
As the mum of my niece moved away from my hometown with the baby, I won´t see my niece in the foreseeable future. Most likely it will take a year or more until I see the child for the first time. And I don´t bother at all. I´ve come to terms with being an absent aunt, but it took me like six months to decide that I won´t follow the expectations of society, but what feels true to myself. From my perspective, I would do more harm to a child visiting her and making her notice that I dislike her at her earliest stage of life than not seeing her.
On the other hand, I know this separation won´t last forever. There will be a time when I´ll meet her in person. There will be a day when she´ll ask why I am avoiding her. I come to terms with that and am ready to have this conversation. No matter if she´ll be 5 or 15 when the question comes. One age or the other would make the conversation more or less difficult, but when she asks she deserves an answer.
Having zero interest in seeing children has become a part of me which I am openly talking about, but the period of avoiding them by all means has come to an end. For parties with friends, I´ve developed the rule of thumb that I´ll join as long as there are at least 50ish% non-parents to have conversations that aren´t interrupted by a child every five mins. This means I am attending the majority of the social events of my tribe.
My life goal is to be a strong independent woman. I learned to give a f** when it comes to social expectations concerning family. I´ve seen it far too often that people end up with severe mental health problems because they follow societal expectations with this concern, whereas the majority of people who are childfree by choice are at peace with themselves.
