beyond expectations | life story
Embracing What I Always Knew
Child-free by choice
I clearly remember the first time I said that I don’t want to have children. I was 10-years-old, and the teacher had asked us to write a story about how we imagine ourselves as parents in the future. After looking at the piece of paper for what felt like hours, I started writing: “In the future, I will not be a parent”. The essay was marked as off-topic, and I was asked to re-write it.
I couldn’t shake off the feeling that something might be wrong with me, but I also felt proud and empowered about this aspect of myself. That realization got strengthened the more I became sure about my gender identity. I didn’t necessarily correlate the one with the other, but they both felt like core truths of myself that I knew wouldn’t change.
However, lacking the right words and affirmative representations wasn’t doing me any favors. I didn’t know how to explain why I would never want to be a parent, so my usual answer to “you’ll change your mind” was always either “no, I won’t” or complete silence.
Despite my unwavering certainty, I often found myself grappling with doubt and feeling isolated, as if my choice was somehow invalid or abnormal. None of my visualizations for the future involved any children. Forcing myself…
