Excited to be child-free (by choice)

a blank canvas once felt scary; now it feels liberating and expansive

When you’re in your twenties or even early thirties, living as a childfree-by-choice woman, it still feels like an idea you’re floating around: ‘Nah, not for me, thanks!’ You’re busy being young and fun. (I started writing Olive, my novel about a child-free 30-something woman, when I was only 28.)

Cut to now: you’re about to turn thirty-five and it’s no longer a precursor to making a decision: you are actively living that decision. You are a child-free person. Instead of ‘I won’t have kids’ you’re slowly but surely entering into the realm of ‘I didn’t have kids’.

Sure, there’s still time, but you are much more aware of that time rolling on. The future moves into the present and then into the past. Your window of opportunity lessens. Over dinner, where your friends once discussed travel plans, hikes and step counts, the conversation moves towards egg counts instead.

Apparently we’re due an existential crisis every 5-10 years. My most recent one was a culmination of things, but I think I had a bit of a wobble about my decision not to have kids. It was suddenly starting to feel more real and more… undoable. Will I regret it? Will I miss out? Will I one day wish I had some adult children to go on holiday with?