I’m A Woman, I Have No Children And I’m Happy

I’ll Stick With My Cats

Photo by Ben Wicks on Unsplash

I’m 42 years old, I’m a woman, I’m married, and on top of that, I’m fat. These four things seem to add up to people assuming I have children. I don’t, though. I have no children, and I have no plans to in future. When I was young, I assumed I’d have children. All around me were women with children wherever I looked. Many of them on my local authority estate were only teenagers themselves.

However, I appear to have too much of my dad in me. He had my sister and me, but I think if he’d been brave enough to admit it, he never wanted children. That probably explains his affair and my parents’ subsequent divorce when I was ten months old and my mum was pregnant with my sister. Spectacular timing, right?

The Negative Impact Of My Dad’s Choice

The divorce and my mother’s marriage to my stepfather when I was four led to a somewhat difficult life for me. They were both clinically depressed, he was emotionally abusive and had the whole house walking on eggshells, and after we moved to where he lived, I was bullied at school from then on.

I have thought long and hard about whether it would have been better if my dad had been brave and just refused to have children? Yes, I know that means I wouldn’t be here, and…