It was a regular and unhealthy habit of mine to stumble across a successful, influential, child-free celeb and instantly switch to Google to find out their age. If Google said she was older than me, I’d breathe a sigh of relief.
For years I needed the reassurance that I wasn’t the only one not having children. The feeling of camaraderie in my dysfunctional parasocial relationships made me feel better about it all.
Ruby Warrington’s book Women Without Kids starts off fairly similar too. So much so, you might even think I’ve plagiarised her.
“There’s a game I like to play sometimes when my mind is picking at the scabs of my self-esteem—looking for ways to prove what a loser I am. I call it, “Does She Have Kids?” Ok, game is maybe stretching it. The only skill required is the ability to type the name of the woman in question into Wikipedia.”
There you have it! The official, somewhat unhinged pastime of child-free women.
It’s understandable why this game of ours exists though. I must have been seven years old when I was first asked how many children I wanted. A question I’d answer without even thinking about it. “Three,” I’d say. “Three feels like a nice number.” I was a child—yet to kiss a boy and clash our front teeth, or be picked up and taken nervously on a first date, or experience the earth-shattering pain of a broken heart—but sign me up to be a mother of three.
The discourse around women not having children is one that many have an opinion on. Take this as an example—Chris Williamson and Matthew Hussey, discussing that very topic on a podcast. During the conversation, Williamson references comedian Chelsea Handler, a childfree woman, describing a video she shared on Instagram. He says, “She talks about how she’s going to get on Raya, find a guy for tonight, smoke weed, masturbate, fall back asleep, fly to Paris, buy a croissant—and I’m like, is this really the fucking future that most women aspire to have?”
Hussey replies with, “masturbation and croissants!”
They laugh—which is clearly a nod to Handler for doing her job well, no?
He then goes on to discuss “The Girl With The List”, referring to a content creator who posted a list of the pros and (mainly) cons of having a child, in response to a video about postpartum bodily changes. “The List” blew up on TikTok and became a satirical yet important assembly of women with and without kids, acknowledging the physical, emotional and mental turmoil that comes with the title of Mother. A title that Williamson and Hussey will never understand, no matter how many statistics they Google.
A few minutes later, Matthew Hussey comments on the societal pressure put on men to delay having kids and to, keep having fun, keep sleeping around. He follows this up with, “You have to be a pretty strong person to go, I don’t think that’s the answer.”
Woah woah woah—so men challenging the status quo are strong? But women doing the exact same are croissant-eating masturbators?
Anyway! I might be child-free, but my fridge is covered in photos and drawings from nieces and nephews. I have drawers full of friendship bracelets they’ve made, funny poems they’ve written and pebbles from the beach they’ve picked and placed in my pockets. Being an Auntie—a loved Auntie—is perfectly enough for me. Not to mention my three-year-old Italian Greyhound whose entire existence satisfies every maternal instinct I have.
In addition to that, I’m a sensitive flower whose stability crumbles with loud noises or anything less than eight hours of sleep. Everyone went nuts when Dakota Johnson said she could sleep for fourteen hours, but not me. I get it.
Now, in my mid-thirties, I’m fairly content with the decision. My twenties, on the other hand, were a little less self-assured. Like Carrie in this episode, watching friends at their baby showers tear open multipack muslins, onesies and breast pumps, I couldn’t help but wonder what the future held for us.
What would become of our friendship? Had I lost them forever? Will we still go out and drink margaritas with a sugar rim and take up smoking for the night if they’re busy doing bath time and saying things like use your listening ears and good job buddy?
And so I decided to do what any person with a self-diagnosed fear of abandonment would do—I distanced myself entirely.
One pregnant friend noticed the distance and phoned me. She asked if I was ok—and I said something about no one liking me anymore because I didn’t have children. I think I also went on to say that sometimes it felt like I was being judged for not wanting them and I was making a mockery of my role as a woman, blah blah blah. After a moment of silence where I wondered if I’d overshared again, she sighed and said, “I care as much about your decision to have a child as I do about Angelina Jolie having a seventh.”
And just like that, the weight of the world was no longer on my shoulders. Because the truth is, no one really cares what I do or don’t do with my ovaries.
I have this theory, that most of our anxieties are driven by the same, universal fear: abandonment. When we strip back all the noise, it tends to come down to that one thing. We’re terrified of being pushed out, rejected, alone. Go on—try it now. That thing that’s on your mind, peel all the layers back and see what’s left at the centre of it. The fear of being alone results in us tip-toeing through our own existence, fussing over the unimportant, wasting precious hours worrying about what other people might think—sometimes even concerning ourselves over the opinion of two blokes on a podcast.
Once upon a time, I used to think that self-actualisation was the meaning of life. I’d fall asleep listening to affirmations like you are a strong, independent woman and money will come to you in abundance. (I’m not, it didn’t). But as the years have gone by, my affirmations have become a little more realistic—ultimately shifting my anxiety-driven mind in ways that are beyond words:
I am nothing.
I am no one.
I don’t care.
Try it, you croissant-eating masturbator! It works!
This article hits home. I made a very good friend when I moved to Australia and we sailed through 'adulting' together chanting 'mermaid hair don't care'. When she told me she was pregnant I literally cried and said 'now everything will change' and I felt like shit. She was obviously more scared than me but I had to single-child the situation. I was right, nonetheless, but maybe a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy.