I'm turning 30 and everyone is pregnant

Helen Pidd's piece in the Guardian, plus all my friends being pregnant, has got me thinking about babies, fertility, parenthood, and alternative families.

*disclaimer: I talk a lot in this article about pregnancy and womanhood. I am speaking from my own experience as a cisgender woman and my cisgender woman friends who are pregnant. Non-binary people and trans men are also affected by issues of pregnancy, fertility, and parenthood, and their struggles are valid. I am using the term “women” as a generalisation, because this is a personal piece. Trans women are women. Big thanks!*

It’s less than 2 weeks away from my 30th birthday which means I’m almost obliged to do some existential crisis management and a smidge of reflection about how things are going. Inspired by Helen Pidd’s piece in the Guardian this week - “Not being able to have a baby was devastating – then I found people who embraced a childfree life” - I sat down to think about my own decision to be childfree. In fact, as I came to realise that as this was a choice I began to consider in my teens, it means that I’ve now spent half of my life knowing that I motherhood isn’t for me. Woohoo!

There are several milestones in young adulthood that often go overlooked. Those old traditional milestones of graduation, buying your first home, etc - those aren’t as clear cut as in the past, especially given that we literally do not have the financial freedom to do so. These other milestones are a little more pertinent to the modern millennial. In your late teens and early 20s, it’s “people have accidentally got pregnant and have decided to keep it”. By your mid 20s, it’s “people are actually having babies on purpose” and “people are getting married”. By the time you hit 30, it’s “people are having their second on-purpose baby” and “even more people are getting married". I imagine that by my mid 30s, the wave of divorces will begin. What fun awaits!

childfree icons: Betty White!

I had always been the dull, monogamous type, and had perfectly nice boyfriends (and a few crap ones) since I was 16. It was also evidently clear that I was the straightest person on earth; girls’ school didn’t have much of an effect on me. All signs pointed towards a typical heteronormative future, and in the 00s, this meant marriage and babies and children. Not that this was particularly pushed on me by my family or my school, but we all knew that’s what you did.

After unsuccessful attempts to figure out the cause of outrageously heavy periods in my teens and spates of vaginismus in my early 20s, I was forced to consider my own relationship with my reproductive organs and their potential a little earlier than I would have liked to. This was also the era of One Born Every Minute, a fly on the wall documentary in the UK from a maternity ward whose ads always featured the blood curdling screams of someone who is pushing another human out of their body. Who on earths watches shit like that? The combination of these factors led to me developing an intense fear of pregnancy and childbirth when I was still a child myself. I didn’t really know who to talk to about it, because it felt a bit embarrassing. Not only that I was thinking about it, but that I was letting my own biology down out of fear. It was a highly gendered time. It was weird. Looking back, it was a lot of anxiety to pile onto my young brain, about something that was absolutely not an immediate issue.

So the conclusion I jumped to, around age 15, was a big fat nope about children. This line stops here. More than anything, it was to protect myself from these irrational fears that occasionally took over.

childfree icons: Helen Mirren!

I didn’t have younger siblings or cousins I spent time with, and my exposure to young children only really began in my early 20s. I got a job as a cycling coach for young kids in South London. Simultaneously, I got into my longest relationship to date with an extremely sweet guy who I worked with. I loved being around the children, the youngest of whom were two years old, plus their baby siblings in tow who I got to cuddle a lot. In my four years at that job, I saw the babies grow up on learn to ride bikes, and their older siblings graduate from kiddy bikes to fixed gear. Some of them are still racing, and I’m hoping that one day one of them will win an Olympic gold on the track and I’ll be interviewed on BBC Sport as their first cycling coach.

The kids, especially the teenagers, seemed to understand that I was a grown up, but not as grown up as their parents. I was in a sort of weird young adult purgatory, and thus a bit more fun. Plus, I let them ride their bikes super fast. Of course they liked me. I loved that job and got heaps of cards from the families I worked with when I left. I look at them when I’m feeling sad to remember that I made a teeny tiny bit of impact on a few young people. One of the riders from my under 18s girls class wrote “when I am on my bike, I feel like I am flying". I think about that a lot.

childfree icons: Anjelica Huston!

Meanwhile, my relationship ticked along nicely. We were both so young, yet the topic of children did come up eventually. Not as an immediate possibility, but maybe something to think about. Then we hit a problem - my lovely boyfriend’s life goal was fatherhood. He said it was all he’d ever really wanted. Good lord, what I meant to do with that information? It really fucked me up, because I had to reconsider my greatest fears about pregnancy and birth. It did come to a point where I genuinely considered, some time in the future, to work through these issues with a professional in order to start a family with him. It felt worth it. Not to give him what he wanted, but because it felt like a compromise to make with someone I loved with all my heart in order to make our future work. To be honest, it was terrifying, and more pressure I piled on myself about something that wasn’t even a remote certainty.

Thankfully that issue solved itself when we broke up after three and a half years, thankfully amicably and with a lot of love. Then I noped the fuck out of Brexit Britain to start a shiny new life in Amsterdam. I was firmly back on the fabulous childfree life train, and I haven’t gotten off since. In the two serious relationships I’ve had since (one which I am currently in), I have been firmer in my decision to not have children. Admittedly, it was made easier by neither of them having big dreams about fatherhood, though they were both told in no uncertain terms that if they did, they would have to look elsewhere. I felt like I owed it to myself to make decisions for myself. After all, it’s my life, and it’s not exactly a small decision to make. For men it’s rather easy to decide you want to be a dad, outsourcing all of the unpleasant stuff onto the women. That’s obviously not their fault, but it is sadly the way it is. And even if it wasn’t, you really think men would choose to do the hard work? Come aaaaaahn!

childfree icons: Dolly Parton!

Around my mid 20s I also realised that the reasons for not wanting to bring more people into the world wasn’t just a personal one. This world is no fit place for a child. Everything is irreversibly fucked, and I’ve pretty much given up hope that the world will become a better place any time soon. The planet is burning to a crisp and the lives of ordinary people are only getting worse and less equal. We have to fight for basic survival and unacceptable injustices occur without consequence every day. I already feel pretty annoyed that I was born having to deal with this shit.

Then again, I must remind myself of the main, most important reason that I don’t want to have kids, which is: I’m not interested and I don’t want to. That should be enough.

These additional societal and environmental reasons bolstered my argument a little in the eyes of everyone else. Because unbelievably, me saying that I wasn’t particularly interested in motherhood because it sounds pretty boring and also I wanted to do whatever I wanted with my life was still not a good enough excuse. A few years ago, two of my colleagues were discussing their respective wives’ traumatic birth experiences (blood, gore, tearing, forceps, the whole shabang). I said “phew, that doesn’t sound very appealing. Not for me!” and they had the audacity to tell me to wait a few years and I’d change my mind. I asked them if they’d say the same thing to a man of my age. That shut them up.

Unfortunately, attitudes like this have made me and probably countless others to take a defensive stance on my decision to not have children, consequently typifying us as aggressive or preachy. It is still very much viewed as a default for women, and those of us who reject this default are just too young to get it and it will catch us eventually. This attitude is never reserved for men of the same age. It is endlessly frustrating to be told by others that you don’t understand your own relationship with your mind and body. It’s not like these are light decisions. I have known for 15 years now - half of my life - that it wasn’t what I wanted. I’m hoping the milestone of 30 will mean that my own decisions are no longer up for debate. Maybe one day… we’ll just be able to say “that’s nice” and let women do whatever the fuck they want. One day!

childfree icons: Lauren Miller and Seth Rogen!

The thing I feared the most about my close friends and family starting families is that some innate biological something or other would be triggered and I would suddenly be ravenous to get pregnant and have a little baby to cuddle, as I was told would happen by so many people over the years. In March my sister gave birth to her first baby, and two friends of mine who I love dearly are due in June and August respectively. It has triggered something, but not what you think.

What I felt at the idea of my new baby niece, and my honorary niece and nephew that are due soon, was pure unbridled joy. I’ve already promised free babysitting and bought some very snazzy baby clothes from charity shops. Honorary niece is getting a very cool pair of dungarees whether she likes it or not. I am so excited every time I’m sent a picture of an ever larger baby bump. And all the while, it’s not accompanied by any sort of envy or jealousy or longing. In a way, it’s not even really the babies I’m excited about, but for my friends, their parents. This is such a joy for them and I get to share a little bit of it with them. How could I not be happy?

So back to Helen Pidd’s article. We’re both childfree, but in very different ways. Pidd, like so many other people, has struggled with fertility issues and IVF hasn’t worked for her. The inability to become a parent causes her great pain, and she has turned to the childfree community to see what life without children can bring her. It’s very touching that she has found a community who can reframe her problem as an opportunity to see how much freedom she has in the rest of her life. We who are childfree by choice can offer that sort of support and insight, and we must do so sensitively. We’re all at the same destination, but some of us didn’t choose the journey.

childfree icons: Katharine Hepburn!

However, there are some things about Pidd’s article that bothered me slightly. None of this is new information. We all know the sad fact that women’s fertility suffers with age. Pidd, like I’m sure many other women, chose to prioritise her career (good for her!), married in her mid 30s, and started IVF in her late 30s. Having a baby will probably be more difficult as you get older. If having a baby is all you’ve ever dreamed of then leaving it late is always going to carry a risk. I’m not blaming Pidd at all; how was she to know? Some women can become pregnant with ease well into their 40s, and others struggle in their 20s. Everyone is different and you don’t know until you try. Life doesn’t always go as we plan, and the time isn’t always right. You want to do it with the right person, and what if they don’t show up early enough? And all this talk of egg freezing - it’s expensive, invasive, and a money spinner for companies taking advantage of desperate women. And it might not work.

It’s fucking awful that women have to choose between their careers or their families, and face discrimination in the workplace for choosing to have children. Campaigners like Joeli Brearley of Pregnant Then Screwed are still having to lobby to protect pregnant people in the workplace. Have a baby young and jeopardise your career. Leave it too late and risk struggling to conceive. Have a baby at the right time and lose your job. You’re fucked either way.

My main issue is the zero-sum way that many people see motherhood. Fertility treatment is a big business, and once you’ve run out of free IVF on your health insurance or the NHS, it can become costly. Hope is a very powerful thing and IVF providers stand to make a lot of money of it. It’s very possible to spend tens of thousands of pounds and it leading nowhere. This isn’t even taking into consideration the emotional and physical cost of egg harvesting, hormone injections, embryo transfer, and any accompanying health issues. Pidd, after three rounds, couldn’t go on. She said that some people didn’t seem to respect that decision, trying to persuade her to just try one more time or consider egg donation. Pidd resisted, and had to come to terms with a childfree life against her will. That she wasn’t even able to make this heartbreaking decision in peace and without judgement is so intensely frustrating.

childfree icons: Oprah Winfrey!

The idea of children been all yours or nothing is depressingly pervasive. If wanting to become a parent is from a desire to care for and raise another person, to have a family, to watch someone grow into a person and share experiences together, then it doesn’t need to be your flesh and blood. Reproducing doesn’t necessarily need to be a selfish act, but giving up on parenthood because the baby won’t grow up to look just like you hints that it might sometimes be the case. Especially when there are so many children out there who really do need a family.

In the UK there are tens of thousands of children in care through no fault of their own. The care system is a terrible place to grow up, and many never go on to find families to take them in and make them feel loved. Children of the care system have bleak life outcomes, including but not limited to lower life expectancy and premature death, poor physical and mental health, lower educational attainment, higher unemployment, and trouble finding stable housing. This is according to UCL, the NSPCC, the Nuffield Foundation, and PwC, plus countless others. Even fostering can have a hugely positive effect on the life of a child who has had a difficult start in life. Imagine if all those thousands spent on IVF went to making the lives of children who already exist better. Imagine knowing you could make a difference to a child’s life like that - because of you, they could live longer, happier, healthier lives. And yet, it’s never presented as a viable alternative when fertility issues strike.

childfree icons: Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks!

People don’t seem to want someone else’s child. What if it’s fucked up by its experiences of abandonment? What if it doesn’t grow up the way you want it to? Those are both extremely real possibilities for one’s own children. I know plenty of people who have grown up in loving and stable homes who struggle with mental health issues that have no specific cause. Your kid might end up messed up anyway and it won’t be anyone’s fault, just rotten luck and brain chemistry. All you can do is your best!

Perhaps I have been affected by my own experiences. Without going into too much detail, I was raised by my mother until I was 4, then by my father, and then by my maternal aunt and uncle, who for all intents and purposes are my parents. Officially, I was adopted and my “parents” were my legal guardians until I turned 18. I suffered an extraordinary amount of trauma as a young child. I had a lot of contact with social services while my living situation was being assessed. They worked very hard to make sure that I would be ok. I was fortunate, unlike many other children with difficult family situations, to have many options available, plenty of whom were not blood relatives. There was so many people willing to take me in, and I am still close with many of them. I was not in danger of ending up in a children’s home. I have grown up with a big extended chosen family, and I am closer with my friends than most of my family. If I ever need anything, there are other people’s mothers and fathers who I could call on. Yes, I was damaged goods from all the trauma I went through. That’s kind of the point. Kids like me need more help than “normal” ones, yet struggle the most to receive it. People were still willing to step up to provide me with the stability I needed to recover. Why was I one of the lucky ones?

A friend of mine who is due in the summer has been candid about her struggles to conceive. We are all so thrilled that it worked on the first few tries and all is going smoothly. While she was still trying to get pregnant, she told me that once the free rounds of IVF were up she would look into adoption. She still might, in the future, depending on how things pan out. Perhaps I am not old enough to have lots of friends who have struggled with fertility, but I am fairly certain that my friend genuinely considering adoption as an alternative is not in the majority. I hope that adoption and fostering become more common alternatives to endless rounds of hormone injections, or a heartbreaking decision to abandon parenting as an option. There are more beautiful, open minded ways to think about family.

childfree icons: Jennifer Coolidge!

For me at least, it’s not something I will be worrying about. If anything, it feels as if a huge weight has been lifted. I had always feared that some intense baby bug would bite when my friends got to it. It feels very affirming to discover a new feeling a joy that is completely external. There are plenty of outdated and cruel stereotypes portraying childfree women as cruel or loveless. If anything, all that love I’d be showering all over my own children can now be shared amongst my wider chosen family. Isn’t that beautiful?

Procreation isn’t the key to my happiness, even if it is for others. My future looks lovely and free. I can keep all my own earnings, spend it on whatever I want, lavish my nieces and nephews with gifts, bed a bad influence, regale them with stories of my fabulous life, take lots of holidays, bring them souvenirs from my travels, and be the cool auntie who babysits and puts on rude films with lots of swearing. I will teach them to swear in Dutch and Spanish, how to look cool on a bike, how to tie dye their clothes, and terrorise their future boy/girl/themfriends to make sure they’re only dating the best people.

I’ll be there during the good times and the bad, and if there’s a friend who is having difficulty with starting a family, I’ll be there to remind them of how a childfree life isn’t a life sentence of misery. It’s a fun life out there, and children are an optional extra bit of fun for those who want them.