I didn’t become a childfree woman. I was born childfree, much like everyone else, then I simply stayed that way. There was no need to go through a future-mother phase to know that in my home there would be no chirpy children’s laughter or tippety-tap of bare toddler feet.
Poor David then, my partner. He most definitely was in his future-father phase when we met, aged 20, 21.
David: blond, short, cow-eyed. Warm, smooth, kind hands. Dramatically affectionate. A natural born father if ever I saw one. But in meeting me, and falling in love, he found himself facing a decision of epic proportions. Children, or me.
When I was 10 I went with my parents to visit family friends one night. The woman in this family, Karina, was extremely pregnant with her second child. I was mesmerised. And appalled. The swell, the veins, the movement just centimetres beneath the skin. Alien stuff. So alien in fact that to my eyes, the thing I had been told to be most natural, peak wholesomeness, looked… well, I’m just going to say it, to my 10-year-old self, it looked freakish. A physical impossibility. “I don’t think I’m able to have children,” I remember saying, upon which Karina replied: “I don’t think anyone does until the ultrasound.”
I asked myself then, do I really not think I’m able to have children, as in physically? And I realised I had missed the mark. It wasn’t the physicality of it, it was something else. It was the role. Me as mother. What I strongly felt was, motherhood is not on the cards for me. Able? Probably. But not willing. (Did I mention I was a precocious child?)
I was not shy though and had no qualms voicing this newfound epiphany. I would never have children – another sparkling curio added to my rapidly growing identity. And I’ve never stopped voicing it. I am lucky with family. Growing up I was met with never-ending interest and attention. There are no nay-sayers in my family and I have not once been told to “be sensible” or any such nonsense. So far so good. My childfreeness has not sparked any guilt-tripping or worry about what the neighbours will think.
Other people have perhaps not always been as easygoing. “It’s just a phase,” or “Who will take care of you when you’re 80?” And of course, the well-worn favourite: “You will change your mind when you get older.” This from relatives, friends, acquaintances and yes, strangers too. A chorus so recurrent I know the lyrics by heart. I can sing its harmonies. Probably even pick it out on the piano if asked. I don’t mind much, it’s not malicious. It’s a routine reaction, one I can sympathise with and understand. It doesn’t hurt my feelings one bit. But scratch the surface of this statement a little and underneath, I wonder is there a tad of the old “women are so emotional and hysterical and irrational they can’t be trusted to know their own mind” consensus? Yes, I think there might be.
Will I change my mind? Not impossible, but unlikely. And that brings us back to poor David. He has been drip-fed this piece of information about me since the very beginning. It was not a shocking conversation we had to put our relationship through. Before sitting down to write this I asked him: when I first told you, aged 21, wide-eyed and radical and hair cut like a boy, did you think it was a phase? Did you think I’d change my mind when I got older? He says he doesn’t remember, it being quite undramatic and all. But that yes, he probably did think it. We were so young after all, we barely knew who we were.
I do remember one of those early conversations. We had moved from Stockholm to a prototypical Swedish small town: one car factory, two wine and spirits shops, 17 or so hairdressers. Population 40,000. A slight, good-humoured accent. David was working in a large, clean supermarket, supporting me while at uni. One day he cycled home, his nose and cheeks rosy like always from stocking the freezer section all day, but still I could see he was flustered. While changing out of his fleece uniform he told me: “Jimmy’s girlfriend is pregnant.” Jimmy being his closest co-worker, the other freezer-stocker. “They’re buying a house. Jenny, he’s 21.”
There it was, David’s free spirit. His need for stability, security, comfort never successfully subduing his want for the big adventure! David the escapader, experiencer of romps, a bit of the nomad in him. Seeing how the news about Jimmy made him doggedly protective of our geographical freedom was a relief and a joy. I got chills. I kissed him hard. There were no small-town chain-house savings accounts in David’s budget. And soon thereafter we emigrated to London.
But back then in the small town, he still took for granted he would be a father one day. It was the normal thing to do. And I remember a certain look he used to get, seeing a seven-year-old in a flamboyant dress on her way to a birthday party. And I figured, if it wasn’t for me, he would delightedly buy flamboyant clothing for a future daughter, hold her tiny, sticky hand with his warm, smooth, kind one, patiently endure the tinnitusy screams from a squadron of berserk children, huddled with the other parents, before safely bringing her home, her new dress sullied and grass-stained.
Does picturing this scenario cause me guilt? Yes.
I am being dramatic. David would make an excellent father, yes, but it doesn’t mean he wants to. And now it has been years since I last saw that specific look in his eyes. David has gone from a content childfree person to an extremely happy one, as he is wont to tell me after every dinner party with children present. “Thank God.” And: “Can you imagine if?” That sort of thing.
Since I am the one inciting this lifestyle I do check in, every six months or so. “Are you sure? There is still time.” And his conviction, much like a fontanelle (if you’ll allow the topic-specific analogy), at first wobbly and pliant, has calcified to seemingly bone-hard. Bone-hard or not, whenever he suggests tying his tubes I do ask him to hold off. I might not have many childbearing years left, but his sperm could stay in mint condition for decades yet. What if I die? It could happen. He should have the option. Anyhow, there are other ways to contracept.
For the record, I do not dislike children. And the fact that I have to clarify this is a little strange to me. I mean I wouldn’t clarify being fine with Japan as a country if not feeling like a trip to Tokyo this year, but here we are, I’m clarifying (a lesson well learned). I’m not overly interested in children as a group, I admit that. Specific ones I often find utterly fascinating. Even adorable. But in general? I do prefer adult company. Don’t ask me why.
I’ve gathered that the stereotype of a childfree woman is a cutthroat careerist, frigid and selfish, and narcissistic even more than most. OK, I might be somewhat of a narcissist, as my novelist and influencer job titles will imply, but I am the opposite of a frigid cutthroat. I’m a sweetheart. Not tough at all! A surplus empathy vegan who can’t watch cancer films or read Toni Morrison without it shattering her little eggshell heart. Show me a cat, any cat, and I’ll melt completely. There are brands of caring other than maternal.
So please don’t worry: I am not here to convert anyone. I have no stakes here. I am not representing other childfree women, we are not a group. And even though motherhood and childfreeness are both highly politicised topics, especially in countries where women’s reproductive rights have either never existed or been recently revoked, for me personally there is no morality involved. I am not proud to be childfree. But more importantly (and if you’re skimming this article, this is where I would invite your eyes to pause), though not proud, neither am I ashamed. My only reason for not having kids is that I simply do not want to. Flippant perhaps. But not shameful. It might be a tad abnormal, probably unrelatable to most, but that does not embarrass me. There is no sense of lack, I do not wonder what if. I do not feel unnatural, or less of a woman.
Then what about David? I know my own views, but can a person ever truly know what someone else is feeling? Is there a sense of lack in him, deeply hidden under layers of contentment? I don’t think there is, but I will never know for certain. What I will do though, is take his word for it. Trust that he can make his own decision, guard his own happiness. Respect him enough to not treat him like a hysterical, irrational woman who doesn’t know her own mind, by telling him “You know, you might change your mind when you get older.”
Jenny Mustard is the author of Okay Days (£16.99 Sceptre hardback). Buy it for £14.95 at guardianbookshop.com