Kids? No Thanks

Last weekend I went out with a couple of friends and stated that I never wanted to have kids. When my male friend responded in disbelief, “But Anna, that’s not true!”, I adjusted my statement to say that I didn’t want to have kids until I was 45. My friend was still shocked. “But Anna, you don’t want to have kids when you’re 45…” Okay, maybe I am being a bit harsh but his utter disbelief deeply disturbed me. I feel like any and many of my guy friends have casually said they are never going to have kids, yet I can think of only a brave few of my female friends who have. It’s not that I hate kids. It’s not that I might never have kids. It’s just that right now, there is no way anything that is living is coming out of my body. Doesn’t a woman have a right to chose? Oh wait, I forgot… no.

I am going to be honest here and give you some context. I currently live with a host family with four lovely, intelligent children. Yet, however lovely they are, they can all be a pain, especially to their stressed parents who show that anxiety all the time. These are good kids yet even they don’t make their parents’ lives easy. On top of that, I’m the ripe old age of 22 years old, still in college (I started school older, then took a year off before college) and no job since well, I am still in college. So, when I hear someone my age or younger is getting married and having children, I find it absolutely terrifying. Logically, if you’ve found someone you want to be with and have children with, it makes sense, more so since those eggs and sperm aren’t going to last forever. But then I put myself in their shoes and think…“But I’m still in college! I can’t have kids!”

But it’s much more than just feeling a bit too old to still be in college. I still want to live my life. Before my mother had children, she’d been to Machu Pichu and been part of the UN Peacekeeping Forces in Lebanon. Whilst there is no way in hell that I am going to be in the UN Peacekeeping Forces anywhere, I want to explore the world, learn another languages (which, yes, I know I am writing this from another country), study until I don’t want to study anymore, get a job, buy an apartment, be financially secure…Hell, I still have secret dreams to become a war artist! You can’t do that if you have kids at home. Just doing the math, or 1 year left to graduate, 1 or 2 years for a masters, maybe 3 to 5 years for a PhD, 4 years to settle down and find a home, I’m looking at a long time until I have a baby. Plus, with all that, I also have to find someone I want to have kids with. That’s stressful. All that for a child? No, thanks.

In the end, it comes back to one thing. Why can’t I say I don’t want kids? Even if I don’t mean it, I want to be able to say it because, well, maybe I don’t. We don’t need a million babies on the planet with not-so-great parents or unhappy families just because having kids is what you are supposed to do. What do you think?