She dreamt of getting married one day, living in a big house and having children of her own. Many children.
“I remember being nine years old, sitting on my bedroom floor, drawing my dream home on my sketch pad. I drew all the bedrooms and assigned them to my 10 children! Five girls and five boys,” she recalls.
Joan even had names planned out for each of her 10 children.
But as she grew older and wiser, she realised that 10 children was a little bit too much to handle.
“As my awareness increased with regards to the amount of time, money, and energy required for raising children, the number of kids I wanted gradually decreased,” she said.
By the time she was finishing university, Joan says she was down to just having two children and being done with it.
As it goes, life truly begins to happen after university.
People start to get jobs, careers start to take off, people get married and as expected, they start to have children.
That was exactly what Joan realised when she was around 30 years old.
“Most of my peers started having kids at age 30, but I just wasn't ready. I promised myself I would revisit the subject when I turned 35. When the time came, I did a great deal of soul-searching and decided that I would never become a mother,” she said.
This kind of decision by a woman is usually not well received by society, or by her family, because it is considered wrong.
Motherhood is often considered a prerequisite of being a woman, so women who are unable to have children because of reasons such as infertility usually feel like they are defective women.
These women are often mocked for being barren. Even in the Bible, women would pray not to be ‘cursed’ with infertility.
So, making a conscious decision not to want children comes as a nasty surprise to many people in their lives.
Most of my peers started having kids at age 30, but I just wasn't ready. When I turned 35, I did a great deal of soul-searching and decided that I would never become a mother
FAMILY REACTION
Joan says her family and friends, the ones she has told about wanting a childfree lifestyle, reacted quite alright.
“The ones who know have been generally supportive,” she said, confessing that she had not fully "come out" as childfree until now.
Unlike Joan, others who choose the childfree lifestyle are not met with much support from their family or friends.
Jeremy* (not his real name), a 29-year-old accountant, said since telling his parents he will not be having any children, his mother still holds a grudge against him.
"I am the lastborn and the only boy in our family, and two of my elder sisters are already married with children," he says.
He said he was relieved when he came to the decision to not have any children in future because at least his parents already had grandchildren.
"In our culture, the boy is meant to continue the family's bloodline, so I knew my decision would be met with resistance," he said.
He says he has never been good with children and when he first held his niece, his eldest sister's daughter, he panicked and thought he would drop the newborn baby.
While his sister told him it is a common feeling among people holding babies for the first time, he knew it went deeper than just jitters.
"I just felt deep inside my heart that this was not the route for me. I knew I had to do a lot of soul-searching and healing to even come close to wanting to have one child," he said.
And soul-searching he did. He asked himself why he did not want to have children and realised he did not want to be like his father.
"My dad used to beat up my mum and the four of us when he got drunk. That was back in the 2000s, when we were still very little, before he got saved and changed his ways," he said.
But Jeremy says although the family made peace with the fact that he had changed, the trauma never really left.
When he finally confided in his parents about his decision, his father was a little supportive, saying that he was an adult who could make his own decisions.
"My mother was very upset. She asked me whether I wanted to kill the family. She said I would disgrace my father's name. I couldn't tell her that I was afraid of ending up just like him," he said.
Jeremy says it would not be fair to have children only to pass down the trauma he got from his parents to them.
"I told my mother that for now, I won't be considering having children so at least she speaks to me a little. I don't know if I will change my mind or not," he said.
I expressed my wishes of never becoming a parent, she said one day she would like to become one, so we split
NAVIGATING DATING
John* says one major deal-breaker in a relationship is his partner wanting to have children.
He says he grew up thinking that having children was an obligation he had to fulfil, but he never looked forward to it.
However, two years ago, he made up his mind entirely after he and his then-girlfriend had a pregnancy scare.
"My girlfriend thought she was pregnant and that is when it dawned on me that not only was I not ready to become a parent then, but also, I never ever wanted to become one," he said.
His realisation of what parenthood entailed, he said, terrified him because he could not picture himself taking care of someone almost all their life and wasting like 30 years of his life.
"Luckily she wasn't pregnant and we had a difficult conversation afterward. I expressed my wishes of never becoming a parent, she said one day she would like to become one, so we split," he said.
Jeremy also says that being childfree is a big factor he considers in all his romantic relationships.
"I have to ask before the relationship escalates any further just so we are on the same page. I wouldn't want us to reach a place where they are pressuring me to have kids or they want me to have kids with them when I clearly don't ever intend on having any," he said.
Joan says a family does not need children to be complete because even adults can bring each other the love and fulfilment that families with children also get.
"To me, family is the people who love and care for me. People who you bond with and form strong connections with. People you can turn to for help and support," she said.
It is selfish to bring children into this world when you cannot properly take care of them. Also, I have businesses to run, is that not a responsibility?
FIGHTING THE STEREOTYPE
Actress Ebby Weyime says once she came to the self-realisation that society had always controlled her life, she also realised she wanted to have children only because society dictated so.
"My life as a woman is always being controlled by society. What we should eat, what we should wear, how we should look. I was looking at my life and I realised that I couldn't even afford myself. How was I going to afford a child?" she said.
So she decided to create a list of the reasons why she actually wanted to have a child.
"My list of the reasons to not have children was so large but the list of why to have a child had only one reason. I wanted to see how they would look like, what their personality would be like," she said.
She decided that pure curiosity was not enough reason to birth a whole baby.
Ebby, who is 35, says she eventually wants to get married once she turns 50 but purely for companionship.
She says she wants to enjoy the freedom that comes with being childfree now and enjoy her freedom of choice against the dictates of society.
"I am childfree and pro-choice. That does not mean I hate children," she says.
"In 2020 during the Covid-19 lockdown, I got pregnant even though I was on the pill. It was very unexpected and my partner and I were together to keep each other company during that time."
But since she had already communicated clearly to her partner that she did not wish to have children, then procuring an abortion was an easy choice.
She, however, does not recommend anyone to have an abortion because she says it was painful and expensive.
The best part about not having kids?
"You can afford nice things," she says, laughing. "This is the kind of freedom I've always wanted."
While people say childfree people are selfish and do not like responsibility, Ebby says responsibilities are not just taking care of children.
"It is selfish to bring children into this world when you cannot properly take care of them. Also, I have businesses to run, is that not a responsibility? I would not want to add more on my plate when I already have enough," she said.
She says a lot of people end up losing themselves after they have children and forget who they once were. She does not want that to happen to her.
Joan reiterates the same thing. She loves not having to be responsible for another human for the first 25 years of their life.
"Today, many parents have to support their kids well into their twenties until they get a job. That's a great deal of investment: financial, physical and emotional. I'm glad to be free of such responsibility," she says.
Edited by T Jalio
