Did you ever 'change your mind' like people always insist?
Im 18 and ive been told millions of times that ill 'change my mind' and that im 'too young to know better' about what I want and it makes me so frustrated. Yes, I am young, but I know enough to have realised that a life with a child isn't what I want at all. I have reasoning as to why I dont want to raise a child but other people only seem to think 'women need to procreate! they aren't good for anything else! you wont have any purpose!' or they simply dont think my reasoning isn't good enough to not have children.
(this is just MY opinion! if you dont think having kids is like this, then good for you. but this is my opinion and you wont be able to change it.)
I am selfish enough to realise that I dont want to devote my whole life to someone else. My purpose is to make myself, my partner and friends happy, but when you have children your entire life revolves around them wether you want it to or not.
I don't want to ruin my body physically and end up with even more mental health issues. I am mature enough to recognise I am not someone who is mentally healthy enough to raise another human. Dealing with my own mind 24/7 is more than enough.
I want the freedom to spent my hard earned money on myself. I want to be able to indulge in expensive nights out, a nice apartment/house, etc. Busting my ass at work just to come home to screaming children seems like a nightmare to me.
As a woman, I am expected to be the main caregiver of the child. I come from a family where my mother did all the parenting, chores and cooking. I know that this might not be true for all families but the woman being the predominant caretaker while the man does nothing is very common with maaaany families and I refuse to end up like that.
I want to see the world. Having kids obviously doesn't mean you can't travel but as someone who deeply enjoys alone time and one-on-one time with friends/partners, dealing with children is not a vacation and I wont enjoy the experience.
I have never felt a 'motherly urge' or 'baby-fever'. Not once in my life I have looked at a child and thought, "yes. i need one of those.". Like yes I do like children but only for a solid 20 minutes, not 18 years.
This world isn't one I would want to bring a person into. Not to sound like the world is ending but with the economy, government, climate change and all that - why would you WANT to subject someone to that when you know it will only get worse from here on out?
It's frustrating because society has brainwashed so many women to think that they HAVE to have children and start a family when in reality, we have a choice if we want to or not. I dont think my mind will magically be cured and ill randomly start wanting to pop out kids but my family insists that ill end up having children - but they dont understand that if I ever fall pregnant, im getting rid of it.
Anyway, thank you for listening to my TED talk. But the main reasoning for this post was if YOU more experienced/older/wiser Redditors can tell me if you think I will 'change' my mind in 10 years time. Did you have some of the same reasoning to be child-free like me? Did you ever 'change' like people insisted you would? Do people ever stop telling you that you're missing out? Do people ever stop telling you that 'you'll end up having kids anyway'?