I am 38 years old and I don’t want children for endless reasons and no doubt about it. How can I respond to someone who corrects me with an opinionated “not yet” when I tell them I don’t want them? – Claudia
53-year-old Egyptian journalist and activist Mona Eltahawy writes a newsletter entitled “Feminist giant”. On May 9, Mother’s Day, he wrote: “I have no children by choice. My grandmother had eleven children. My mother, the eldest, also had three. I am the eldest and am happy to say that I have no children. Yet saying this is still taboo ”.
Eltahawy continues by recounting a series of experiences that have marked her since adolescence: the suffocating move with her family to Saudi Arabia; the terror of being married to the wrong man; the traumatic divorce from her husband. In all those cases, Eltahawy had to fight to keep its independence. “At sixteen, I promised myself that I would never get into situations that I could never get out of. You can get away from your family, you can leave your country, you can end a marriage but you cannot abandon a child. I want to be free and I am happy with the life I have built for myself ”.
This last sentence, in particular, sounds like a hymn to freedom and in my opinion is what you should respond to those who respond with condescension to your choice not to have children. The world is full of parents who are not happy with the life they have and it will be difficult to counter your sense of accomplishment.
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