Not all couples want to have children but some parents can't understand that choice. (Stock image)

OPINION: My wife and I aren't having children.

This hasn't always been the case. At first we were a "maybe". But as the Earth's rotated around the sun a few times we've landed in a place where we're happy to navigate this crazy old world as a twosome.

That's a lie. We aren't a twosome; we're a functioning part of a larger community that has more kids running about than you'd care to poke a stick at.

It's a choice for us. We're lucky enough to live at a time and in a place where we can make this decision without being pariahs.

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Sort of … Because as I've been telling people, they all seem to assume something is wrong with me. Something is wrong with us. Something is wrong with the world. Maybe my mother dropped me on my soft wee head when I was a baby?

123rf Even stock photo libraries can't help but stereotype childless couples.

"How could you not want kids? They're the greatest gift in this world," they say.

To which I explain that I have lots of kids around, I just get to give them back when I grow bored.

At this point the breeder assumes infertility. Assumes that the lifestyle of a publican has caught me.

Or they'll cast aspersions that my wife is barren – a word some old people still brazenly use.

"That's really sad," they'll say. "Have you thought about fertility treatments?"

At which point I explain that to the best of our knowledge we'd be perfectly capable of reproduction; that we enjoy practicing. It's just we've made a choice.

I explain that while I thought about having kids versus doing whatever-the-hell I want, whenever-the-hell I want won out on the day.

LYNDA HALLINAN/STUFF Cheerful childless Kiwi expats Gareth (IT) and Charlotte (PR) enjoy a leisurely breakfast in their plush London apartment.

Now the parent's back is up. They tell me that a selfish life is a life not lived.

My heckles raise as I too take a self-righteous position on the state of the poor old planet.

I can't for the life of me see how it's selfish to wonder if anybody considers there's more than seven billion of us stumbling about on this crazy old planet – soon to be nine billion – and surely there's going to come a point when we realise that population control might be a necessary part of the discussion about global warming.

"Forget paying people parental leave and every other bonus self-entitled parents get. You should be paying those of us that don't breed. You should be sending us on holiday to Bali every year."

I explain that it doesn't matter whether their Precious drives a monster truck or rides a bicycle. They'll still be another polluter contributing to the demise of society as the planet does it's best to rid itself of human parasites.

Suddenly my discussion with a parent has headed in the wrong direction.

It's just that if another parent smugly explains that I don't know the meaning of life because I've never gazed into my own child's eyes I swear I'll scream.

Please don't assume whatever it is you need to validate your existence is the same as what I need.

It takes a village to raise a child and that's why we need cool aunties and uncles. Who else is going to do wheelies on Harleys and teach kids their parents are lying to them?

Anyway, if history's taught us anything it's that guys like me get to 50, buy a Porsche and leave their wife to shack up with a teenager.

Maybe at that point I'll be one of those geriatric dads with a trophy wife who gets none of my references to growing up in the 1980s, while trying to distance myself from some self-righteous column I penned all those years ago.