Amanda Chatel always dreamed she’d get married and have kids.

Then she turned 10.

“I realized I wanted to be a writer in New York City,” says the 33-year-old East Villager, an editor for the career women’s site The Grindstone. “That changed everything. I wanted a life that sparkled. I wanted a life that wasn’t conventional. My sister, who’s two years younger, is married and has two kids. I just look at her life, and it’s really my worst nightmare.”

So much for the idea that every woman’s dying to have a baby.

According to a new study by the New York-based think tank the Center for Work-Life Policy, 43 percent of college-educated women between the ages of 33 and 46 are childless. And nowhere does that statistic resonate more than here.

Whether they call themselves “childless,” “childfree,” “childless-by-choice” or even just “still on the fence,” a significant number of New York women in their 30s and 40s are taking a pass on motherhood.

It seems the ’90s term “having it all” isn’t so appealing to many in this generation of women, who aren’t particularly interested in working nonstop in an office and then working nonstop at home just to prove they can.

Especially here in the city, where many come to realize dreams other than changing diapers and maternity leave.

“You don’t move to New York when you’re 23 years old with $500 in your suitcase because you want to live in the suburbs, meet a nice guy and have two kids,” says Maureen Taran, a 41-year-old creative executive at a cable network. Although she was at one point planning to get married and assumed she’d be having children with her husband-to-be, that relationship ended — and so did her immediate plans for motherhood. Now, she’s got a killer job and a great boyfriend. But kids — that’s a big question mark.

“I’m so career-driven, and I have to do yoga four times a week, and get my nails done — my boyfriend doesn’t see where I’m fitting a kid into all this,” she says with a laugh.

“People here are more on the go. There are a lot of movers and shakers,” says Kambri Crews, 40, author of the forthcoming memoir “Burn Down the Ground.” In her book, she chronicles one of the main reasons she and her husband, 38-year-old comedian Christian Finnegan, decided not to have kids: “Our collective gene pool,” Crews says, explaining that they have both psychological and physical disorders in their respective families. Her father is currently in prison for attempted murder.

“It would be risky for us to reproduce,” she says.

Though they haven’t ruled out adoption, she says their lifestyle isn’t particularly kid-friendly. “Christian travels so much as a comedian, and I’ll hopefully be traveling when the book comes out. And honestly, most of our friends don’t have children. It doesn’t seem so unusual.”

Indeed, it’s becoming less and less so.

According to studies by the Pew Research Center in 2008, the number of women between 40 and 44 who’ve never given birth has increased by 80 percent since 1976. The average age at which a New York woman first gives birth has also increased (as it has nationwide). According to the NYC Health Department, the average age for NYC was 25.85 in 1989; by 2009, it had jumpted to 27.46.

The public perception of children as essential is also diminishing. Back in 1990, 65 percent of adults polled by Pew said children are very important for a successful marriage; in 2008, only 41 percent said that.

TV news anchor Tamsen Fadal, 40, has a successful marriage and, so far, no children. In addition to her early-morning spot on local station WPIX, she’s written two books and runs a matchmaking business with her husband. The word “kids” does float around in their household sometimes, she says, “and we’re like, ‘We need to talk about this, but first — let’s order dinner.’ ”

For women like Crews and Fadal, finding a likeminded partner is crucial.

Other women find themselves hashing it out with significant others who may want children more than they do, like “Lisa,” a 27-year-old in Williamsburg. Her boyfriend of 5½ years is “hoping I’m going to change my mind,” she says, although “I’m pretty sure I never want them. Motherhood is utterly at odds with everything I want from life.”

Others are steering clear of having kids precisely so they can maintain balance and equality within their marriage.

“I don’t really see the appeal,” says “Susan,” a 30-year-old Williamsburg resident who’s been married for five years. “I think kids are a lot of work and a huge investment in time and money that I’m not sure it’s worth it for me to make. And despite roles changing somewhat, I think for the most part, the woman ends up taking on the bulk of that work, even if that’s not what was initially decided within the couple.”

Still, when you’re married, the questions from well-meaning relatives and friends are inevitable.

When people ask 30-something East Villager “Jennifer” and her hubby if they are “trying,” she says, “I answer that we’re not going to. I often get well-meaning lectures of the ‘Well, have you considered . . . ?’ variety. Which I endure, but find patronizing and intrusive. I definitely don’t get any support about it.”

Many childless women say they’re branded “selfish” for choosing a life without kids. And Chatel, for one, is owning the term. “I am selfish!” she says. “My favorite topic is me. I get angry when I don’t get my way.” And so “it would be selfish of me to have a child. To be honest, I’d be a horrible mother.”

But there’s a larger social contract to consider, say those who claim child-free women are making a mistake.

“The task of mothering is a very important function. It’s more than just an issue of personal preference,” says Glenn Stanton, director of Family Formation Studies for the Colorado-based organization Focus on the Family.

“We all have a social responsibility to reproduce ourselves and make sure that we’re giving the future of our world good promise . . . There are real consequences to these things. The next generation of teachers, inventors, leaders — those people all started out as babies. The act of mothering is a very important social function.”

This argument doesn’t get much traction with childless women.

“It’s not as if the world needs any more kids!” says Lisa. “The best thing we could all do for the planet is stop breeding.”

But, many childless women are asked, “won’t you regret not having children?”

“I’m starting to think about it more now,” admits Taran, the cable network exec, “and I’m thinking that I might regret it if I don’t. But it’s not the be-all and end-all of my thoughts.”

Studies haven’t borne out this particular scare tactic, however.

A 2003 study by Dr. Phil surveyed 20,000 parents; a third said if they had to do it all over again, they wouldn’t have had kids. The same year, at the University of Florida, a survey of 3,800 people between the ages of 50 and 84 debunked the myth of elderly regret, finding “no significant differences in depression between parents and childless adults.”

In the shorter term, studies are finding people without children actually chart higher on the happiness scale than parents. In a 2-year-old study by the University of Denver, 90 percent of couples saw their marital happiness decrease after their first child was born.

A 2008 Newsweek report found parents to be about 7 percent less happy than the childless, and a related study said “no group of parents reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children.”

But despite the burgeoning numbers of women choosing not to have kids, despite the academic evidence showing you don’t need them to be happy, despite dwindling worldwide resources — society is banging the drum for motherhood harder than ever.

“What we have now is a situation where women have made enormous strides in defining themselves as individuals . . . and in leading interesting lives,” says Leslie Bennetts, author of “The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?”

“And yet,” she says, “the culture batters them all the time with this message that, really, the only thing that is worth paying attention to is having some big, ridiculous destination wedding and then starting to breed.”

“I call it mom-opia,” says Melanie Notkin, author of the book “Savvy Auntie: The Ultimate Guide for Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers and All Women Who Love Kids.” Notkin’s book touts many facts and figures related to the surge of childless American women — such as the 2008 US Census report statistic that 45.7 percent of women under the age of 44 do not have children. She believes this vast, almost-half population of women is still largely invisible.

“I think people often invert the ‘w’ in women to ‘m’ for mother,” she says. “There’s this assumption that all women are mothers. Everybody seems so shocked by the statistics. I have been questioned so often, I have to actually show people the census data!”

But while childless women may be “invisible,” childless celebrities are increasingly out and proud. Cameron Diaz has remarked that “having children changes your life drastically, and I really love my life.” When asked in a “60 Minutes” interview if she ever regretted not having children, Helen Mirren replied, “No. Absolutely not. I am so happy that I didn’t have children. Because I’ve had freedom.”

And for a significant number of New York’s female residents, that allure of freedom seems to be winning out over motherhood.

“New York attracts the best and the brightest,” says Bennetts. “I don’t find it surprising that you have such a high concentration of women here who have decided that another path is, maybe, more rewarding.”