Growing up female, motherhood is a given. An expectation. A requirement.

Our toys are geared towards caring for things - plastic babies, soft toys, even when we got tech pets like Tamagotchi, boys got to raise dinosaurs, we got to raise babies.

In the playground we dream up names for our future children and play house, in the classroom we are pushed towards cooking and textiles - the "girls subjects" which teach us to provide for families.



We are taught about sex in relation to reproduction, not pleasure.



When we reach a certain age, our job interviews have an extra question in relation to "juggling home life".



When we are single we are asked when we will start a relationship. When we are in a relationship, it's when when we will get married, and then when will we have babies.

When I was 13, I was in a social studies class. The teacher - a man - asked the class to raise their hand if they wanted one child, many did. Then two children. Others did. Then three children and so on, until everyone in the class had raised their hand.

"Why didn't you put your hand up?," he said, singling me out in front of all of my peers.

"Because you didn't ask who wanted no children."

At which point he and the boys in the class laughed, while the girls looked at me with exaggerated horror.

He then proceeded, as everyone else has throughout my entire life, to tell me that I was:

1. Wrong.

2. Young, and would change my mind.

3. Incapable of knowing what I want.

Yet my peers, who, despite being the same age were clearly not too young to make these kinds of calls or know what they want - because they picked the right answer.

The truth is, I've never wanted children. I've never liked them. And pregnancy kind of physically repulses me - apologies, pregnant friends.

While others have always assumed they would eventually have children, I've always assumed I wouldn't. Much like I assumed I would never cleanly pee standing up or go to the moon. It was that farfetched to me.

I never picked out names in the playground, I only took cooking and textiles as long as they were compulsory and I opted out of biology, and demanded a dinosaur Tamagotchi because frankly, I didn't care if that digital baby was surrounded by its own feces - that dinosaur needed someone to feed it t-bone steaks.

I am now 25 years old.

Which I know is young. And I may well change my mind when I'm older. I very much reserve the right to. Just like I reserve the right to have my tattoos lasered off if I change my mind about those.

The only thing in life that's permanent, is death. And even then I know a man who was clinically dead for six minutes and came back for round two.

However; surely something I've known without doubt my whole life, without prompting and in total opposition to societal norm and expectation, deserves its own credit.

I know myself pretty well by this point, and I cannot envisage any scenario in which I will wake up one day and suddenly want children.

I know all the arguments.

They range from "what if you meet the one?" to "don't you want to leave a legacy?" to "are you just jumping on the femi-nazi bandwagon?".

But I'm not writing this to defend against those.

I'm writing this because a defence is required. Because this choice has never been accepted - by men or women.

Articles pop up all the time about women who are "circumstantially childless" which - not only makes not having children sound like not having all of your limbs and faculties, but examines what a tough life it is for women who are unfairly judged for their childlessness.

Does that mean that those of us who did make the choice, deserve the judgment?

I accept that it's an uncommon choice. But it is that. A choice.

Yet I can count on three fingers the amount of people I personally know of, who share the sentiment.

One is in her forties and in a happy relationship. The other two are in their late 20s/early 30s and in a relationship together. They didn't want to be mentioned for fear of the online backlash. Which I think says a lot.

The women in my life that I admire are the ones who did what they wanted to do, and did it well. I think that's the only true measure of success that matters.

For some, that's getting married and having children. Buying a house and living in it, happily ever after.

For me, none of those things factor in - not even the house.

I accept that others will look at my life and say I'm missing out. I live frivolously, I've never had a "proper" relationship, I can't even commit to a hairstyle for too long, and I don't like cats so I can't even be a cat lady.

But at 25, I count myself successful because I have a job that I love in my chosen field, I've travelled across the globe, I'm comfortable in my own skin, I have great friends and I am not, nor have I ever been pregnant.

When Helen Clark spoke about not wanting children, it was used against her in political campaigns thereafter and in personal attacks since. When other women speak about it in articles, their names are omitted for fear of the same.

This is a progressive country and I am proud to be a part of it because of that, but that this is still an issue seems backwards.

Whether a woman has a baby is her choice. If and how you feel the need to respond to that is yours.

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