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By Nina Steele

What a difference the passing of time makes. This time last year we were still hoping to become parents, driven not by a burning desire but simply following what we believed was the norm. That norm is what society expects of most couples and as far as we were concerned it was the only way. All our siblings have children and so childlessness was something that we never anticipated. We assumed rather naively, that we would automatically become parents once we were ready to start a family. We were not aware for example that a woman is at her most fertile in her late teens up until her mid-20s and that her chances of conceiving start to drop after that. Similarly, we were not aware that a man’s fertility starts to decline after 35. I was in my late 20s and my husband in his late 30s when we started trying and 9 years later we decided that enough was enough.

The good news is that, life has never felt so good! Society is so dominated by the ideal of the nuclear family that not much is written about in terms of the joys of childlessness. For example, we as a couple are living our life on our own terms as opposed to someone else’s and we can be as spontaneous with our spare time as we want to be. How many people with children are able to say the same? Ultimately tough, this is not a competition between those who have children and those who don’t. Childlessness gives you the opportunity to live a different kind of life that can bring you a great deal of joy and happiness if you are ready to embrace it wholeheartedly, as we have done. For what is life really about? Is it about ticking boxes, in this case following convention and having children even when deep down you know that you have never been keen on the idea? Or is life ultimately about self-development. Whatever your answer to these questions, it is important to be true to yourself and live the life that you feel brings you the most happiness as opposed to one that you think is expected of you. How many people have had children just so that they can fit in with the rest of society? Looking back, we are greatly relieved that fate has ensured that we did not end up living an inauthentic life. Surely, had we had children we would have done the right thing and looked after them well, however, would we be as happy as we are today? I doubt it.

Living life on one’s terms is a luxury but ultimately one that is available to everyone. Some choose this option from the word go and so become childless by choice while others such as my husband and I, are forced into it by fate. Whatever the reasons why one is childless, the truth is that, because of the established convention, i.e. having children, childlessness has been stigmatised in a way that anyone without children is made to feel as though they are living a life that is devoid of true meaning. However the reality as we have discovered is that childlessness can lead to a life filled with joy and happiness and one of the main reasons for this is that you have the chance to live life on your own terms in a way that many people aren’t.