I Don’t Want Children, but I’m Afraid I Might Change my Mind

BY ALICIA EXWORTHY PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATIE AIRD

Somewhere, there exists a box that is filled with memories. Old birthday cards, torn ticket stubs. A flimsy piece of paper, written on by a child – me – who declared: ‘I, Alicia Exworthy, will never have children’. I can’t have known what such a statement truly meant at that young age, but even then I protested the plan rolled out before me by society’s assumptions of womanhood. Why would anyone assume motherhood for me before I had a chance to know for myself if children were what I desired?

Unaware, unwittingly, assumptions and expectations (both unspoken and overt) wore me down.

‘By the time I’m thirty, I want to be married with two children. I don’t want to be an old mum’, teenage me would say. Thirty seemed about the right age. Two kids was a good number; one of each seemed to be a common hope. Many of my friends agreed. How did we all reach the same consensus? It was just what people did. It was what we, too, would do.

Reaching twenty, I was half-seriously and half-jokily relieved to pass teenagehood without pregnancy. That is until a hard truth dawned on me: I would always be relieved to know I wasn’t pregnant. I didn’t want to be a teen mum; I didn’t want to be an ‘old’ mum. I didn’t want to be a mum at all.

My reasons started off ‘selfish’ (although I’m yet to understand the logic behind the argument that childless women are selfish). I liked having no responsibility and my time to myself. My early childhood intuition was spot on, and I’ve come to realise that freedom is the value that drives me. Freedom of time, movement, finances, space, expression, belief and identity. All of it.

I celebrate my freedom to choose whether or not to have a child. In recent times, we’ve seen how this choice cannot be taken for granted. I also savour the relief of being certain in my decision. In avoiding the pressure to meet someone or settle down or beat the biological clock, it’s as though I’ve cheated the system. It shouldn’t be this easy. And it’s not.

My choice not to have children isn’t taken seriously. The most common thing that people tell me is that I’ll change my mind. I’ve got the ‘wrong impression’ about children; the maternal instinct will come. Upon hearing this, I’m frustrated and indignant. It’s why I’m so forceful in my beliefs and why I prepare my arguments and reasoning in my head – ready for when I’m questioned – and why I snap when the questions inevitably come.

Part of the reason I react this way, though, is a traitorous thought that sneaks into my head when my guard is down. What if? What if I do change my mind? Having once accepted marriage and children as part of my future, it was a conscious decision for me to move away from it. Yet, the potential of changing my mind again feels unnervingly out of my control. If it’s not what I want for my life, how could it possibly change?!

Seeing other women re-evaluate their decision to have children unnerves me. I feel exposed to the possibility that I could change my mind too. Eva Mendes once said, ‘I never wanted babies until I fell in love with Ryan (Gosling). Then it made sense for me to have… not kids, but his kids.’ I’m now in the same position that she once was. I’m single and don’t know who I’ll meet and how that might shape my life and my decisions.

While the social tide is changing, it’s still ingrained in culture and gender roles that having children is a woman’s inevitable duty. That motherhood is the sacred fulfilment of our natural instincts. Consciously childfree women are my role models that help reinforce the rightness of my own decision. The women who are sure of their childfree decision reassure me; the women who question it unsettle me. If others are questioning, how can I know that I’ll stay resolute?

When anxious or doubtful, I remind myself that we ask ourselves questions to make sense of the world, to make sense of other people and what happens around us. Questioning ourselves and our beliefs is good. It means we’re thinking and evaluating and not blindly doing what we’re expected to. I ask: is this my opinion because I need to ensure my own sense of freedom above all else in an uncertain and patriarchal world or is it my opinion simply because I don’t want a child?

At the age of twenty-nine, I don’t have the answer yet. I’ve worked hard to get to the point I’ve reached in my journey. In many ways, it feels as though my life is only just getting started. I’m protective of what I’ve achieved and what I want for my life ahead of me. Right now, the only maternal role I’m committing to is nurturing and caring for myself and the community I’m growing around me.

For now, I’m very clear on my stance and how I see my life unfolding. I am learning to finally trust my intuition. That said, I will make use of the freedom I value so highly and be free to review my decision on motherhood later in life, should I need to. ✦