"17 reasons why I don't want kids... and why I'm still considering it"

A guest post from Brown Bodies by Anisah Osman Britton

We’re trying something new with this edition, throwing the spotlight on leaders who inspire us in the way they challenge the status quo. Today’s spotlight is on Anisah Osman Britton and author of Brown Bodies, a newsletter “all about love and sex in the South Asian Diaspora”.

In this edition:

• "17 reasons why I don't want kids... and why I'm still considering it"

If you like what you read, forward this to a friend. This post originally appeared on Brown Bodies: subscribe to the newsletter here.

This year, I turned 30.

The normal anxieties everyone told me they’d faced didn’t seem to be appearing for me. In fact, I was excited about the future: I’d bought a house, I was in love, my friend circle was becoming what I’d always hoped for, my career was doing alright, I’d just started Brown Bodies, I was travelling lots and my family was doing OK.

Yet, on my 30th birthday I found myself crying on the floor of the gorgeous house my friends and I had rented for the weekend. Societal pressures hit me like a tonne of bricks.

The spiral started with marriage (Top tip: don’t bring this conversation up on your birthday):

• When am I going to get married? I’m already 30!
• I need to feel like I’m not compromising my faith.
• I’m going to have grey hair and wrinkles in my wedding photos.
• My nanny is 89 and I want her there and we’re running out of time.
• I’m the eldest.
• I’m going to have no prospects if I’m single post 30. I’ll be alone forever.

Yes, I turned into every Asian aunty ever. And I don’t know where it came from. The pressures often described to be experienced in South Asian cultures have never been present consciously in my life — my parents always ensured we never had any of that — but they couldn’t stop the world from feeding me the messages that I was meant to do certain things by a certain age and Every. Single. One came pouring out on my birthday.

And it wasn’t just marriage.

Kids

I’ve known since I was 14 that I don’t want biological kids. In fact, I have 17 reasons why:

1. According to the videos of pregnant teenagers that my secondary school showed me, pregnancy involves tears, screaming, lots of blood and falling off of beds in agony. That doesn’t quite appeal.
2. My body will change and stretch. I worry I’ll no longer be sexually attractive to my partner. I’ve heard so many anecdotal stories of men losing their physical attraction to their partner once seeing them give birth.
3. Am I really going to have a child before I’ve figured out orgasms?
4. I have an autoimmune illness. Is it going to get worse through pregnancy after I’ve done so well to get to where I am? What if I die in the process?
5. Doctors will no longer see ‘me’. I’ll be just a vessel for a child. My pain or concerns will become secondary. Even childbirth isn’t optimised for a woman.
6. My mental health. Postpartum depression is real and under-discussed and I worry I’d be susceptible to it.
7. Fear of fucking a kid up. What if I can’t cope with raising them? What if I become psychotic, anxious or overbearing? What if I don’t know how to create joy for a child or for myself?
8. My mum had miscarriages and I think I’ve inherited that trauma and I’ve always presumed I wouldn’t be able to have kids.
9. My career. I want to do something with my life. I want to be successful. I don’t want to be invisible. I don’t want to take a massive break to care. I want the freedom of time and thought to build and do meaningful work.
10. I want freedom. I need time to make decisions that are just for me and my partner, including moving and travelling. I want fun and joy. I want to eat and sleep whenever. I want hobbies and nights out.
11. I want financial freedom.
12. I don’t want to spend 18+ years putting myself second. I want to explore who I am, heal, do the work on myself that I need to be a whole and fulfilled person.
13. I don’t want a child because my family or my partner’s family wants us to have one. I don’t want the societal pressure or expectation to be the reason I have a child. Just because everyone else is having one and that’s the assumed role of a woman does not mean I should do that. Unless it’s clearly thought out and something my partner and I desire strongly, leave me out.
14. Although I love kids, I’ve never experienced the urge to have a child — that feeling when people just know.
15. I do not want to assume the role of cook, cleaner, primary caregiver…reliant on a man for his salary and conversation. I do not want my life to become in service of a home and kids. I’ve worked too damn hard for my independence. (Yes, this is 100% about choosing the right partner with aligned values but Lord the fear is real)
16. Climate change and the state of the world. Wars, famine, hate crime, natural disasters, etc. I watch as children in Palestine – kids that look like my child would likely look — are murdered and no one in power cares. How do I bring them into that? How would I tell them that they matter?
17. I’m already a cool AF aunty and I will continue to have children in my life that fulfil my love for kids and bring me so much joy. I am their village and they’re mine.

All very good and valid reasons. Yet, for the first time in my life I was having a wobble. I’ve always been able to see myself fostering and adopting but this was different. I could see it with my then partner. And it terrified me. That wasn’t the future I was planning.

Why were my mind and my body betraying my plan for a childfree life? Was it the pressure of being with someone who wanted kids and knowing one of us would have to change in order to stay together? Or was there some internal calling?

These fears kept flaring up. When would I get to do life that was just for me, devoid of responsibilities towards others? Would I regret having a child and be counting down the days until they move out? Would I be able to stand up to the pressure, opinions and advice that people would enforce on us? Would I be able to do it my way? Would the father be the modern day co-parent I need? What if the child had severe disabilities, got injured, got killed, got sick— how would I cope with it? Does that make me a bad person for thinking those things? What if I can’t have biological kids? Would my partner leave me? Does that make me less of a woman?

Then the broodiness went away.

But I knew what I’d felt and I feared that feeling coming back in a future when it would be too late for me to make a choice. So I started to research:

• I’ve been researching fertility to understand more about myself.
• I’ve looked into egg freezing and what it would mean to be pregnant with my illness.
• I’ve talked to my friends who have kids, are trying to have kids or have decided it’s not for them. It’s been incredible to have those conversations and it’s helped me build so much empathy for the women in my life.
• I’ve read countless stories of parents and childfree couples across the spectrum of experiences.
• I’ve read about those who changed their minds (in both directions) and those who didn’t have the choice of biological children.
• I’ve looked into the costs of night nannies and care.
• I’ve read about parents who travel with their kids and those who decided to settle.
• And, of course, I’ve made good old trusty pros and cons lists.

The question about biological kids still keeps me up at night.

Will I ever know what the right thing is for me? I don’t know. But I am beginning to feel more comfortable with the idea that I may change my mind a million times and that is OK. Sometimes the pressures we feel — whether societal or internal — clash with our deepest convictions, leading us to question the path we thought we were travelling down. But uncertainty doesn't equate to failure of self or a lack of conviction. Instead, it's an acknowledgment of the vastness of our human emotions and the complexity of the decisions we face. It’s an understanding that age, experience and relationships can change what we thought were unshakeable certainties about ourselves.

Ultimately, the presence of children in my life might take various forms — it’s not a static concept but an evolving narrative — and I plan to embrace each chapter.

If you like what you read, forward this to a friend. This post originally appeared on Anisah’s newsletter Brown Bodies: subscribe to the newsletter here.

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