My husband and I decided long ago that we would never breed. Now, all of our friends, siblings, people we work with are having children, and think that we’re odd and unfulfilled in not having any kids.
Hubby’s brother tired to “talk some sense” into us. Children, he explained are the only real purpose of marriage, and we’re ignoring our natural purpose by chosing not to reproduce. We will lead empty lives, he prophesied, and when we are old, no one will take care of us. He said that eventually, we would realize all of this and want a child, too.
My response was that we are VERY fulfilled as it stands. We travel extensively, go out on the town whenever the mood strikes us, and because we have no babies to support, can afford to buy whatever we want. We can have nice cars that have no spilt apple juice and ghram craker crumbs in the backseat. We can go to Europe on a whim because we don’t need to worry about child care. We can have nice furniture and don’t have to worry about things getting broken or stained. We can stay up late, read, watch television uninterrupted by the demands of a child. And, when we are old and feeble, we will have enough money to ensure that we stay in the nicest possible nursing facilities because we had no college tuitions to pay for our young. I pointed out that even if we had children, there’s no guarantee that they would support us in our old age.
In the course of this conversation, we began discussing how the childless in America are discriminated against. We don’t get the tax breaks that breeding couples do, and in fact, we pay taxes to pay for other people’s children.
Hubby’s workplace allows for six weeks of paid maternity or paternity leave outside of vacation and sick time. That’s six more weeks of leave that we will never be able to take advantage of, simply because we choose not to have children. In my opinion, the six weeks should just be added to vacation time so that even the childless could take advantage of it. They could even make it a one-time thing.
The people that we work with are always leaving to go to a child’s baseball game, or a dance recital, leaving the childless to do their work. “Oh, I can’t stay late tonight. My kid has a play.” “Well, Lissa’s hubby doesn’t have any kids, so make him stay late tonight.” He had one co-worker say that he should always be the one to stay because hubby doesn’t have a family. “What?” Hubby said. “Yes, I do. I’m married.” Oh, the co-worker replied * that’s * not a family! You’re only a family if you have children. Countless time, theater tickets have gone unused, dinners have burned, and weekend get-aways have had to be cancelled, because people think that their plans with their children are more important than our plans.
So, what do you think, guys? Have any of you child-free people experianced the same thing?
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