When it comes to have children, I don't think I'll ever be sure...

Why do we demand surety in the biggest of life decisions?

Lately, I’ve been dreaming of babies. These dreams have fuzzy outlines, I can’t really recall them. Just that I wake up and my arms are empty, where, once, there had been a child. Something is missing. Awake, and in my quiet house, the only noise being the trains rumbling outside, and, sometimes our cat mewing, I don’t feel sad. I don’t feel a yearning. Simply, a sense of “oh that was nice… and now it’s gone.”

What do these dreams mean? Could it be that, despite all my more recent thoughts to the contrary, I do want a child? Or, is it that I’ve spent a lot of time with children over the last fortnight, and that’s infiltrated my dreams? That it’s an innocent cognitive process and I’m trying too hard to extrapolate meaning from it?

I don’t know. I’m unsure, and I was going to write: I’m unsure again, but that wouldn’t be true. That would imply that I’ve reversed somehow, gone back a few steps. Instead, I’m moving forward in my thinking of what I demand of myself when it comes to major life decisions.

What I’m beginning to figure out is that my sure was never so sure… but also it never had to be. I want to shake off all the pressure I pile on myself, pressure from a world that demands us in absolutes. One that places us in boxes and does not allow us to waiver.

If you’ve read any of my writing on the subject in the past, you will know that I spent years see-sawing back and forth between wanting, and not wanting a child. Feeling frantic in how unsure I felt. Then, over time, I began to feel more comfortable voicing how happy I am to remain child-free.

To reach this place, where I can find the joy and comfort, in not having children has been incredibly important for my day-to-day happiness. But it does not mean, “job done.” That I have been able to file that decision away as checked, for sure, as the ‘right’ one. It does not mean I don’t think about it, or wonder still, about what another life of mine, one where I am a mother, would look like.

I used to think there were two camps: those who were sure they wanted kids, and those who were sure they didn’t. That my own indecision was down to living a silly, childlike, fidgety existence… one that would result in a lifetime of questioning and anguish. That the only way to escape this mental see-saw was to make a decision, and stick stubbornly to it.

So, for a while, that’s what I did. That’s what I’ve been doing. Being ‘sure’ in my child-free status. But, recently, I’ve decided that the only thing I’m actually sure of is my unsurety.

The title of the Cosmopolitan article I wrote, a few years ago, when I was cascading in a whirlwind of life questioning, was ‘how will I ever know for sure if I want kids?’ I needed, back then, to come to a place of certainty. The decision, one I felt I had to make, clawed at me. It came from within, but also from others. I’m sure everyone is familiar with the quizzing, the ‘small’ talk at parties…

If you don’t have children, you’re asked if you want them, and not sure, I’ve found, is not a good enough answer. If you do have children, you’re then asked if you want more. Again, not sure, appears to not be a good enough answer.

It's why I went searching for sure. I knew having children was not a controllable, guaranteed thing. Yet, all around me, having or not having one, seemed to be discussed as if we were all shopping, and soon, we’d regret not making a purchase.

I wanted to silence the questions. Both those external, and internal. It was also a journey of self-exploration I needed to make, for my sanity, so I set about weighing up what I valued in life and where a child would fit into that. Once I recognised that there are many things I value and want more in life than having a baby, I felt a sense of freedom. I enjoyed being able to tell people about this freedom, taking as many opportunities as I could to talk about it – both privately, and in public.

I think it’s important to discuss why, so often, women can be made to feel that the only way to live a happy, fulfilled life is to be a mother. For so long, I questioned what my value would be, as a woman, if I was not a mum. I am not in that place now. It brings me joy that I have broken free from what I was told I should be, that I am recognising what makes me - as an individual - happy. I also wanted to ensure that, by doing so, I was also celebrating other people’s choices, and finding the similarities that I shared with mothers, rather than (as I kept seeing in certain online communities) reinforcing an ‘us vs them’ attitude.

But when I began talking about being child-free, I was, naturally, shifted into the category of “child-free and sure about it.” I was asked “so when did you know for sure?” and when I began to falter on that question I’d sometimes get “well, it’s not too late.” I’ve found (and I really want to stress this isn’t me implying everyone thinks this way) that when you express unsurety, as a woman who doesn’t have children, it’s jumped upon as meaning you will definitely regret not having them. As, despite the falling birth rates and more and more people deciding not to have children, being a parent, and fitting into a 2.4 existence, is still the status quo.

I wanted be able to rally against this and show that we are all allowed to make our own choices, and not have them questioned. I wanted to be able to scream “I’m child-free and happy about it!”

But, now, I think I want to be more honest. And, I’m beginning to wonder… how can we ever, really, know for sure about anything? All we have is the circumstances we are living in right now. When casting your mind forward, to a scenario you have not yet lived, and trying to imagine how you might behave within that, how can there be such a thing as sure? Equally, when it comes to regretting a decision, that also involves jumping backwards, and judging the decision you made back then, under one set of circumstances, to the circumstances you are living with right now. Neither of these are a fair test or way to really reach a ‘right’ answer.

It's why I think 100% for sure, for many of us, does not exist. And that we should stop demanding it of each other. I’ve spoken to many mothers who say, at times, they wonder what their lives would have been like without children. But that doesn’t mean they’re not happy, that they don’t love their children. Just simply that they could have also been happy in another life. For me, there are many, many lives I could be happy in. One of them is motherhood. I will probably always wonder what that life would have looked like, how I’d feel if I woke up and there was a cot beside my bed, a baby to coo over. It’s OK to admit this to myself, and to others. Particularly, as, when I’ve felt happiest and most content in my life, it’s been the days when I can surrender. When I become just a piece of glass in the ocean of living, being dragged along by the waves. The days where I don’t look too far forward, or too far back.

I used to look at those who were sure of their choices with envy. Wish I was them. Now, I think, they just don’t exist in the way I imagined. And, the more I learn to sway in the unsurety of it all, the happier I will be.

What do you think? Please do let me know in the comments. This is a complicated subject, with so many different viewpoints, so I’d love to hear them!

I’d also like to recommend a couple of articles I’ve read on the subject recently…

What is it about us ‘dinks’ (dual income, no kids) that so many people dislike? Kathryn Bromwich

(my favourite line was this: What if you’re happy with it 95% of the time and slightly wistful the other 5%? What about 90%? 85%? What’s the cutoff? These are difficult, painful thoughts that you may not even articulate to yourself very often, never mind use as a label to explain yourself to strangers.)

Excited to be child-free, by choice by

Emma Gannon

- particularly when discussing the conversations she’s had with her partner, about how much her personal freedom means to her.

How NOT to have children by

Farrah @Substack

made me feel excited. Currently, at 38, the topic of motherhood looms large, and I look forward to the day when people might, hopefully, stop bloody asking about it.

Sticking a pin in friendship by Rebecca Reid

this is me trying

isn’t quite on topic but I wanted to recommend it as I’ve written a lot about maintaining friendships as a child-free person, so I found her point of view, on how hard it is to maintain friendships as a mother, with other mothers, really interesting. I’ve spoken to a lot of my mum friends about this one, who all feel quite similarly to Rebecca but this is the first time I’ve seen it being written about.

And, always, for longer reading Women Without Kids by Ruby Warrington brought me SO much peace. (I also interviewed her for this Substack, you can read our chats here and here.)

Also, if this is the first of my pieces you’re reading… welcome! I write about grief, of all kinds, from the traditional grief of losing someone you love, to the grief of our daily lives, drifting from friends, drifting from the person we thought we might be… I interview people, open up the space for others to share their stories and I sometimes just try to ponder on my thoughts and try to untangle them. I hope you’ll enjoy being here.