Liz C

If I had a dollar for every time a parent said to me “you’re so lucky you don’t have kids!” over the past 20 years, I’d probably be able to afford to fly business class from Melbourne to Singapore every year!

In my experience, this phrase is usually preceded by the initialintrusive question “Do you have kids” and follows my response of “No, I don’t”.

Depending on whom I’m interacting with, I have developed a few options over the last decade in response to the statement of “you’re so lucky to not have kids”:

a) If I have just met them: “Actually I don’t consider being unable to have kids as lucky! But thanks for your unsolicited views on my life.”

b) If I have known them for a little while or in a social setting where I’m a guest: “Gee, thanks for your snap judgement of my life. Your kids are lucky to have you as parents. Time for me to go find someone more interesting to talk to!”

c) If I have known them for a while and they know my journey of being childless not by choice: “I’m disappointed that you would think that’s an appropriate statement given you know everything I went through to try to have a child. I hope that you know how hurtful this is and will never say this again.”

The most common occurrence of assessing my life without children is usually by people blessed with having children but who seem to have nothing but complaints about their kids e.g. they’re misbehaving or not sleeping through the night or not getting their homework done or only eating certain foods or how expensive it is to travel or something else on a long list of tribulations.

Before I had my furbabies, I would usually respond with some variation of “Oh you poor thing”. But after 8 years of taking care of my 2 dogs, I am now able to counter this so-called terrible life of being a parent with:

• At least your children can go everywhere with you inside a dining venue

• You can take your children in the plane with you rather than being in storage

• Your children will eventually learn to feed and clothe themselves

• Your child can tell you when they’re unwell and describe where the pain is

• You get to hear your children call you Mummy or Daddy

• You and your children are considered a family in government policies, tax breaks, healthcare benefits and childcare subsidies

• Your children will live a LOT longer than my furkids.

Conversely having two furkids does offer me a somewhat “lucky” lifestyle:

• It’s not against the law to leave them unattended at home

• More dining and accommodation venues are supportive of having our dogs with us and they got lots of positive attention from staff and patrons for being well-behaved

• They will never demand money or require me to get them out of trouble

• They give me unconditional love and know when I need their special brand of therapy if my anxiety is heightened.

Here are things I will never be “lucky” enough to experience as a childless woman:

• Seeing my child starting or finishing school – no “first day of school”, back to school”, “end of year concerts”or “book week” photos for me

• Helping my child learn a new skill or hobby or sport

• Sharing my love of cooking with my child

• Teaching my child to appreciate music and taking them to concerts

• Enabling my child to speak in another language (besides English!)

• No Mother’s Day gifts or cards.

• Taking my child on great travels around the world so they can learn about different cultures.

There are definitely many areas of my life where I enjoy #childlessperks including:

• Being able to enjoy and nurture my marriage rather than being too tired to spend time with my husband or worse yet, feeling like strangers once kids have left the home.

• Have time for a range of volunteering possibilities

• Never having to travel during school holidays!

• Not having to worry about catching a variety of ailments that kids seem to pick up from school

• Being able to enjoy adult-friendly and fine dining options i.e. no playground equipment in sight!

• Being able to afford great travel options with a touch of luxury

• Being able to have an actual conversation without interruptions and tantrums.

• Being able to afford to donate to important causes and foundations

• Not having to drive kids around to various activities at all hours of the weekend

BUT while there does seem to be a range of positives for not having children, this life is not the one we chose.I had always dreamed of having a child with whom I could share my love of music, reading, food and travel. I know my husband had hoped for a child with whom he could share his love of sports.

However, despite trying everything humanly possible to have a child of our own, this is one area of our life together that was the furthest thing from lucky. Being unable to have a child came at an immeasurable cost to my mental, physical and emotional health.

To people who were able to have kids without any form of medical intervention, you might not realise that you won the lottery! For those of us unable to have a child, it’s not because we didn’t try hard enough or didn’t “just adopt”, we are the ones whose numbers never get called out as “winners”.

I hope that anyone reading this knows there are definitely ups and downs to not having kids. But being childless NOT by choice is never something I consider myself as lucky. It’s the lottery that life dealt me and I have learned to live with it.

Photo by dylan nolte on Unsplash