I expected to have children. The lives of everyone in our family were derailed by a car crash that happened to a family member. My first husband wasn’t good at helping a bereaved wife. When I met my older husband when I was 35, he said wanted to have children but he found the fertility treatment demeaning and he wasn’t in regular work at the time so we didn’t persist as it turned out he had prostate cancer. Twenty or so year on, he is alive but for us that meant a double secret grief in our relationship, one that all partners to a prostate cancer sufferer are affected by and tend to be silent about.

Each time someone lazily asks at a drinks party “Do you have children?” – as if there aren’t plenty of things to talk about before ourselves and offspring – I have to revisit this. It’s still a sharp pain, if brief, but I have my glossy replies so they don’t feel uncomfortable. Why can’t people leave children as a topic for those with them to raise themselves? And why haven’t people perfected the art of conversation with people without children? Just show some interest and basic good manners, please! We exist.

A bit oddly, business gurus’ sayings have provided some helpful strategies. ‘Shift your paradigm’ is a maxim of a business guru. I’ve done this.

I have come to love the responsibility of this different freedom and I hope others reach this point too. As I replied to someone at a party who had been moaning about how expensive it had been to educate six children privately who then asked me if I had any, “Well, someone has got to not have children”.

‘Live, love and leave a legacy’ is another business guru’s maxim. I’m doing this in my life choices now. I am not defined by having children or by not having them. My life isn’t free of difficulties but I make sure that everything I do as I get older is a section of a thoughtful and rich life path.

Anonymous