I like popping to the pub just for one after work.

I like late nights and lie-ins.

I like sex in the afternoon.

I like foreign holidays. I like booking only the flights and having adventures that could end up doing anything, anywhere.

I like taking holidays when everyone else is working and driving to work when there is no traffic in the holidays.

I like being able to read/watch/meet/run/garden/play when I want to.

I am proud that I pay more tax than my lifestyle costs the state, so that my contribution goes toward supporting others.

I am proud that my environmental footprint is vastly smaller than those with children.

I am proud that when I argue for a fairer society and a better future, I know it is not motivated by self-interest.

I will always be sad that I don’t have children. The sadness is a grizzly bear. It mauled me when it first arrived. Then it roamed unhindered taking swipes at me and everything I enjoyed and causing deep gashes each time it attacked. But these days the bear is tamed and mostly it just sits in the corner of an unused room, growling when I choose to approach it. Covid gave it a toothache and it made me suffer afresh, but even that is subsiding.

The things that used to send me into despair, like baby news and scan pictures for profile pics, still prickle but don’t wound.

I can even joke about it. I can hold myself up as lost paragon of perfect parenting and bemoan that the world has been denied my revolutionary children without fear of a contradicting reality.

I seek to leave legacy in small and not-so-small acts of kindness. Maybe one day I’ll write my novel.

Although being childless is defining, I try not to be defined by the sadness or loss. I’m proud not just to have survived but to be thriving. I have a perspective that not many have access to and I’m a better person for it.

Mostly.

I occasionally enjoy the envy of parents denied my freedoms

Katie Hewitt