As children, many of us (especially girls) were told by our parents that “when you grow up, you’ll get married, have kids and live happily ever after”. This concept was further reinforced by song lyrics, fairy tales, television shows and movies.

Most of us know that, in reality, life does not work out that way, not even close.

As a woman of South Asian descent (Indian), I was raised that the expected path for my life would consist of five key steps:

1. Always behave well knowing that your behaviour and choices are a direct reflection on your parents and that you should never do anything to embarrass them.

2. You must study hard and get a university degree from ideally these three top choices – medicine, law or engineering.

3. Shortly after graduation, your parents will find someone for you to marry who is from a “suitable family” and similar professional qualifications and from within your community.

4. After marriage, you will have kids and give your parents the chance to be grandparents.

5. Take care of your parents when they get older by having them come to live with you.

This was a set of expectations that I felt a lot of pressure to follow for a long time until I was in my early thirties. While I had no problem with Steps 1 and 2, I struggled in my late twenties to find the courage to tell my mother that I could not meet all of these obligations, in particular, steps 3 and 4. What followed was a decade of being constantly asked when I was going to “meet someone and give me grandkids”.

My mother finally relented on Step 3 and I thought that no longer having the pressure of meeting someone suitable from within my community would make things easier. But, despite my best efforts, I wasn’t able to find someone that was right for me (and me right for them!) that would be the person I would want to spend the rest of my life with and have a child with.

Having studied biology at school, I was acutely aware of my rapidly declining fertility as each birthday passed in my thirties. I knew that I didn’t want to settle to be able to “tick the boxes” of getting married and having a child just because of my age. The pressure (to settle down) from family and friends continued and by my late thirties, I decided it would be easier to be single for the rest of my life than settle for being in an unhappy marriage with someone who also be a terrible father!

Part of my challenge in being childless by circumstances for a lot of my twenties and thirties is that while being of Indian descent, I was born in South East Asia and moved to Australia in my teenage years. The cumulative result was that I was in a cultural quagmire where I wanted to obey my parents and our family traditions, but my mindset was influenced by assimilation into a multicultural society in both my country of birth and in life in Australia.

Finally, in early 2012, I did meet a wonderful person (of Anglo-Saxon Australian heritage) and was really happy when my mother also gave her tick of approval. Within a few short months together, we knew things were heading toward a permanent path. At last, I had a renewed belief that my chance of becoming a mother could come true.

But due to a number of circumstances beyond our control and despite trying everything humanly possible, we were unable to have the child that we had both so desperately wanted. We had dreamt up a an amazing life getting to raise a child who would have the benefit of growing up in a biracial family, learning to speak another language (Bahasa Malay is my 2nd language), being exposed to eating different foods (I love to cook a variety of cuisines), travelling the world as a family and teaching our child our individual and joint interests such as sports and music. I recently watched a reality series on Netflix called Indian Matchmaking that brought up many reminders of the years when I tried to do the right thing to be “matched” with someone that my mother or someone in our wider family felt would be a “suitable” person for me to spend the rest of my life with and have children. If I had followed such traditions, I may have been married sooner to someone who wasn’t right for me or for having a child with.

I’m thankful that my mother no longer pressures me about not having given her a grandchild. But I will always feel guilty that I didn’t give her the opportunity to be the awesome grandmother I know she would have been. I am thankful that she acknowledges my role as a mother to my furbabies Chewie and Lucy.

I’m extremely grateful that World Childless Week chose to have this theme for this year’s events as it has given me the chance to share my experiences of how being from a diverse cultural background has its own set of rules that can cause a lot of pressure to have a child. I have recently connected with a handful of other childless South Asian women and I hope that I can get to know more of them in the future.

Liz C

Redefining My Plan A

@redefiningmyplana