The first time I remember mentioning not wanting kids to someone was to our landlady.
I was about 14 years old she came by the house for something and she was having a conversation
with my mom during that conversation she looked at me and said well how many kids do you want
someday Hannah I think she had like six or seven kids they were a big family and I said
I don't want to be a mom and she laughed at me and patted me on the head and said
oh you don't know what you want when you're older you're definitely going to have kids
her comment did not make me feel good it kind of made me shut down and not want to
say anything about not wanting kids to anybody I felt like her response was really condescending
failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure and I know that I'm
not the only person that has experiences like that you've had them as well so I have always
gotten a lot of like black about not having kids nobody likes to be criticized nobody likes to
be told they don't know what they want in life when people put such a negative spin on making
the choice to live without children it makes you feel like you're doing something wrong and
that's kind of how I felt after this lady said that to me Elaine you gotta have a baby move
to Long Island and have a baby already this is a private message that I recently got from someone
I'm happy for you and everyone else who chooses not to have kids but I'm wondering why do you
feel like you need to keep repeating over and over that you're Child free why do you have to shout
it from the rooftops you sound very defensive since starting this child-free community I have
gotten messages very similar to this one some people are very bothered by the fact that we
talk openly about our child free life which is so ironic because there are support groups on
Facebook pages and Instagram accounts and YouTube channels for almost everything under the sun most
parents are not getting criticized for sharing parenting life online I'm I'm not saying that
they should be criticized I'm just saying why is it that parents are allowed to share all sorts of
details about their family life and child support people can't share details about theirs what part
of this comment that this person left me really stood out to me I have many friends who are child
free and they don't shout it from the rooftops in fact they don't mention it at all sometimes
people don't talk about being Child free because they just don't want to talk about being Child
free and that's fine one of the things I have come across over and over again since starting
this channel a few years ago is that I get messages from people that say I'm scared to
talk about being Child free because I don't want to be criticized it is really hard to be
a child free person and not get a single word of criticism I think that's almost impossible
that is the reason that I did not talk about my choice to be Child free for a long long time
no no no no and I know that some of you say oh I can't have kids when you're asked about not having
any kids because you don't want to tell people that you're Child free because you know exactly
what they're going to say and what's coming one day and this is maybe a little bit of a dream but
one day I want the conversation to go something like this do you want kids someday or are you
going to choose to be Child free so am I shouting from the rooftops that I'm Child free I mean maybe
I am if that's how people want to interpret this so be it being Child free is absolutely not new
it has been around for a really long time but you know what else has been around for a really really
long time the negative stigma and assumptions that come along with someone choosing to live the
child-free life I'm not sure what caused people to see someone who decided not to have kids and view
them in such a negative way maybe it was because Society portrayed this as being the ideal and then
when you live like this people were confused why on Earth would you pick this thing if you could
have this thing Parenthood has been propped up to be absolutely everything it will make
you completely happy it will make you fulfilled you'll have someone to take care of you as you
age you will always have someone to talk to you'll never be lonely you will be loved by someone you
will have someone to carry on the family name your life will have real meaning and purpose you will
know the definition of true love obviously we know that child free people can experience all
of those things I just mentioned yes our life is different yes there are experiences that we don't
have because we don't have kids but we're okay with that we didn't have kids because we don't
want to have those experiences when people choose to live a life that deviates from what's normal
and accepted and sort of propped up as being the ideal way to live they're always going to come
under some type of criticism and negativity let's be honest as human beings we all tend to criticize
at some point or another and I've obviously criticized people as well at the end of the
day we have freedom of speech we are allowed to talk about things that are important to us we are
allowed to make accounts and make Community pages and make videos about things things that we're
passionate about it wasn't until just a few years ago when I made that very first video about being
Child free on my Channel that I decided I'm going to talk about this so my husband and I have been
married for 10 years and we do not have kids and I find this is something people get very curious
about the reason that all my content is dedicated to being Child free is because we need to have
conversations about it there's still way too much stigma and negativity around people that decide
they don't want to be parents why would we want to keep something like the child free life is secret
we want people to know that there are options out there being a parent is amazing if that's what you
want to do and then for a bunch of us Parenthood it just doesn't fit it's not something that we're
interested in doing or experiencing I almost feel like partly it's my duty as someone who
feels really confident and secure in my choice to be Child free to share that with other people my
point in creating this channel was always to build a community a community for people who
are child free for people who are maybe on the fence I'm not sure which direction they want to
go this community is a place where you can come and chat in the comments where you can feel like
you're understood do it where you can connect with other people who have made the choice to
not have kids where you feel like you aren't alone this community that we are building together has
been so incredibly encouraging to me I am so happy to have you here watching the content so here I am
passionately working on this video and I just looked at my viewfinder and I realized my cat
stool is still sitting here and there's no cat here Layla was here earlier as she was hanging
out with me and then she decided she didn't want to be part of the video so I was going
to put the stool away and forgot but oh well there it is this individual also says that I
appear and defensive about the child free choice when you live a lifestyle that is viewed with
so much negativity you want to squash all those assumptions nope and the things that people say
about child free people that aren't true I talk pretty openly about the reality of child-free
life and the way that I've experienced it and the way that you guys are sharing with
me you've experienced it and I don't think we have to apologize for being open child free life
is good and I'm sure lots of parents feel that parenting life is good we don't have to be the
same we're allowed to be different we're both allowed to share our content online and I think
the biggest thing is we should just support each other we can support that our best friends want
to have kids and we just don't want to have any does that make life hard sometimes yes it does
my best friend got pregnant the second year of University and it changed our friendship a lot