With Child

This has been on my mind for some time now, I was not sure how to put my feelings into words, I lay awake at night thinking about it, not sure if anyone would feel the same as I did. With all the world pushing and pressuring to follow societal norms, with parents, friends, social media, television, advertisements, books etc. it is everywhere. Children, you need to have them to be happy they say, you need them to feel fulfilled they say, how can you be a woman and not want to have children they say? Just wait….eventually you will want to have kids they say, but in reality, I have never had the feeling of wanting kids, moms to be always say they see a baby and just melt, they want one so bad, that “baby fever” is real, that the need is there. But I have never felt that need, that desire, sure kids are cute, but there is so much involved, your whole life becomes not yours any longer. Your wants and needs are not your own, everything is solely done for your children and you lose who you are and just become a “mom” like the rest of them. As someone who does not want children, there is a disconnect that I have with many a woman around me, it is disheartning to be judged and cast out because I do not feel the same as they do, do not want the same things that in their eyes every woman should want. The biggest thing that I am facing as I get older is that the friends I had are all now taking the route of motherhood. Every last one, and I feel even more of an outcast, I thought I had at least some bouy to hold on to, some sense that maybe, just maybe there would be someone out there that also felt what I felt…or didn’t feel for that matter. But now as time goes on that bouy is sinking, and I along with it. I feel like the only one out there that isn’t with child (this term is my favorite, from the many british romane and fictional novels I have read). One of my last girl friends that I held so close to me has now gone to the other side, the side that I will never and do not belong in.No longer will I be able to have that connection with her that I once did, and that is the most saddest realization of all. That we cannot ever be as close as before, because now there will always be something in the way, something that seperates her and I. We cannot get back those days of being married friends, that shop and talk about our lives and what the future may hold, because her future is very different from mine now. Her future now involves changing diapers, staying up up until the wee hours hushing a crying little one, filling her days on how to take care of a baby, and become a mom. She will find new friends as time goes on that she will connect with their conversations will revolve around their children. Nothing else will matter for a long long time to her, but her baby, and everything that goes along with that. All her pictures will be of her little one, her texts, her walls her room, her life will be consumed by this one tiny human. This realization is so saddening to me, where I should be happy for my friend, I feel abandoned, lost, hurt. Like one more person has succumbed to the vortex, the vortex that I feel no pull or prod from. Sometimes I feel that I am broken, that something must be wrong with me to not want what everyone around me wants, to not feel the need, the desire, to produce an offspring. I also know I am not meant to be a mother, that word in context with me seems so foreign so the opposite of who I am. Why is it that we should feel bad for not wanting to have children? Why should people give us pitying looks, or say that our mind will change one day? Why can they not accept the fact that we do not want to have kids, like we are a plauge to the earth? Like we are freaks? Why is there no one advocating for the people that do not want to have any kids, the support groups, the open arms? Why is there barely any books on the subject? TV shows? Movies? Why is there no one there to say hey it is okay that you do not want kids, we are here for you and we understand your feelings? Why must we feel like we are something to be looked down on and felt that something is wrong with us? I hope there are others out there that feel the same as me, if at least one person reads this and feels the same way, then I will be grateful that it is not just me in a sea of “moms”, and that maybe I am not alone after all.