Welcome! Feel Free to Introduce Yourself Here. :)

[lemon]

admin said:

New to the board or haven't posted much on the board (yet)?

Please feel free to introduce yourself here and share a little about your childfree journey. We're a friendly bunch and we don't bite!

Hello,

My SN is lemon and I'm very happy to join this community. I find those who are childfree by choice to be both fascinating and inspirational. Admittedly, I have struggled with infertility and am unable to have children. Instead of wallowing in pity, I learned that I can be fulfilled without children. It was people who purposely made this decision that helped me to see the light. I hope to learn and grow in this community...thank you for having me. ;D

[preraph]

Welcome to the board, Lemon! Glad to have you. I too can't have kids, but I already knew I didn't want them long before I found out I couldn't. And also, with medical advances from the time I was told I couldn't have them (I'm 55), I probably might have been able to if I'd ever had any desire to pursue it, but it was the last thing on my mind then -- and now! I hope you fully take advantage of this little extra freedom life has afforded you and enjoy it!

[THBC]

Hello!

I am 22 years old and I am childfree. I am pretty active in my local No Kidding chapter.

I am single (never married), I live with my family, I work, I am in school, and I enjoy doing many things. Acting, Bicycling, Learning the Piano, Learning to Horseback Ride, Animals, My Faith, Reading, Internet, and Eating Out :-D

I have MANY reasons for being childfree. From overpopulation to the alarming possibility of being a single parent. I could not enjoy the things I enjoy right now if I had children. I KNOW kids arent for me.

Look forward to posting and sharing ideas!

- Tiara

[preraph]

Well, Tiara, you sound too busy and like you're having too much fun to have kids anyway! Nice having you in the group!

[nativenewyorker]

Welcome Lemon,

And like you & Preraph, I too am infertile (was not always but am now) & struggled as a fencesitter. I think for me it's not being fertile that bothered me more than not having had a kid.

The thought of going to doctors to get pregnant makes me want to hyperventilate. That's why, I've learned, that telling people that I'm infertile doesn't stop them from harassing me as I usually get the unsolicited advice to "see a doctor" or to "adopt." Clearly I have NO interest in either choice so I wish they would SHUT UP!

[ivycreeping]

Hi, everyone!
I'm Ivy, 25 years old, and I don't have kids nor want them.
Like I said in my post on the Sterilization forum, I'm scheduled for a tubal ligation surgery on 02-09-08. It's scary yet exciting all at the same time.
I'm happy to be here with mostly like-minded people. I hope I'm free to rant and rave when people make me angry, telling me that I'll change my mind or show me baby pictures.

So...hi!

[preraph]

Hi Ivy. I'm sure your tubal will go just fine. You won't remember anything, so don't worry about it. Welcome to the board. You are welcome to come and rant here anytime you want!

[csh123]

Hello, my name is Cathy and I am new to this board. I have known that I wanted to be childfree since I was 12 and now I am 43 and never regretted the decision. Children just make me uncomfortable. I hope to find new friends out here.

[Tabetha]

Welcome to the board, Cathy! I never quite know what to do around children either.

[preraph]

Hi Cathy! Jump right in on anything anytime. You're among friends.

[kentuckykimmie]

hey cathy!

i am pretty new here too and it didn't take me long to get my feet wet!!!!!!! welcome.

[little_dust_bunny]

Hey all.

My name is Rachel. The screen name, Little_Dust_Bunny, is a nickname I got from my ex that just stuck.

When I was little I always thought I'd be like my mom and work with kids. I took a babysitting class, and went to the preschool my mom worked in every "bring-your-daughter-to-work-day". I never wanted to actually have any of my own, mostly because of the pain of childbirth, but I wanted to adopt them.

By the time I got to high school, two of my friends had already dropped out due to pregnancy. Over the years that number skyrocketed. I can safely say that just about every girl I went to high school with is a mother now. It disturbed me to watch their lives fall apart so easily. It still disturbs me.

A little under half way through my first senior year (yeah, I was a fifth year senior, not too proud of that) I left the public high school and enrolled in the alternative high school. And let me tell you- it was a very eye-opening experience. Why? Because almost every girl enrolled in that school was either a parent or expecting. I wish I was exagerating. There were so many young parents there. It blew me away. One girl in my class had given birth at thirteen!

I got to sit and talk with a few of these young mothers every night, during class. The lives they lived were hard, nothing like I had ever been lead to believe. Few of them had their parents' support and were living off of minimum wage and whatever the state would give them. It was depressing.

Now, one of the requirements of the alternative school was that I either had to get a job or volunteer somewhere. I decided to volunteer at the local perschool. My mother worked there at the time, so I could just catch a ride with her in the morning. It was convenient, and I thought it would be better then flipping burgers. It turned out to be another eye opener. Two years of kicking, biting, headbutting, cussing little fruitloops later, I had decided quite happily that I would never, EVER, have children- adopted or otherwise. I honestly don't know how my mother worked there for twenty years.

So that's basically why I'm childfree. I do have some pretty lofty goals and ambitions, but this post is long enough as it is. ;D

[preraph]

Hi Bunny, welcome!

Well, you may have been a fifth-year senior, but it sounds like you got an extra eye-opening education because of it, so maybe it was meant to be so you could live a special life and pursue your lofty goals. You know, I owe being childfree and having an extended and exciting youth to nuclear waste! I'm almost grateful, in retrospect.

I am not going to ask how you got your nickname. Yes, I am. How did you get your nickname? If I'd kept the ones from my old flames, they'd be "Slick," "Roxanne," and "Babushka," which is, in order, a pool shark, a mannequin, and old lady. Nice.

[destinydai]

hi everyone!

my name is amanda, and i'll be turning 29 this year

my husband and i got married back in 2004, and we were fence sitters. we knew there ware a lot of reasons not to, but the thought of having kids did seem a bit "fun" (at least for me to run psychological experiments on them) but the more we talked about having kids, the less we wanted them.

in april of 2005, i got sterilized - the essure procedure. it was one of the best things that i've done!

we both get hassled a lot from his mother (more him than me, she assaults him on the phone with the godlessness of his actions almost every time she talks to him) and a bit from our co-workers. MIL doesn't know i'm sterile, because it's none of her business. i also don't want to be responsible for killing her, because she would drop dead from a heart attack.

thankfully, their oldest son and his wife recently had a baby, and MIL has not called us in THREE WEEKS. a small miracle.

looking forward to interacting with like-minded people. glad to have found this place!

[preraph]

Hi Amanda - so glad you found this board! I guess the MIL will exert pressure on you and you will probably end up just having to tell her you're infertile and not why. It's sad being sterilzed would cause such a stink, but you're right, it's very personal and there's other ways to handle it. I think to stop her insisting you see specialists and everything, you should say you already have and that you really don't mind as much as she does! Kind of give her some incentive to shut up on two fronts!

[destinydai]

yeah, MIL has been quite the advocate of us catching the baby-rabies. there are so many memorable moments - once at an acquaintance's wedding reception, she chided my husband for depriving me of feeling a baby grow inside of me (this was about 5 months after we got married, and before i had the essure)

we have an agreement that husband's got to tell his parents, and i'll tell mine - even though mine have put no pressure on me whatsoever

it's hard dealing with the inlaws. bad enough we didn't get married in a church and i'm not catholic.

we've been trying to think of funny ways to get people to back off, like mentioning that we're not "trying" enough, and then excusing ourselves to go try to make babies. then walk into a closet and make lots of noise.

[happy2bchildfree]

preraph said:

Hi Amanda - so glad you found this board! I guess the MIL will exert pressure on you and you will probably end up just having to tell her you're infertile and not why. It's sad being sterilzed would cause such a stink, but you're right, it's very personal and there's other ways to handle it. I think to stop her insisting you see specialists and everything, you should say you already have and that you really don't mind as much as she does! Kind of give her some incentive to shut up on two fronts!

If it was me, I would just flat out tell her that we won't be having any kids and that I'd already had the tubal. If she thinks there is even the slightest chance that you will have children, she isn't going to let up on the pressure.

By being honest, there will undoubtedly be fallout, but IMO better to have a lot of fallout over a short period of time and deal with that than to get the continuing pressure over time and deal with it on a continuing basis. She doesn't like it? Too bad. She'll have to get over it.

[preraph]

The risk there is that sometimes MILs exert an enormous influence over their sons. I think there is a pretty big percentage of men who would eventually listen to their mother telling them they will regret it and that woman isn't right for you and keep your options open. Of course, it depends on the person, but I've found they can often be rather suggestible, even some you wouldn't think so. Maybe it's because a lot of them don't normally delve into the interpersonal issues as readily as many women do and don't always trust their own opinions on things. And experience has taught me that men will often marry not who they feel they have a real common bond with but more often one who meets the standards society, whatever theirs is, places on them. I've seen many men eventually leave the one they really have a rapport with to marry someone "who will make a good mother" or "who is more suitable" or is acquiescent enough that they know they can keep doing whatever they want and she will pretend not to notice.

I would say the son is in the best position to know what to do there, but it would be nice to unburden oneself of secrecy. And honestly, my position is if the man isn't strong enough or doesn't know himself well enough to stand up to his mom, I'll probably get disgusted with him eventually -- but there was a time I wouldn't have minded as much.

[little_dust_bunny]

preraph said:

I am not going to ask how you got your nickname. Yes, I am. How did you get your nickname? If I'd kept the ones from my old flames, they'd be "Slick," "Roxanne," and "Babushka," which is, in order, a pool shark, a mannequin, and old lady. Nice.

Funny story actually.
My (at the time) boyfriend's mother had asked him to widen her driveway (the driveway's pretty much cut right through a hill). He decided he couldn't do it by himself, and asked me and a few of our mutual friends to help him.
The guys, being big, strong, macho men, had to do the shovelling. The other girl and I wheeled the dirt down to the bottom of the hill and poured it in the ditch.
Every time I went back up the hill I got dirt thrown on me or very near me, so that the dust got all over me. My boyfriend thought it was funny, and said I was a dustbunny. For some reason I liked it, and it's stuck ever since.

[happy2bchildfree]

preraph said:

And honestly, my position is if the man isn't strong enough or doesn't know himself well enough to stand up to his mom, I'll probably get disgusted with him eventually

That's my feeling. Any man who didn't have the cajones to stand up for what he feels is right would definitely not be the right man for me. I could never respect him, and I couldn't be in a relationship with someone I didn't respect.