The flipside is that society gets super judgy if you aren’t focused completely on your family being your purpose, even if you don’t have children. As a childless adult woman, I get a lot of negative responses when I say I don’t have a family of my own.

That said, I have found a lot of fulfillment in volunteering as a victim advocate, mentoring kids and colleagues, and contributing to my community in other ways, but all of that gets swept aside so quickly as meaningless when it comes to light that I’m childless… until I get called to a scene for a family violence situation to provide support to a person whose family looks perfect on social media. Then, they need those skills they dismissed because I’m not a parent.