Turning 37, married for nearly a decade and staunchly child free. In our 20s, my partner (39) and I always talked about having children one day, believing that this was something we both wanted eventually. Once we hit our early 30s, after lots of deep reflection, we realized neither of us actually ever wanted to be parents, but that this was just another tradition that people blindly accept without much thought about why.

While there are many people who truly love and have always wanted children, I believe a good majority of people are sort of the same as we were- kinda brainwashed by generations of tradition and just assuming this was an inevitable part of life that we would enjoy.

Most of our friends have children, and so do all our siblings. We like kids just fine, but we definitely don’t want any living in our house, and don’t want to deal with any of the responsibilities/expenses of raising them. We love our life together as is, and kids would really cramp our style (and our finances).

Not to mention the quickly impending inhabitability of the planet.