WHEN DID YOU KNOW YOU WOULD NEVER HAVE CHILDREN?
Hi,
Welcome to the second part in my series of very personal blogs all about growing up as an only child, my decision to be childfree early on in life and the positive and negative effects of these. This time I’m sharing when I knew I wouldn’t have children.
Like I said previously, I’m not here to judge or criticise anybody else’s life choices, I just want to show that there can be alternatives in life and that it’s okay to follow your sunshine and choose a path less travelled.
I recently saw a question in one of the Childfree Facebook groups asking::
“When did you know you wouldn’t have children?”
I replied as follows:
“Childhood, I think. I never wanted to play with baby dolls. My Gran brought me a pram and I used to put the family cat in it. A fear of getting pregnant kicked in during my teens and I was sterilised in my 30’s.”
Therefore when I think about it, my adult decision not to have kids is no surprise!
I hated dolls as a little girl, I found them a bit creepy, in fact I still do (I think it’s their eyes!) and I didn’t like the feel of the hair or what they were made of (some were rubbery and some were hard plastic).
This was a huge disappointment to my Grandma (my Mum’s Mum) because my Auntie had got two older boys who loved playing cowboys and indians, playing with tanks and general boys’ stuff, so when I came along she was really looking forward to have a “nice little girl” to spoil.
Oh dear!
She was very disappointed when I evidently used to remove dolls from the pram or pushchair that she had lovingly bought me for my birthday or Christmas, and use them to transport my rapidly growing toy car collection or take the family cat for a walk! The fist signs were already forming…
The only doll I had any time for was my “Anna” doll, which was similar to a Sindy doll, when I was about 8. This was only because the accessories for her revolved around horses, which were my favourite animal at that time. The model horse that accompanied her had moveable joints and I could make it change positions.
I remember that my other favourite toy was my model farmyard, and I would spend hours building it on the living room floor or on the dining room table. I had lots of horses, a stable block, tractor, a hay cart, cows, ducks, sheep, pigs, chickens and a little pond.
My parents used to be a bit confused when I removed all the animals from the fields I’d created and replaced them with my Matchbox and Corgi cars, all lined up in neat little queues.
This was because I spent quite a bit of time on farms surrounded by cars.
Mum used to say she started buying me model cars to teach me colours, which I have to agree worked brilliantly! What she and Dad didn’t bargain on was that I could name every car on the road by the time I could talk!
I grew up around cars. Mum and Dad were enthusiastic members of the local Motor Club and national racing and car clubs. They had attended and organised events and race meetings on a regular basis long before I was born and they weren’t going to stop just because I came along. In fact, if they were at Brands Hatch Mum used to put me in my carry cot in a pit garage and I would sleep, only waking up when the engines stopped!
Local club events would take place on farmland, thanks to the generosity of local farmers. It was perfectly normal for me to see about 30 cars in a field navigating their way around obstacles (Autotests) or hurtling up small, hilly sections (Trials), usually covered in mud.
Therefore, to me, farms had cars in them, and it wasn’t until I was about 7 that Mum & Dad figured this out.
I also loved my pedal powered blue racing car, until I grew out of it. We covered it in stickers collected out of race meeting programs so that it resembled a proper racing car. I also remember begging my poor Dad to paint my first push bike black and gold to look like the JPS Formula 1 car…I was only 4!
As you see, dolls didn’t figure on my radar at all and there were no stirrings of maternal feelings whatsoever!
Mum and Dad were a few years older than some of their friendship group, so I didn’t spend time with kids younger than me until I was about 9 or 10 when these friends started having children. I had always spent time with my godparents’ kids, who were 3 and 4 years older than me. (I’m sure I drove them mad sometimes!) They were who I looked up to and felt more of a bond with.
So, when the younger group of friends started having babies, I had no idea how to interact with them! As they grew into toddlers, I would play for a while, then lose patience or get fed up with the noise and retreat to somewhere quieter.
I became a bit more aloof with them as a teenager, especially with the boys, as I was hormonal and found little boys being little boys intensely irritating! I’d also started repeating the phrase “I’m NOT having any!” quite often!
By this time I knew I wouldn’t be a Mum, it was already a non-negotiable for me, but of course nobody would believe that, and that’s a topic for next time.
In the meantime, thank you for reading this and if you missed my previous introductory post, please click here.
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Sending much love and support,
Wendy x