No kids

Oh my God I forgot to have kids.

Such is the internet's standard phrase for women of a certain age who have reached that particular milestone without children.  There seem to be a few categories for these certain age women to slot into, if they so choose.

There are <career women> - of whom I don't really know any - those mythological beasts who put career before family.  Who are these people, I find myself wondering, and what do they really think.  I find myself feeling this "category" is not really at all simple or clear cut as that.  In fact, I find myself resentful on behalf of anyone being coralled into this particular paddock.

There are those who <never found the right man>.  Again, I don't entirely believe in this as a nice catch all phrase.  There are plenty out there who felt strongly enough about their reproductive yearnings to get on with their breeding regardless of the right man being available.  There's a long list of possibilities out there - it includes test tubes, but also includes the he'll make a good father or any list of permutations.

There are those who can't - are part of a loving couple and for whatever reasons don't.  Because when you live in the world of women of a certain age without children, this is the "category" you meet most often.  Wonderful couples, made up of two likeable adults, who haven't had children.  My friends include those who sadly, and for many, cruelly, for reasons of physiology, cannot.  They include the very brave couples who have decided not to because one or other or both have a mental health battle ongoing which means they have felt that for them, bringing up children will not be fair on the children, or perhaps will not be possible for them, any number of rationales which I thoroughly respect and admire.  It's a brave, brave decision and a self aware one.   Some are simply in love with their lives as they are, and the addition of children is not even a big debated question, just a decision along the lines of where to live, what car to drive.

And where, at 47 years old, do I fit?  This is why I believe that pigeon holing cannot work.  It's simple but complicated, both at the same time.   I always thought I'd be a mum.  At 27 I met my husband to be, and it turned out he didn't want to be a dad.  He was, in fact, almost passionate about his not wanting to be a father, and his reasons were incomprehensible, it was a visceral thing, so the "rationale" didn't actually matter, it was the outcome which was important.  But having stumbled, in this curious and random world, upon my soul mate, the one I couldn't imagine living without, the decision wasn't actually that difficult.  Provided I got to spend my life with him, having no kids was fine, just one of the things you concede when you're in a lifelong relationship.  I put in there the proviso that I was allowed to have some kind of crisis at the point when my biological clock struck the hour where child free was no longer a free choice but a biological impossibility.  Unfortunately (and even as I type that word, I realise it's a mahoosive understatement word), he died before that biological clock ticked round.

So, at 37 years old I was left a widow.  That was interesting (another completely understated word).  Suddenly the decisions made were no longer applicable in a new world.  The world of curiosity over whether there would be another life companion for me was complicated by the question of children.  In theory I was young enough, what did I really want, what would a life companion want, would my decisions and choices become false, forced, would I have to align with what the world around me expected from me.  And what exactly was that?  How could I possibly tell if, now, in these changed circumstances I wished to become the mum I had thought, back in my 20s, I would be?

Dating seemed to have a weird significance.  Instead of casually getting to know someone, perhaps drifting into a relationship, at the back of my mind was always the question of - if something did happen with this man, what would he want from me.  Would he expect me to be a parent?  And indeed, eventually I found myself, tired, jaded, sceptical of the world, only really wanting to date men who had already had children, who had ticked that box, and were really interested in a woman to be their helpmate though the years, and not looking for someone to be a hatchery.

The older I got, the less pressure, the easier things were.  Once the milestone of 40 is passed, then there's a psychological weight removed, society will no longer have an expectation of you becoming a first time mother, although at the same time, if you did, then people will be happy for you.  That's quite funny really, the external perception that you have fulfilment if you become a mother.  Fulfilment, for me, was already present in who I am, what I do, and the people around me.  People are important, but it's not about filling a hole left by childlessness, no, it's stand alone, the warmth and joy of friendship, the sheer celebration in having people around who get me, who love me, who want to spend time with me.  My celebration in having people around me who I get, who I love, who I want to spend time with, want to know more about, to understand, and to laugh and dance with (we're talking a metaphorical dance here).

Since being widowed, my happiest times have been after the age of 40, after the weight of the question of children was removed, no longer an issue, no longer a question, no longer the ghost which haunted me, even when I couldn't see it.  Now 47, and there's not a wraith of wistfulness about the question.  I might not have kids, but I have it all.