When you realized you were never going to have kids, did you reassess your lives and make any big changes that you never would have made had you had kids?
I was asked this question recently and it caused me to stop and think. Much of the past five years has been spent healing, coming to terms with a life without children, and learning about myself again. And while I’ve done a lot of reassessing about the kind of life I want to live, I’m not sure much has changed.
When we thought we were going to have a young family, Mr. Fab and I had planned to buy a house in the neighborhood where we rent. The schools are good, and the city is family-friendly. But now we won’t be having children, that’s no longer a priority and we’ve talked a lot about where we’d like to live now that we’re free to live almost anywhere. Buying a house is no longer a priority. In fact we have our eyes on a sailboat instead.
But aside from that, not much has changed in the way we live. Much has changed in the way we thought we were going to live, but when I step back and reassess, life really has just gone as before.
Sometimes I think we feel pressure to do a major life overhaul when we realize we won’t have children, but is that true? Yes, I have more freedom to take opportunities and make changes, but after all is said I’m done, I’m still the same old Lisa and the things that were important to me before are largely still important to me now.
How about you? Have you made big changes now that your life won’t include children?
I was stuck in a job I hated while we were trying and stayed there miserable thinking it would at least give me flexibility after we had a child. Once we decided to stop trying, I changed jobs and have been a lot happier. Not much else has changed and I feel like I should be doing more with all the free time on my hands. Lately, I’ve decided to stop pushing myself to do so much and just slow down and enjoy my home and my husband. Lately, we have been talking a lot about moving out of state and away from my family in 10 years when we are closer to retiring.
Thanks for the interesting article and question. Parents clearly make changes for their children mandated by sheer necessity and strong biological instincts, and no similarly strong inner motive exists (at least for me) to start a yoga class or to join a book club, etc. I think this is a part of what we, childless by circumstance or not by choice, mourn: the primal reconfiguration of our lives, that takes place, with the inclusion of children. But children do, of course, grow up, and most of us are left, ultimately, with questions about how best to enjoy whatever freedom we have at our disposal. I’m still pondering this, and look forward to reading about others’ experiences.
I really liked your conclusion that “I’m still the same old Lisa and the things that were important to me before are largely still important to me now.” I certainly felt the need to do a major life overhaul – but the pressure was all internal, it came all from me. But as you point out, if we’re still the same people, why do we feel this?
And you prompted me to think about it further … here’s the resulting post. http://nokiddinginnz.blogspot.co.nz/2014/05/the-rest-of-my-life_20.html
We spend more time traveling but when I see families on vacation having fun it makes feel a twinge of sadness. We spent time with friends this weekend and their daughter is graduating from high school, and to hear the excitement they feel and the plans they have made just made me feel like I just wanted to come home. I’m still the same person, I just feel more sadness in my life.
I have decided to look at global health when I start my PhD this fall. I wouldn’t have considered this if I had children as I will now be traveling while in school. I have started scuba diving again now we have more disposable income. We definitely plan to do more traveling. We are trying to find things we enjoy to fill this void.
I am struggling with getting rid of the large dining table and decorating the empty room in our house to be a useful space just for us. I would love to move to a different neighbourhood or rent but it isn’t in the cards just now. We’re only 1+ years into the process of accepting childlessness. I don’t know what will fill the void.
I wrote a post along these lines a couple of years ago. There seems to be this expectation — from others, if not also from ourselves — that if we’re not going to have kids, we need to change our lives dramatically, do something spectacular — because we can!!
But most of us aren’t going to chuck everything & run off to Africa to feed starving children or live like beatniks in Tahiti… we still have jobs and family and responsibilities, even if they’re not child-related. I would also say that I dislike the expectation that we SHOULD do something because our life is lacking in some way & we need to compensate or fill a void or make it up to society somehow.
I would say the biggest change we’ve made is we realized that, especially without children to raise, feed, clothe & educate, early retirement was a very do-able possibility, & we started looking at our financial situation more closely & planning how we could make that happen. And it is now almost within reach. 🙂 We did think, at one point, that once we had kids we would buy a larger house, but we’ve now been in our little house for 24 years. It’s fine for two people, and if we were to move, it would probably be into something similar sized but on one level (a bungalow) or a condo, as we get older & dont’ want to have to keep up a big property anymore.
http://theroadlesstravelledlb.blogspot.ca/2008/03/do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-200.html
We bought our starter house (15 years ago) thinking it would work with kids. A couple years ago, we looked into selling, moving and downsizing. We decided to stay because we really like our community but I just wanted to say I know how you feel and can totally relate.
We have taken larger financial risks than we would have taken if we had children. We were financially stuck in our condo way longer than we ever anticipated (thanks recession). Feeling stagnant and ready to completely change our life I did what financial planners say not to do – I gambled my retirement IRA and put it all on a couple high risk stock and doubled my money in about a year. (It’s not easy and it was like a part time job – very stressful with trying to time the buys/sells) Anyway, after a year we had enough money for a down payment. We sold our condo (just broke even) and then moved to a rental while we spent a year looking for our perfect home/farm. We found what I consider a magical homestead in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains in Washington on several acres. We are now living a lifestyle that we thought wouldn’t happen until we were in our 50s (post child rearing). We work full time but when we’re home we have our furry family to care for – three cats, a shepherd dog, goats, chickens as well as a gigantic fruit, vegetable and flower garden. Infertility was something we could not fix no matter how hard we tried. It’s funny, everything else seems like a cake walk now compared to TTC. We may not be able to make a baby but we can live the rest of this life “our way”.
As a bit of background, we spent six years TTC, two years deeply grieving and the past two years focusing on doing things that make us happy. We love having friend and family around and our new home/farm helps us achieve that by being able to comfortably host gatherings and overnight guests. There is no way we could have afforded the home we have, entertain, vacation and have all the animals we have if we had children. Ten years ago I would have given up every bit of my plan B life for kids. But now at age 40, I’m quite happy and content with our life. Sure I still grieve but it really has gotten easier.
Thanks for the story Heather. Your words really stick. After years of therapy in a rocky marriage we are now blissfully happy. Children just never happened for us and I was too consumed with the marriage to even care. Now at 40 it just might not be in the cards for us.
We live our little life and enjoy our freedom but we’ve yet to hit that part of our life that says, “okay, we didn’t do the traditional thing and we can pretty much do whatever we want.” I often page through Country Living magazine and read of these people who have properties like you describe. They host fabulous weekends and parties with a collection of family and friends. I long for that life and day dream of the parties I’d have for my nieces and nephews. But for some reason I do not even try to live it. Your words make me wonder why I don’t. Thanks!! I’ve got some thinking to do about achieving that lifestyle.
The only thing we overhauled was the spare room in our house that was to be the nursery. We had painted it a lovely gender neutral green, and the thought of it sitting empty, even as a guest room was too much for me. I didn’t want to walk past that empty room every day, knowing it would serve as a painful reminder of what we would never have. So we transformed it into my “girl room.” It has an oversized chair and ottoman, several bookshelves, and my sewing table. So it became my sewing/reading room, and I love it. We kept the paint color, and added accents that went with the green. The chair is blue, and I have a cozy blanket that was a gift from someone that has shades of blue and green in it, so it ties it all together. On the walls are pictures of flowers that a photographer friend took. It’s weird that that room never makes me sad at all. Maybe because I always wanted a cozy reading spot (window seats were always a thing to make me sigh when I was a kid), and I never would have had it if we had had kids.