A (somewhat by choice) childless woman's thoughts

I shared this article on Facebook yesterday. "Childless by choice: Shallow and self-absorbed or just awesome? 

It wasn't the first article of its sort I've shared in the past two years or so - there've been plenty along the same grain of "we're childless, we choose to be (or maybe we didn't) but the bottom line is, just leave us the fuck alone about it." 

But is everyone looking at me and my fellow DINKS with such disdain or pity or even judgement? No, not at all. For every pushy person out there, I am thankful for at least five more people in my life - ones who have kids, mind you - who understand and are supportive. 

I speak for myself and my circle - my friends (emphasis on friends) have been plenty supportive. Without diving into personal things, I have this to say: it all boils down to choice and for some reason, there are a lot of people who can't fathom others making different choices than they did, and I have thus chosen not to surround myself with those jerks (who I'm sure mean well, in their own odd way).  

I'm not writing this to defend not having kids - the articles floating around out there are doing a good job doing that for me. I'm writing this because not everybody is a judgmental dick or someone who lords the whole "oh my god it's so rewarding to have kids you guys have to have kids what do you mean you don't want kids you'd have such cute kids" sermon over you and I'd like to salute those people and thank them for being mature enough to know that when someone responds with the following

• No, not yet.
• Nope!
• We don't.
• We're planning to, but not right now.
• Hell no.
• Eh, no.
• We just got married yesterday.

is to move on.

BUT! I am writing this to give credit to and show appreciation for the people I know who have kids who don't push their decisions on me and the many, many other people like me and The Husband; the ones who respect our life choices and who aren't themselves being selfish by insisting that it's in any way wrong that we don't follow the same path they've gone down. You know who you are, and I love you and thank you.