"I don't want to have children." Four stories about how Kyrgyzstanis become childfree. I don’t want a child: what are “childfree” people afraid of? I don’t want children, but I have to

Previously, a childless woman was equated with being sick or handicapped. Every lady strived for marriage and the birth of offspring.

This can be associated with the predominance of instincts over personality. Childbearing is a function that nature has endowed a woman with.

In the West wives have long moved away from the stereotypes of the image of a mother. Women consciously decide not to give birth, but to live for themselves. This is how many families are built, men supporting their wives.

If with age you come to the realization that you absolutely do not want to have children, you should think about it, find the right words, and explain the decision normally to your loved ones.

What to do if you are pregnant but don't want to have children

Unwanted pregnancies are not uncommon. This is how a good half of all people were born. First, you need to calm down.

Upon learning of pregnancy, a woman panics, even if she has a strong desire to become a mother. If there is no desire, the panic intensifies.

Facts to remember when you see two lines on the test:

• Every person is born a woman, including you.
• Pregnancy is a period that passes without a trace.
• The female body is designed to give birth to a child - every woman is born for this.
• Childbirth is just a procedure, today it is carried out painlessly.

It is important to understand that there is no reason to panic. What happened is a physiological process. Many infertile women would give their lives to be in the place of a pregnant woman.

When a woman consciously decides not to have children, it is her choice, her right. If pregnancy has already occurred, this question is not raised.

Many see two ways out of the situation: give birth or sign up for an abortion.

This is a mistake: the choice is made like this: will a woman become a murderer of her own baby, who already loves her and needs her more than anything in the world, or not.

Excuses, such as the fact that in the first weeks children do not understand or feel anything, were made up by abortion supporters. Life has already been created.

The living child inside the mother is already developing. He is defenseless. His love is instinctive, boundless and absolute.

Important! No one will love a woman as much as her child: a boy or a girl. There are no things or circumstances more important than the gift of life.

Today there are centers that help mothers with a lack of money and difficulties. They will provide housing, work, and help with the baby.

Important! A woman should not have a choice in her mind: to give birth or not to give birth. The baby can be given up for adoption to a couple who will give him love and care.

Terminating the life of your baby, citing a number of banal reasons, means no different from people who set homeless people on fire and kill animals for fun. Your soul will never be the same.

If pregnancy has taken place, get ready for childbirth. There will be 9 months to decide: keep the baby or give it up for adoption.

Babies are taken away instantly, even disabled ones. Infertility is a common problem.

There are several reasons for the lack of desire to have children.

Let's look at the most common ones:

My husband wants a child - should I get a divorce?

The situation is familiar to many couples. The absence of children at the request of a partner is not uncommon. There is no definite answer; couples decide on their own.

Rather, you should be inclined to divorce for a number of reasons:

• Desire to have children- a basic instinct, this will not pass, unlike the chemistry in the husband’s blood, which he considers love.
• Feelings are cooling down. When several years have passed, the husband will feel completely unhappy and will regret that he wasted his time and did not become a father.
• The union is fraught with betrayal due to disagreements: male instinct will take over.
• Men are born in order to fertilize many females and prolong the race. It is foolish to believe that a man will be comfortable restraining himself by living with someone who does not want children and does not allow him to have them.

Exit There will be an open marriage if this suits.

How to explain to others why I don’t have children

The environment is people with established values ​​and ideals. When views on certain things are strikingly different, there is no need to wait for approval.

If the reason reluctance to become a mother is not due to illness or pathology, this will be perceived as selfishness.

If all women begin to refuse motherhood, life on earth will cease to exist. You have been given life - you breathe, you laugh, you choose a path. You are obliged to respond in kind.

The physiological side of refusing pregnancy and childbirth is that a woman will lose her beauty early and grow old.

Nature gives beauty in order to allow you to start a family and give birth. In addition to early old age, unused energy inside will begin to destroy the body. Diseases will appear.

There is no need to talk about the moral side: lonely old age and death in the house of an elderly person.

Not giving birth to a loved one- refuse it, do not give the world a small copy of it. Not giving birth at all means dying forever, leaving no trace.

When coming up with explanations for your family, think about whether you really want to go against your nature? Explaining the decision to others is not a tricky matter, they will accept it.

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More recently, it was simply unthinkable to say out loud that children and family are not the main purpose of a woman. But now some girls openly admit that they do not want to give birth. How to perceive such statements and how to resist pressure from others if you consider yourself childfree? An expert speaks.

Lucia Suleymanova, clinical psychologist, candidate of psychological sciences

Childfree is a person who has chosen the absence of children as a life principle. And this is not just the life position of a few “strange” people. If 30 years ago such girls would not have dared to tell the truth in a society that lived by different laws, today this has become possible. It must be kept in mind that they are not at all aggressive towards their opponents. Their position is quite calm: “We don’t want to have children, and you can do as you please.”

Of course, recently on the pages of social networks there are increasingly battles between those who find their calling in motherhood and those who see themselves on the other side of the barricades. The reason for the battles is clear. I don’t want to make any moral judgments, because they are inappropriate and it will be wrong. But, of course, in these kinds of situations it is a conversation between people who speak different languages.

However, you need to understand that not wanting to have children is normal. A person has the right to manage his life as he sees fit, as his interests and goals tell him. Such people allowed themselves to tell the truth, honestly and responsibly. Admitting that you do not want, are not able, are afraid, do not consider it important to have a child is in a sense courageous. It is important to understand that everyone decides this question for themselves. But do not confuse a conscious decision to become childfree and simply childlessness.

Why do people choose not to have children?

To understand why people make certain decisions that determine their entire lives, you need to turn to a person’s true values. Of course, if this value is “sewn” inside you - a child, then, without being realized as a mother, you will worry, perhaps even suffer. Now imagine that you have completely different values. It happens, because we are all very different. Refusal of the desire to have a child may be dictated by religious service, the desire to realize higher values: helping people, being a volunteer, doing charity work, or devoting oneself to art, science, or career. That is, such a person will feel that he has a different mission, and the child is secondary in relation to the main goal.

There are cases that illustrate “growing pains.” Such people do not want to have children because they have not yet played enough, have not traveled and had enough fun, but with this frivolous attitude towards life they have turned out to be responsible enough to admit that giving birth “for company” with peers is dishonest and wrong. For this type of person, everything can change. New life circumstances, a different job, a different environment, even a change in climate can awaken parental instincts.

It happens that children from large families become convinced childfree. I mean really large families, with, for example, ten children or more. It seems that they “worked out” their parental instincts in childhood. Another option is when the childfree position is used to cover up one’s own fears. Fear of getting pregnant, getting fat, getting hurt - in a word, risking yourself for another life. You've probably heard more than once how mothers say that they are ready to risk literally everything for their child. And they are ready to endure pain and inconvenience for the sake of a new life. So imagine that there are those who are not ready.

Of course, the reasons why a person becomes childfree are always internal. But the variety of opportunities that culture provides has also had an impact. Today there are many more options on how to realize yourself. Women make careers, make serious decisions, and manage major processes.

What to do if you don’t want children, but others are putting pressure on you

First of all, I want to address those who put pressure on the childless. In Russia, this is not only mom, dad, beloved granny and best friend, but any person in general. Old acquaintances, classmates, colleagues - everyone believes that they have the right to ask if you have children. When they hear “no,” they always ask another question: “What do you think, time is ticking?” To all these people I want to say: the harder you push, the stronger the resistance will be. In fact, by talking about the child, you are cultivating the seeds of childfreeness.

If you are a “victim” of relatives, and at every family dinner you are attacked with similar talk, the worst thing you can do is be aggressive. Excuses and anger will only give rise to discussion of this issue. Behind your back, all your sympathizers will pick apart your supposed experiences and fears. So the first rule is not to get angry and not to make excuses.

As with any good thing, the best improvisation is the one that is prepared in advance. And you must be ready to defend yourself. Option one is to avoid answering. Come up with any common phrases, from those that are written in statuses on social networks and on T-shirts. For example: “Everything has its time,” “I’m not ready yet.”

The second option is the “top” position. This is a strong position. It involves answers that clearly indicate that the situation is under your control. A phrase like “I haven’t yet been given an offer that I can’t refuse” or any other that sounds confident will do.

Another, rather mild option is “depreciation” of the conflict. Don’t argue, don’t get angry, don’t make proposals that will cause a lively response. Say, the phrase “I decided to make a career first” will give rise to an argument that can easily last several hours. Start saying something neutral, quickly turning the conversation to your interlocutors. Ask when they wanted a child, how they realized that this was their man, how they cope, in the end. In a word, remember that everyone loves to talk about themselves, and take advantage of it.

If we are talking about colleagues, former classmates, or any unfamiliar people, you can use the “soft attack” tactics. But keep in mind that the relationship may cool down somewhat after this. Answer questions about marriage and children honestly. And, without waiting for the next round, begin your interrogation: “Is your husband handsome?”, “Does he earn a lot?”, “Does he help around the house?” In a word, make it clear that marriage itself is not an acquisition.

With colleagues for whom you respect and whom you do not want to embarrass, you can act more gently. Be sincere and give a compliment: “If I had your charm, I might already be married.”

If the heavy artillery in the form of the female half of your relatives does not react in any way to your arguments and continues to go on the offensive, you can curb this enthusiasm with the help of fictitious phobias. Open the Internet and choose some prettier one. For example, fear of gaining weight or fear of pregnancy and childbirth - tokophobia. If it comes to phobias, an important rule: as many incomprehensible words and unfamiliar text as possible. There should be no chance for your interlocutor to give advice or continue the conversation.

Another rather radical behavior option is to find fault with words. “When are you going to have a baby?” - people around ask. “You can get a kitten,” you say and “jump” to something new. After a while, returning to the original topic of conversation will be awkward.

Well, don't forget about jokes - they work in many situations. There must be a lot of jokes. Prepare them in advance. “I just know what contraception is!”, “I’m afraid the children will prevent me from going to the bar on Fridays.”

In general, the rules are: treat the process like a game. Do it easily and in a good mood.

Why does society strive to convert childfree people?

Let's return to values. Those who ask you about your child believe that a woman’s calling is to give birth and raise a child. They really can't understand why you don't think so. Therefore, they explain this fact to themselves by some problems that, in their opinion, require solutions. About aggression: childfree is based on hedonism - pleasure as the goal of life. People who have come to such an understanding of the world are, as a rule, harmonious and calm. Which, by the way, cannot be said about some representatives of the “mommies” clan. Please don't think I'm judging anyone. Simply hormonally and physically raising a child is a completely different story. This is not a game of “what is good and what is bad.” We are different. It is important to remember mutual respect: in public places, in personal conversations, in any difficult situations. Today, childfree people easily declare their beliefs. They are still judged, but 30 years ago even saying that you weren’t even thinking about having a child was a problem.

People meet, get married, then have a child. This is how the majority live, and any deviation from this scheme causes public censure. After all, it is believed that a normal and healthy person one day has a desire to become a parent. It is so accepted in society that children must appear in a family, otherwise it will be inferior and unhappy. What is this - the truth of life or a stereotype that is firmly ingrained in people's heads?

Let's first figure out why people have children in the first place. There are several reasons:

— Tradition - a man must plant a tree, build a house and give birth to a son so that he becomes the successor of the family;

- The desire to leave behind someone who will remember you after your death;

— A sense of ownership - it extends not only to things, but also to people. A person wants to have “one of his own” nearby, such a dear and close person;

- Vestiges of the past. They used to think that the more children there are, the more housework they will do. As a result, the family's wealth will increase;

- The need for a person who will take care of you in old age and bring that very glass of water;

— Search for the meaning of life. Often this meaning for a person becomes his child.

These are good reasons to have children, but some people still go against public opinion.

What arguments do people give for giving up children?

Childless people are often asked why they still don’t have a child. Here's what they usually answer to questions like this:

1. The earth is overpopulated- There are already 7 billion of us. There are predictions that with further population growth there will not be enough food for everyone. Some people are frightened by such prospects;

2. It's a crazy world. Why give life to a person if there is instability, injustice, cruelty around?

3. Children are very, very expensive.. There are people who continue to live at their parents' expense even at 30 and 40 years old. Of course, this prospect is scary, because you want to spend money on yourself;

4. Man has already found the meaning of life. Someone simply lives in harmony with themselves and with the world, enjoys life, and children are not included in these plans;

5. It’s scary to take responsibility;

6. They are afraid of being a bad parent. and ruin your child's life.

“I didn’t want children and thought it would always be like this. It turned out that I married a woman with a child and accepted him as my own. Then we had a daughter, I love her very much too. I love both children, I would die for them. So perhaps people who don’t want to have children simply don’t realize what a blessing it is to be a parent.”

“I do not and never will have children. I have no problems with money, everything is fine in my personal life too. It's just my personal choice. I used to assume that at the age of 30 I would change my mind, but this did not happen.”

“I think some people give birth to children because that’s what everyone does, that’s the way it’s accepted in society. I live not for society, but for myself.”

4 main reasons not to want children

1. The man has already played enough of “mother and daughter”. Perhaps he was the eldest child in the family and babysat his younger brothers and sisters while his parents were busy with work. Having matured, the person simply wanted to live for himself.

2. There is some kind of hereditary disease in the family. In this case, the person is afraid that the child will also be born sick and will suffer all his life due to his fault.

3. I don’t want to change my lifestyle. When a child appears, you have to adapt to him and sacrifice your entertainment. Not everyone is ready for this.

4. A person has other life priorities. Someone strives to make a career, someone travels the world and does not want to settle in one place. The child does not fit into such plans.

I can't handle such responsibility

Parents must constantly ensure that the child is healthy, well-fed, dressed and wearing shoes, so that he does not get hurt, does not misbehave, or gets into trouble. The most difficult thing is to fall asleep and wake up with thoughts about how to make the baby happy.

Children will steal my time

The child constantly demands attention, so parents have little time for hobbies and entertainment, and it is more difficult for them to build their careers. Women fear that after maternity leave is over, it will be difficult to catch up and re-establish their authority at work. You can hire a nanny, but her services are not free. And why give life to a child at all if there is no opportunity to personally raise him. If you don’t work, you will have time for both the baby and yourself. But not everyone can afford to be a housewife.

I don't want to have children because they will take up the lion's share of my time. I will either have to steal time for them from work and favorite hobbies, or hire a nanny for them.

For the latter I do not yet have the financial opportunity. Besides, I don't want to have children if I can't spend enough time with them.

Maybe if I had the opportunity to give up work, I would think about having a child. But I don’t have such an opportunity and don’t expect it.

I can't be a good parent

All people are different. Some train fanatically in the gym. Others don't like it, but singing karaoke is fun and interesting. Why do the same things seem attractive to some, but boring to others? The comparison may seem wild, but it reflects the position of people who do not want to have children: everyone likes something and dislikes something. Some people have confidence that they can raise their children with dignity. Others feel like they don't have the strength to do it.

I like to be free

Men are simply not ready to sacrifice their freedom. After all, after the birth of a child, you will no longer be able to often sit in bars with friends, spontaneously go on a trip, or sit for a long time without work, looking for the best option.

I am 36 years old, I have no children. Recently, my friends and I went on vacation; all our friends have families, almost all of them have children.

Watching my friends, I noticed that they love their children very much, even though they take up the lion's share of their time.

I have nothing against children, but I don’t want to have my own. Perhaps I am afraid of the responsibility that the birth of a child will certainly entail.

World has gone mad

I have a child whom I love immensely. But I perfectly understand people who do not want to have children, and I do not condemn them in any way. It’s better to honestly admit that you don’t want to have children than to give birth to a child and not care about him.

Take a look around. Many people have children simply because it is the norm. Others want to save a marriage that has cracked in this way. For other people, a child is only a consequence of unprotected sexual intercourse. The world is going to hell.

I don’t want to condemn my child to poverty

People who grew up in poor families are afraid that the same thing will happen to their children. Therefore, they strive to get firmly on their feet, acquire their own housing, and earn enough money so as not to deny themselves anything. The process of gaining financial well-being can take until the end of your life.

I grew up in poverty, lacking everything. And then I promised myself that if I didn’t get out of this hole, I would never have children. I still haven't gotten out of the hole.

I can be a happy person without my children

Sometimes women don't have children because of poor health - for example, after learning that they are at risk of miscarriage. Losing a child is truly scary. Some women take risks, others abandon the idea of ​​motherhood and decide to seek happiness in other things rather than motherhood.

My mother had two miscarriages, and after watching her suffer, I never wanted to experience anything like that. I have poor health, so when I learned at 14 that I too was at risk of miscarriage, I gave up the idea of ​​being a mother forever.

Now I am 30 years old, I have nephews and nieces whom I simply adore. I may not have my own children, but I can call myself a happy person.

Would you give birth to him? - asks a friend.

What? - I ask in complete amazement, and it sounds like a “faq,” reflecting my confusion.

I was talking about a man whom I saw six times, and on the very first night we slept together, and then we went to another city for three days, and it was nice, he was unusually gallant, and we lived in a luxurious hotel, and he was very handsome looked after me. All.

Yes, I talked about it with delight, but I talk about everything with delight - that’s my style.

“I immediately think about whether I want children from this man or not,” explains a friend. - On the very first morning I realized that I wanted to give birth to X. (she is talking about her husband, with whom she, however, has three children).

Mneeeeeee... - I mumble something unintelligible, because I see: my friend believes that any relationship is tested by whether a woman wants to be fruitful and multiply with some man.

If he doesn’t want to, that’s normal, but only because the man is “wrong.” She is sure that I just haven’t met the “right” one yet. And it’s not that I personally don’t want children at all. This simply cannot happen.

Everyone wants children. Sooner or later. Society accepts very loudly that someone may not want children immediately after the onset of puberty. We are modern people, so we are ready to accept that children can appear at thirty or thirty-five. And even at fifty.

But never wanting children is impossible.

Do you have children? - they ask me.

Do you want?

These questions don't annoy me. There is nothing particularly personal about them. But the interlocutors rarely stop there - they want to understand how it’s possible not to want children, and whether I have some kind of trauma, and whether I’m thinking about having a child in ten years, and in general, how to live if you don’t dream about children.

It’s not that it drives you crazy, it just gets tired of saying the same thing every time. It’s like the Facebook question “Who is X?” “Well, Google it,” you write, because after all, all the information is in the public domain, if you’re interested, don’t be too lazy to type it into a search engine. Thousands of words have been written about why people don't want children.

But I am a happy person: I have no relatives. Moreover, I have never had those close to me who could afford to put pressure on me, express concern about how my personal life works.

But millions of women, their mothers, grandmothers, aunts, uncles and girlfriends who were lucky enough to give birth at seventeen, are tormented by reproaches: “Where are the children, where?! When?! It will be late! It's already late! Give birth to a second one!”

For some reason, many people believe that they have every right to dispose of our reproductive function as if it were public or at least family property. And as if not wanting to have children is something like homosexuality.

Any woman who does not want to give birth (now or never), even in her own family, will feel “gay”. Maybe if she confesses, they won’t reject her, but they will still worry about her difficult fate. But it’s better not to admit this openly, because no one knows how hard the bomb will hit and where exactly the shell will land.

A friend did interviews with women with many children and without children, and one friend who does not want children said: “Well, no, out loud, for publication, I will not repeat this. My relatives will eat me." She is afraid to say directly that she is not interested in children, otherwise she will have to enter a world of reproaches, hysterics and pressure that compares to a military conflict in the Middle East - a fight in a sandbox.

The problem is that it is almost impossible to explain to someone that you never wanted, don’t want now and are unlikely to ever want a child. And that you don’t care what kind of fears prevent you from wanting him. And that you don’t care about all the children in the world - you feel neither tenderness, nor tenderness, nor the desire to cuddle these wonderful creatures. And that you're terribly bored two minutes after someone's six-year-old starts telling you how he gutted an anthill. And you are not afraid to be alone in old age. And you see how different these children turn out - from some there is only one disorder, if not drama.

You easily accept your friends who have five or seven children. Don’t you think that a woman with such a brood is certainly a slob who just rushes around, barefoot and bare-haired, between the kitchen and the nursery.

You are not creating any confrontation between the “family” and the “childless”. You perfectly accept the world in all its diversity and understand that some people like to get pregnant, give birth, play with the baby, watch how it develops and matures. You don’t bother with questions: “What, how, and do you have time to cut your nails?”

But they will still ask you: “But maybe this is why you still want a child? You love him so much.”

It is very difficult for these people to understand that you still love yourself more. Your way of life, your rhythm, your rules. And that no matter how much you love someone, this does not mean that now you define yourself as “we” for the rest of your life and feel like a multitude that dreams of an even greater multitude: the more of you there are now, the better.

Many happily call this selfishness - this explains a lot to them. Selfishness is certainly bad; it speaks of immaturity, selfishness, spoiledness, and irresponsibility. Hurray, we solved the problem: they don’t want children, because they themselves are like little children, they will grow up, but it will be too late.

Many, by the way, give birth for this reason - out of fear that it will be too late.

“If it weren’t for my mother, I wouldn’t have given birth at all,” says one friend. She loves her daughter, but she didn’t really want to give birth, just as she doesn’t want to do it again, and her mother has been insisting for many years now that there should be two children (like she herself).

The logic is that you give birth, and then you’ll figure it out. The main thing is that it is. Because often without children, life turns into complete nonsense: you go from home to work, from work to home, and the same husband sticks around, whom you cannot divorce, because “who needs you,” and you are without a child ten years later, there’s not even anything to swear about anymore, and there’s nothing worse than this gloomy silence, which seems damp and cold from mutual indifference.

And if there is a child, it will unite you. You are no longer just people who are painfully bored with each other - you are parents.

They make children into the devil for reasons like these - and then they teach us how to live.

At the same time, you still do not condemn them (at least out loud), and they openly “treat” you with their instructions and consider you not quite normal (or completely abnormal) only because you do not want to reproduce.

The strange thing is that many, just like drug addicts, try to drag you into their sect: “Oh, children are the best thing that happened in my life,” and then they gloat: “Did you think this would be a continuous holiday?! Children are not easy, now you don’t live for yourself, a-ha-ha!”

One friend’s mother begged her to give birth and even promised to be a grandmother, grandfather, mother, father and nanny throughout her pregnancy, and as soon as she gave birth, she said: “Your child is yours to figure out. I suffered with you - now you, too, go ahead and suffer.”

And this is not a special case - it happens at every step. For some reason they need all women to live according to the same pattern.

But it’s not at all difficult or embarrassing for me to admit: I don’t want children. That's not mine.

I want to fall asleep at dawn, wake up slowly with coffee and a cigarette, I don’t want to answer the questions “why is the sky blue” and worry that I didn’t enroll my child in kindergarten before birth.

I don’t have anything even remotely similar to a maternal instinct, and I myself am the only person I want to raise and take care of.

Boys play with cars, girls play as daughters and mothers, and when they grow up, they acquire what they dreamed of as children. The French say that the first child is the last doll. But what if dolls have never interested you?

You, like boys, played with cars. Or, instead of baby dolls, you had beautiful Barbies who clean feathers in lounge chairs and have fun at parties, and do not feed a screaming child or change his diapers. The importance of role-playing games cannot be underestimated. With their help, we master the world, fitting ourselves into it. If the desire to try on the role of a mother did not arise at the age of five, is it any wonder that it does not come even at thirty?

It's natural to want a child. This is how nature intended. But it’s also normal not to want a child. After all, we are not only natural beings, but also social ones. We have so much on top of the basic instincts - self-preservation or procreation - that sometimes they are unable to reach our consciousness. You build a life, and the result completely satisfies you. There is no feeling that anyone or anything is missing from her. And since everything is there, why change anything? You never know where these changes will take you. What if it gets worse? And is it possible to want something that you have never tried? Sea urchin caviar, for example. You haven’t eaten it before, so you don’t feel longing for it. You haven’t tried on the role of a mother either - you haven’t played with dolls, haven’t babysat your younger brothers and sisters, haven’t babysat your nephews, so you can’t know for sure whether it’s for you or not. By the way, the Chinese, who, in order to reduce the birth rate, obliged their citizens to have only one child, after 20-30 years were faced with the fact that these only children, who grew up without brothers and sisters, do not want their own children at all. Because they had no experience of caring for a baby in the parental family.

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Contraceptive installation

Appetite, as you know, comes with eating. And the need for motherhood too. Previously, nature did not need to secure our desire to have a child. Because if we choose the right moment, we can last up to a hundred years. And it’s not profitable for her! This is why our instincts make us want sex rather than children. After all, before, if pregnancy occurred, there was no longer any special choice - to give birth or not to give birth.

With the advent of contraceptives, systemic failures occurred in this scheme. The initiative passed to us. We are free to choose the ideal time, to wait until the desire to have a child comes. But the trouble is that the desire does not come to everyone and the moment is not always right. In addition, if you protect yourself from pregnancy throughout your entire adult life, its denial is rooted in the subconscious deeper than one might imagine. A persistent contraceptive attitude arises, erasing the desire to become a mother. You listen to yourself, but you don’t feel any need for a child and decide that you are not yet mature for this. And time is running out.

“I think that if a woman doesn’t want a child by 30, then most likely she won’t want one,” says Anyuta. — The further you go, the less you will want, because with age your character loses its elasticity. You become less patient, you get used to freedom. If you don’t want to, maybe you don’t need to. Not everyone can be a mother! But if the question of why there is no such desire haunts you, it means that there is still a need for a baby. Even if it’s at the level of feeling that it might be easier without children, but it’s not entirely right. It's good that this came to me in time. I gave birth to a child without the call of instinct, at my own peril and risk. Partly for show, to “shoot off”, and partly out of curiosity, to see what would come of my husband’s genetic mixture. I wasn’t torn apart by maternal hunger, but I don’t regret at all that I didn’t wait until I wanted to become a mother. The instinct never woke up. A sense of duty and conscious love has awakened, which arises after you get to know a person and invest strength in him. You can desperately want children, but be a bad mother. Or it can be the other way around.”

MEMORY OF A GIRL
The desire to have children comes to any of us after puberty. But it is so instinctive that it is quickly forgotten if it is not implemented. And by 25, you already believe that “you never wanted a child.”

Nature's Trap

One of my friends unexpectedly experienced an urgent need to become a mother after an internship in an orphanage. I fell, as psychologists say, into a prolactin trap. Prolactin is a pituitary hormone that awakens the parental instinct. This is a time bomb laid by nature under the foundation of indifference to children's topics. As long as you keep a safe distance from stores for young mothers, parks where they walk with strollers, sandboxes and playgrounds, prolactin does not remind you of itself. Because there is no reason! But as soon as you press a warm, sleepy, pink baby (yours or someone else’s) that smells of milk and baby powder to your chest, the maternal hormone begins to be intensively produced in the body, stunned by surprise. Sometimes in such quantities that nulliparous girls even begin to produce milk! For some, it is enough just to wander into a department where they sell rompers and baby vests for this biological timer to work.

But the most powerful release of prolactin occurs during pregnancy and especially childbirth. That is why surrogate mothers, who agreed to be incubators for someone else’s baby, suddenly become imbued with irrational love for him. And for no amount of millions do they agree to give up a child they initially did not want to biological parents. And for those, too, the parental hormone is raging with might and main while they watch the surrogate mother and inflame themselves with preparations for the birth of the baby. Do you want to want a baby? Get closer to the pregnant woman!

“My friends, as if by agreement, walk around pregnant,” says 27-year-old Albina. - There are five of them! Maybe this is a herd feeling, but even I, who had not planned anything like this, suddenly wanted to join their company. I looked at their rounded bellies, walked with each of them around the “Children’s World” and realized that I wanted the same thing. And before there was no such desire. Honestly!"

Coincidence

People sometimes don't want to have children because for some reason they can't. They instill this reluctance in themselves because not wanting is still better than not being able to. The most obvious is physical disability. The friend tells everyone that she doesn’t want to “get involved with this.” And then it suddenly turns out that she has been undergoing treatment for infertility for several years. There is no result, so she convinces herself and others that it shouldn’t have hurt. It’s easier without a child: you won’t have to go on maternity leave, drop out of life, and your figure won’t float. So that's great!

Someone understands that they cannot support a child financially. They just want children... But they consider themselves unworthy (“with such and such a salary!”) to become parents. And they postpone the birth of a child until later. And when they achieve career success and financial well-being, they simply burn out, losing the desire for motherhood. Thirty-year-old anhedonia—the loss of interest in everything that really makes life worth living—is a common phenomenon, especially in big cities. You just need to shake yourself up. To have a break. Remember why all these obstacle races up the career ladder were started. Think about the design of the nursery, choose wallpaper for it, look for a crib. Any step in this direction is a way to awaken your suppressed instincts.

Some anxious and suspicious people begin to panic at the mere thought of children. The child will be completely dependent on me. What if I do something wrong and he gets sick? If I drop it, will he break something?

Or maybe you don’t want a child because you have the wrong man next to you. You don’t admit it to yourself, but you feel in your spinal cord that the appearance of a third person will not strengthen your union, but, on the contrary, will only complicate everything. “As I understand now, at one time I didn’t want children because I didn’t trust my husband and was ashamed in advance of the hypothetical fate of a single mother,” recalls Stasya. — By and large, I turned out to be right. Although after a conversation with a psychologist (“since he brought you here, it means it’s important for him”) I made up my mind. And the husband ran away as soon as the baby started teething: the children's screams prevented him from sleeping. And when I met my man, the desire to give birth arose almost immediately. I took this feeling as a guarantee that everything would be fine with us. And I was not mistaken!”

NO-HORMONES
Prolactin has opposite hormones - adrenaline, cortisol and testosterone. They keep you constantly ready to fight, give you strength and courage... But they reduce your femininity. The adrenal glands of zealous career women constantly release these “no-hormones” into the blood. Therefore, if you are worried about the lack of a basic instinct, stop. As sad as it may be, you will have to take a break from your career race. At least for a little while.

I don't want to be like my mother!

If you didn’t have a good relationship with your mother, then not wanting to have a child is a continuation of the child’s rebellion: “I don’t want to be like her!” Psychologists call this a violation of parental self-identification. It can also concern relationships with your father: he left the family, abandoned you, little one, it was painful, and you don’t want your baby to experience the same pain. But in fact, more than anything else, you need to go through this path with your child again, rewriting your own childhood along the way, correcting in it what hurt you so much and still haunts you.

“I’m soon 27, married for 7 years, no children, because in all this time we have never tried to have them,” Natasha reports. - We protect ourselves like spies. We both can't stand these little, screaming, always demanding creatures. I want to live for my own pleasure, not everyone has children, there are so many interesting things in life... Take my mother. She was a promising pianist, but she gave birth to me, putting an end to her musical career. And what? Dad left when I was not yet a year old. Mom started all over again with another man. But already without children. Even without me. I grew up with my grandparents, I saw my mother only on Saturdays. Once a month. So why did she give birth to me? As a child, I was terribly worried that she was not around, I felt that I was preventing her from enjoying life, that I was not worthy of her love. And I'm not going to repeat her mistakes. And to friends who stutter about children, I always answer: “You need to give birth, and leave us alone!” We don’t love children and we’re not going to hurt them with our dislike!”

There is always some kind of story behind the façade of the child-free slogan. People do not want to transmit their childhood pain to generations. You can’t do this without a psychologist! As, however, in most cases, when the parental instinct refuses to remind itself.

Wanting children is the norm of life, nature’s idea. But gradually you get used to your reluctance - and it’s already somehow awkward to refuse it, to awaken parental feelings in yourself: you’ll have to explain to everyone around you why you didn’t want to, but gave birth. So don't paint yourself into a corner! From love to hate, as you know, there is only one step. And from the reluctance to have a child to the desire to give birth to one at any cost - too. You will see!

SLAVIC CROSS
During the era of perestroika, no one wanted to have children - it was simply scary: criminal lawlessness, total shortages (diapers and milk disappeared from stores, and the most necessary medicines from maternity hospitals), the sexual revolution and mass unemployment. In such conditions, the instinct of self-preservation prevailed over the instinct of procreation. Workaholism was considered the main virtue, and it completely crowded out all thoughts about children and maternity leave from the brain. As a result, in 1991 we received a “Slavic cross”: the birth rate curve intersected with the death rate curve and continued to fall. Today's 20-year-olds are precisely those who, despite everything, managed to be born at the intersection of the “cross.” It is clear that for many of them the maternal instinct is not such an unconditional phenomenon.

Irina Kovaleva
TAMARA SCHLESINGER