Growing up in the Pacific Northwest with a single mom and a younger brother, I was parentified at a very early age. I watched my mom struggle with just about everything having to do with raising two kids by herself. She was constantly frazzled and exhausted, only managing to go to work, come home, watch TV and smoke cigarettes. We were on food stamps and had almost no extra money, and if I asked for $20 to go to Wild Waves with my friends in the summer, I would get yelled at. I stopped asking and became even more dutiful. The message was received loud and clear, "Don't ask for anything, don't be a problem, be helpful, your feelings don't matter."  

There were paintings in our basement that my mom painted before she had my brother and I. I would spend time looking at them and wonder why she never painted anymore. She would tell us stories about her younger hopes and dreams. Covertly, I was made to understand that her life changed drastically, and for the worse, when she had my brother and I.

As I grew up, I noticed that motherhood was assumed. "You'll understand when you have kids," people would say. When my mom was really mad, she would say, "I hope your kids treat you the same way." On really bad days, it was a frustrated bark, "I wish I never had kids!!!"

Resentment for my mom grew over the years because I saw her as a miserable person who refused to do anything to be less miserable. Looking back, I realize that by having kids my mom had been put in the "single mom" box by society, humiliated by circumstances out of her control, and left there to rot. She had little money, fewer options, almost no support, and little to look forward to. Who wouldn't be miserable?

When I graduated high school and moved out, I watched friends get pregnant. "Another one bites the dust" would go through my head when the pregnancy announcements inevitably came. I always felt sad, thinking, "She doesn't understand that her life is over."

I did toy with the idea of having kids a couple of times, but it never lasted more than a few days. Serious attempts were never made. 

When I was 25 and in a serious relationship with my now-husband, I mentioned how excited I was about the relationship to one of my mentors. They said something along the lines of, "Be careful, you could very likely end up a single mom."

I think it was their comment that sealed the deal for me. I grew up watching what the life of a single mom looked like and I wanted absolutely no part of it. I knew there was always a danger, no matter how good the relationship is. He could leave me for a younger woman at any time, abandoning me with our hypothetical kids. I couldn't do it to myself or my imagined children.

Our society treats women badly - Theres no fluffy way to say it. You are reduced to a brood mare if you have children, a spinster if you don't. As I continue to observe friends getting pregnant and having kids, I watch their shock as they realize they were duped by the promise of fulfillment. I only have one friend who will admit how hard and awful it can be, most moms I know seem to feel compelled to gloss over all the bad parts. I have another friend whose marriage has been completely beaten down beyond recognition by the dailiness of life with children. She knows they won't stay married long term, and has cried to me before about feeling trapped.

I've heard folks say, "You'll never know how hard it is to be a parent." The thing is, I do know how hard it is. And that’s precisely why I didn't have any. 

I am 42 this spring and some days, when I am walking my dogs by the river, I think proudly about how I have always done exactly what I want with my life. My own agency is by far my proudest accomplishment. If I had kids, I would have never been able to say that.

In Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs", Maslow says that the very pinnacle of human evolution, once all our other needs are covered, is self-actualization. In this childfree life of mine, if I'm not already self-actualized, I know I will be someday, for the simple fact that I never sold my soul to procreate.