Looking back, I never felt like I wanted to become a mother. On the contrary, I remember trying to convince myself that I shall get married and have kids, when I was in a serious relationship with someone at my 20ies. Just because he wanted this and because society was expecting this from everyone. But whenever I was thinking of the birth itself, I was feeling terrified. So, I was saying to myself that I would do a C-section. 

I grew up in the most religious country in the EU and here the value of having a family is top. Nevertheless, it was never my top priority. What I was always attracted by is non-human animals. Since I was kid, I wanted to take care of them and I did it indeed. I was feeding stray cats and I adopted one cat who lived with my family in the flat. However, in that case too, babies push me away. I raised a lot of stray cats and stray dogs in my life, but if I ever had to take care of a kitty or puppy, I was too stressed by them and their needs and I didn’t have the patience that it’s needed for their raising. I prefer and most of my rescues have been when they were already adults, or even senior. So, the first conclusion is: Parenthood isn’t for everyone! 

While I was in the before-mentioned relationship, I went to study abroad Biodiversity Conservation, and when I saw the very first slide of the lesson “Ecology of the ecosystems” which showed human population growth in a graph, I felt awful and utterly guilty for what my species has done to all the other species. I realized that what’s going wrong in a planetary scale is my species fault and I directly said to myself “I am not going to be part of the problem” (By the way the problem of overpopulation and how it affects the planet is not based primarily on the so called "underdeveloped" and "developing" countries, where people actually give birth to many children, but on the "developed" countries. To explain that in numbers, the carbon footprint of the average person in United States is as many as the one of 172 Somalis so, westerners are the problem). 

A year later, I broke up with that boyfriend (who now has 2 kids despite having a serious addiction with gambling and owning money to too many people…) and I started dating other men. At that point, I had to undergo a small surgery for a hernia, and I went through something similar to what women who give birth with a C-section go through. It was a terrible experience. I run out of options…Giving birth wasn’t something that I could possibly survive. 

(Only recently I learned that this package of feelings has a term called tokophobia, so this is a main reason for not wanting to have kids)

And yet:

When I fell in love in 2013, it was during an effort of mine to overcome major depression. It was the second time I was struggling with major depression. The first time it happened, I took antidepressants for a couple of years while I did therapy as well (CBT) and after that, I was O.K for many years, despite losing my mother who was my only caregiver, and then my cat, whose loss was the most difficult experience I ever had lived by then. So, when I fell in love back then, I decided soon after I met him to quit the antidepressants, and try to get pregnant, with that guy who was just 22 years old, while I was 27. I can’t explain what happened in my brain, other than that it was the animal instinct in me speaking. My psychiatrist was opposing this decision but I didn’t care to listen. Three months later, I got pregnant indeed but by then, the depression had relapsed. My boyfriend had second thoughts, and he tried to make me realize that we are in no way capable of raising a kid, so we proceeded with the abortion which’s cost he covered fully. I never ever felt regrets for this abortion to this day. The relationship lived on for 3 more years after this incident and I am happy to know that this guy hasn’t procreated yet and doesn’t intent to. On the contrary he wants to get a vasectomy and he has ended a relationship with a woman due to the fact that she wanted to procreate… 

After the abortion, my psychiatrist told me that I live with a condition called partial BPD (borderline personality disorder). I went through more psychotherapy and I joined a group therapy pilot program that has just started here back then, through which I learned several behavioural skills – skills that help people with this condition to live a better life. Skills that help with relationships and with the strong emotions that usually people with BPD can’t cope with-which brings us to the edge of major depression. 

How mature would it be to procreate while knowing that I live with this condition? A condition that I have inherited from my father (who never accepted it nor addressed it…) who abandoned us from the very beginning… a father who consumed all our mother’s savings for his activism (a humanitarian activist, how ironic, right?) and when she needed money to do more gynaecological tests one day because the usual check-up found something suspicious, he told her “go ask your dad for money, there is nothing left” and she, out of shame, took months to find the strength to go ask her dad…and as a result, she got diagnosed with cervical cancer; got operated (hysterectomy) and 12 years later died. I sadly know other people with BPD or with bipolar disorder who have procreated or want to do so and I find this very selfish. It’s actually a crime. We are not capable of being good parents. We explode and we struggle with our mental health. Why kids have to go through something like that? Why kids have to have parents with unhealthy mental state?

I am living on survival mode since my mother died (e.g since 2008). And when she was alive, these 12 years of fighting for her life, I grew up under the shadow of her disease. My parents obviously got divorced and our best years as a family (I have a brother with who I no longer talk, who also inherited BPD and he also never addressed it nor accepted it) were after my father left the house, because he is a sentimentally disable person, with OCDs and a serious issue with anger management… These two people only got married because their parents were putting pressure on them “when are you going to get married and have kids?” – the constant question. So, they did. And they destroyed their kids. It’s been 20 years I am struggling with my mental health because of the fucked-up childhood and the lack of a support system. I adored my mother but she wasn’t a woman who was supposed to have kids. She was funny, she was tender but she hated cooking and she preferred to travel and read and go to the movies than to be a mom.

So, even if I was selfish enough to want to procreate despite the fact of having fucked up genes, who would support me while I would be raising this kid? My dead mother? Or my unbalanced father and brother? Not to mention that aunties, uncles and the rest of the family – who are all absent. So, the third argument is based on the problem that emerges from nuclear families. If one parent dies and the other is a twat, you have no one to get support from in life. Whereas if I had grown up in a community, instead of in an individualistic society where people raise kids in flats just by themselves, maybe, I could let’s say at least adopt a kid with better genes…

The years passed by, I travelled the world, I became a researcher and the more educated I was becoming, the more I was feeling that my decision of not becoming a mother is the wisest. 

Not to mention that, this boyfriend of mine, with who I got pregnant, left me with a problematic dog, a reactive dog that has bitten 10 people in his 10 years of life so far, and I sadly had no other choice than medicate him, because there is no other way for this dog to accept my partner with who I am together for 2,5 years. He bitten him too, three times. So, the medications were the only option, if I wanted to keep this relationship alive. Before ending up medicating him, I tried and invested thousands of euros in several dog trainers and behaviourists, but it was a waste of money… Especially due to the pandemic which isolated us… These dogs need to be exposed to other dogs and humans in order to be de-sensitised but we didn’t have this option due to curfews and the rest of the measures. He is too old by now to work again on his issues.

Being the sole guardian of a reactive dog who is unpredictably aggressive for 9 years has knocked me out. I lost my freedom and I am financially broke. I can’t apply for jobs that require travelling (so I am 4 years unemployed), I can’t travel just by myself (I always had to take him with me and he is a big size dog) and the hardest is, that from his fearfulness he got sensitivity to his kidneys so I have been cooking for him daily, for 3 years now… Hence, I am a single mom of a dog with special needs since 2016, and I literally have lost all my energy and all my money on his caring. I can’t even imagine what it is to have a humane kid with special needs. Because at least my dog won’t live more than 12-15 years… Kids live forever (normally parents die first). While I am writing this though, I realize that at least the government gives benefits to parents of kids who have issues. Whereas when you are a dog-mom of a dog with issues, you get nothing. Human centred societies… 

Since 2016 that my partner left us, I only travel with this dog, and although I really enjoyed my life as a nomad, with my 2 dogs (one recently passed away) and my 1 cat ( 2 of 3 pets in the beginning were both mine and my ex’s) I desperately want to travel again just by myself. Especially because throughout all these years I have grown to a person who lives ecologically. I can no longer keep driving to the destinations I want to visit…. I want to live car-free, even! For this dog, I designed a custom-made tiny house on wheels, and I installed it in an olive groove in the middle of nowhere, because this was the only option for us to enjoy dog walks without being scared if we would meet stray or unattended dogs (typical in my country). But after 3,5 years living there, and since one dog died, 3,5 months ago, it has been very hard to keep living over there, so, I try to find a way to move again, abroad, with my dog and my cat and my current partner who luckily is also childfree and doesn’t want to have kids either (he is about to get his vasectomy in fact). Abroad, at least we don’t see stray dogs… 

What I can say here, on that note, is, that I wouldn’t have been able to live a nomadic life and change 26 houses in 6 countries, in 3,5 years, if I had kids instead of pets! With my pets I got to see the world. While I was moving houses, I was working remotely. I had the ability to work remotely because pets are silent. If I had kids, kids scream and need way too much of attention. I wouldn’t be able to do that kind of life, if I had kids… 

Finally, I would like to say that even the idea of adopting a kid is pushing me away because you can never be sure how a human will evolve. I see myself and my brother. He is not even recycling while I am flight-free, vegan and living a low waste life with solar panels. I wouldn’t be able to survive a statement of my kid in the future “I am no longer vegan”, not to mention that since 2023 that we are experiencing the climate collapse, I feel so relieved for not having procreated. I mean, what would I say to them if they would ask why I brought them into existence when I knew that we are in the midst of the 6th mass extinction? 

Thankfully that I have found a partner with who I share these values and we can pursue together a life full of adventure – having to worry only for our survival. I mean, it has been already so stressful last summer, the fact of knowing that my older dog who passed away last fall, had heart issues and I needed to install an air condition in order to avoid for him to experience a heat stroke…that I must admit I feel some relief now that he is gone. What if I had kids too? No thanks, I am already stressed enough for my own survival and my pets survival.

We have entered a very scary period for humankind, and I really don’t understand how people dare to procreate…