When I say that I don’t want kids (even when I phrase it the “nice way” and specify that I don’t want any of my own), the responses I get are akin to someone just cocking his head to the side and saying, “But you’re a girl, right?” Yes, you fucktard, I’m a girl. I’m a girl who happens to know that she doesn’t want, and hence, shouldn’t have kids. Is that really so hard to believe?

No, I don’t want the joy of a “little me” running around, my kid won’t cure cancer, my mother doesn’t deserve grandkids, I won’t marry someone who wants kids, and it won’t be different with my own… “My own” will not shit, piss, cry, sleep, smile, eat, crawl, or do any of those things that babies generally do any more or less than the average baby. Yes, I know what the average baby does. I lived through it with my siblings, who are significantly younger than me. I like to call them my inspiration at times.

On the days I can muster up the courage, I try to tell people: I feel nothing inside when I see babies or children. Nothing. Remember the Nothing from the Neverending Story? That’s the sort of all-consuming huge black Nothing I feel inside when wee ones are present. Ah yes, you used to be just like me and now you wouldn’t trade your kids for the world. Well gee, maybe you’re right. I’m only a stupid twenty-something who can’t possibly know my own mind—especially about something so natural and feminine as mothering. How could I have forgotten my place?

No one questions those who want kids, whether they want one or fifteen. People feel sorry for those who can’t have kids. I see people around me congratulating pregnant teens, while I have doctors, family, friends, and even strangers questioning my choice not to reproduce. I could go on about my reasons for days, and most sensible people, childed and otherwise, understand and agree with them. I admit, I don’t know what it will feel like to be thirty and without the resources to have kids, but goddamnit, if I am mistaken about this, I will take responsibility for my actions and adopt instead!

I don’t think I’m mistaken, though. I can’t share this with everyone who sees fit to tell me I don’t know better, but I can share it now, as it is something that has been waiting to come out for some time now. I have been pregnant. There was neither joy nor wonder at the being growing inside of me. The notion that I wasn’t ready for a baby barely crossed my mind. I just knew that I loathed what was inside me. I hated it more than I hated anything or anyone in my life. I knew my life would be over—not that my life as I knew it would be over; no more late movies or my dreams of college being quashed. No, it would be over in a different way. I would never be happy again. I knew I would resent that kid for the rest of my natural life, even if I could fool myself into thinking I was happy on some days.

These weren’t just the fear-driven overreactions of a teen. These were the deepest gut feelings of a sane, relatively intelligent person. That I could hate something so completely… well, that should tell anyone why I ought not have kids. I’m sure you understand that I can’t tell just anyone what I just told you. It’s not the kind of thing one says to people in today’s overly PC world. Hell, it’s not the kind of thing one tells people in a less than PC place either, but it's the truth. The "right man" won't change it. Holding ten thousand babies won't change it. That's my truth.

I’m still looking for a doctor who isn’t stupefied by my request. It would be nice if, in the process, I also find one who won’t treat me like a freak or an idiot.

Author’s note: I spent quite a bit of time trying to write in how I don’t hate all kids, just the idea of my own; but everything I wrote sounded like an apology for the previous lines. I thought an endnote would be more appropriate to get that message across without changing the tone of the article.