When the love of your life finally puts a rock on your finger, the ring not only comes with a lifetime of commitment from your significant other, but also a lifetime’s worth of questions from everyone else. “Have you set a date?” “How big of a wedding do you want?” “What kind of venue?” “What colors?” “What flowers?” “Who is in the bridal party?” “Are you sure you don’t want to just elope and save your parents some money?” As a recently engaged woman, trust me. People ask it all.

A few brave (perhaps nosey) people even ask about plans post-wedding. “Do you want to buy a house?” “Do you want pets?” “Do you want to start a family?” I tell them, “A house is great, and a cat or a dog is nice, but I don’t want kids,” and THEN you should see the looks on their faces.

Usually, the looks are surprise, then confusion (sometimes disappointment), followed by a series of statements typically about how things are “different” when I am married/older; however, my personal favorite response is straight to the point.

“Oh. Well, you’ll change your mind.”

(One of my fiancé’s coworkers even had the audacity to say to him, “You don’t want kids? How could you do that to your fiancée?” Oh, yes. My fiancé is so selfish in depriving me of my maternal need to be a baby factory, and in no way was the decision mutual…)

Aside from the fact that the decision of having children rests solely in the hands of my fiancé and me, why do I need convincing? Is the decision I made about my body, my family, and my future not good enough? I feel people would respond the exact same way if I told them, as an unmarried woman, I was pregnant. They would question my decisions, and then they would judge me regardless of my choices.

I like kids. I love my best friend's two-year-old daughter like she is my own, but when I witnessed her fall and bust her head on their hardwood floor, I died a little on the inside. So on top of other things (high pitched screaming and crying, changing gag-worthy diapers, pureed food smears, sticky booger fingers, etc.), I realized children just aren’t for me.

Furthermore, I am not a fan of pregnancy. All women are beautiful in their own way, including pregnant women. I won’t lie, I think about myself as a pregnant woman from time to time, but then I really think about it.

For some women, the joy of childbirth and child bearing is worth the nine months of hot flashes, bizarre cravings, swollen feet, gas, insomnia, and then hours of extreme pain, a giant needle in the spine, torn lady parts, and then the sagging chest, stretch marks, surgery scarring, post-partum depression, not to mention a lifetime of physical and financial responsibility... but it isn’t the life I choose for me.

It just baffles me that people, in the 21^st century no less, still have the cultural schema that women are to 1) find a nice boy, 2) get married, 3) have kids, and in that order. People act like premarital sex/pregnancy isn’t a thing, single parent families or blended families don't exist, marriage without kids isn’t a thing, divorce isn’t a thing, and the list goes on.

I understand the mindset. It is the last sliver of hope for our culture of the “American Dream”, people cling to these old fashioned ideas. However, that picturesque family model isn’t realistic anymore. The times change, and people adapt to fit the times and the ideology of those times.

Women have the ability to do more now than they ever could before. Women, while still not completely equal, are more equal to men than ever before. My parents raised me as an independent and ambitious individual, and those qualities become more and more a part of who I am as I mature into myself as a woman. I know I’m not the only woman who wants to focus on bettering herself first before bringing more life into the world... or simply choosing not to.

Call me selfish, but having children is a selfish decision to make. Do I want children? How would children effect MY future and MY family? It isn’t about anyone else. I’m not afraid to be a modern woman whose goal is a successful job, a nice car, a nice house, and as much free time as possible to travel without having to hire a babysitter. Sorry, Grandma!