Like many Millennial Americans, I don't want to have children. More and more people are becoming part of the child-free movement whether it be because their desired lifestyle is incompatible with parenthood or they just don't feel particularly inclined towards child-rearing.

More and more adults are choosing sterilization over traditional birth control methods, but for women, especially, the door to permanent sterilization is not an easy one to open. Doctors will often insist that they're too young or question their reasoning. There are so many reasons why people choose to not to have children, none of which someone should have to explain to doctors or anyone else, but I often find myself explaining anyway.

Although I don't need to justify my desire to remain childless, I will give a few of my reasons here.

First, having children is severely limiting to the life I want to live. They're expensive to have, and they take up any time that isn't spent working or sleeping. I've always dreamed of traveling to other countries and being a kind of free spirit. Even if I felt that having children and traveling the world was financially feasible, I couldn't do it in good conscience. Having known many people who moved around a lot as kids, it can be truly traumatic for them to never really "settle down" and be able to make long-term friends.

I've also never felt particularly "maternal" per se. Babies and small children always made me feel uncomfortable when I was younger, and even today, I don't know what to do with them. However, some people keep insisting that when my friends start having kids or when I have more nieces/nephews that I will catch "baby fever."

Babies are cute, that much I can admit, but I was 10 years old when my little sister was born so I've seen more than enough to make me realize that cuteness isn't going to outweigh the cons of motherhood.

There's also the problem of the trauma of childbirth and postpartum depression. I've always feared becoming pregnant, and I'm absolutely terrified at the prospect of childbirth. I also already suffer from depression and anxiety, so the risk of PPD is high for me, and I don't need to add that to my list of mental health struggles.

Additionally, considering that these illnesses run in my family, I would feel immense guilt for potentially passing that to my child. Not everyone who has depression will pass it to their children, but even the smallest chance that I could is to much for me to risk it.

Of course, there's always the conundrum of what I'll do when I'm old and all alone with no one to take care of me or if my future spouse wants children. Those are great questions, but I'm not going to have children for the sole purpose of having a caretaker when I'm elderly, to do so would make me a very selfish person.

As for a future partner or spouse, I'm upfront in my relationships that I don't want children; if they do want to have children then they can find someone else who shares that desire. I'm a grown woman who is past the point of shaping myself around someone else's vision of me.

Lastly, I think it needs to be said that the best parents out there are those that are absolutely ecstatic to become parents and are ready to work on themselves so their children can have the best lives possible. Parenthood isn't something one should sign up for on a whim or have lukewarm feelings about. Parents should be over the moon to raise their kids.

I've seen what happens when they aren't, and I refuse to be that mother. No amount of patronizing statements directed at me will ever change that.