Early Childfree Influences
Another individual commented, "I know a childfree man of about fifty who says he has many aunts and uncles in his family who are also childfree. I wonder if the reason is that they're more approving of being childfree within the family, or that they share a personality trait that enables them not to feel a need to reproduce. (This friend seems more content and self-contained than most people I know.)"
Sometimes it's our own parents who unknowingly influence our decisions. For example: "Much as I love my mom, I never wanted her job. Again, it was more a duty than a joy to her, and I got the impression - which she confirmed a few years ago when I questioned her - that if she had had a choice, she probably wouldn't have had us at all. I still love her, and she's okay with my childfree decision. She said she's glad I could do what she could not."
ChristyMae says her father influenced her. "He loved us, yes, but he worked really hard to feed us. He owned his own business (concrete, stonework, and construction) and did back-breaking work, in all weather, for his three kids." And then later, in her teens and young adulthood, Christy said she "...would have conversations with my mother about not wanting kids. Mom would try to show me how wonderful kids were, how miraculous pregnancy is, yadda yadda. My father, usually lying on the floor watching TV with a dog on each side of him, would say, Christy, don't listen to your mother. Don't have kids if you don't want them."
Society and changing cultural expectations can play a part in our decision too, as Allison H. pointed out in her comments. "I knew that I was going to be childfree at the tender age of seven or eight. All of my friends would play with dolls and their main goal was to be a mommy. A woman who looked after me while my mother worked thought that I was terrible for not falling into the automatic I want to be a mommy trap like most little girls do. This child-centric woman forbade me from having the role of a single childfree adult when we kids played house. Even as a child, I was appalled at the stereotype that women were supposed to automatically become mothers. I vowed to defy that stereotype. Also, the 70s were
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