Let me just start by saying that I don’t dislike children, and I don’t dislike anyone else for choosing to have children. But some of the people around us seem to have trouble understanding that our decision not to have children is a carefully considered choice which we reevaluate on a regular basis. Their perspective may even be fair, because we’ve never given them our reasons. So, here they are:

1. We do not feel called to have children.
2. The genetic predisposition toward diabetes is hereditary. Imagine how you would feel if you knew you were responsible for sentencing another human being to a lifetime of disease.
3. We like having money to give, so that we can help others who have so much less than we do.
4. We like finishing sentences, and I have a very strong negative reaction to repeating myself.
5. Post-partum depression is pretty much a given, given my temperament.
6. We like peace. By this I mean peace-and-quiet. On TV and in the movies, childless homes are portrayed as barren, lonely, senseless. I suppose that can be true. But our home is quiet, peaceful, restful. And we like it that way.
7. I grew up poor. I had three shirts and two pairs of pants for school. I was the kid who wore sneakers with holes in them for 3-6 months of the year. I don’t like being poor; Jeremy does not make enough money to support a family on his own. (Be fair to him–it hasn’t been a goal because we don’t want children.)
8. I was raised by babysitters and teachers. There is no way on God’s green earth I would be able to handle inflicting that life on a child, and since I make less money than Jeremy, that means I would have to stay home.
9. I would go crazy staying at home. I don’t know anyone who has been able to relate to this in my current life, but I have far too much mental energy. I have not been able to find anything to do with it in the seven years since I had to give up private college, and it has taken me nearly that entire time to learn how to dissipate the energy without any external release, and without turning it back in on myself. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” not just because it’s a shame, but because the force of a powerful mind is terrible. Tremendous. Dangerous. Shutting myself in the house with an infant who communicates by screaming is a VERY BAD IDEA.
10. We like being a blessing to the people around us.This is something we strive very hard to do, and it is largely because we don’t have any children that we have been able to focus on it in the way we have. We can give parents with kids a break. We can drop by to help a neighbor at a moment’s notice. Because we don’t have children, we can extend our circle to other couples who don’t have children, and Jeremy can use our home to model marriage for younger men. Yes, you can still be a blessing to others when you have children, but this is a life we have carefully built because it is the one which appeals to us.
11. Children never turn out well. This isn’t to say that I don’t know any happy adults, or any adults I like. But I am an observer by disposition, and I can easily trace back the major character faults in the adults I know well to their parents’ behavior. There is one adult I know who possesses only the faults of his/her mother and nothing else! Jeremy and I know at least most of our faults, and we do not want to pass them on. But apparently that is impossible to avoid, hence: no children.
12. Children would not make us happy. Beyond what we know of ourselves, let’s go to Harvard magazine and take a look at a 2007 article on happiness:

Research shows, he says, that the first idea works: married people are happier, healthier, live longer, are richer per capita, and have more sex than single people. But having children “has only a small effect on happiness, and it is a negative one,” he explains. “People report being least happy when their children are toddlers and adolescents, the ages when kids require the most from the parents.”

13. Our long term goals preclude children. Our long-term goal is self-employment for both of us: a complicated matter since one of us has an expensive, chronic illness. Our long-term dream takes the form of a non-profit that looks a lot like Habitat for Humanity. (Which is not active around here because land costs are so high.) These things take money and time-ownership, neither of which we would have with children.
14. Children are not a tool for the parents’ gratification. This includes us in our roles as progeny. Yeah, I know all the jokes like “we didn’t have a dishwasher, we had kids” that come from both sides of our families. We think it’s pretty funny too; but the fact that the mindset hasn’t changed isn’t so funny. Given who we are individually and as a married couple, there is no logic to bridge the gap between our families’ “I want grandchildren” and “I want a niece or nephew” to “Children would make you happy.” None.

While we enjoy helping others and consciously strive to do so, we believe that our lives are our own to live. Other peoples’ choices, expectations, and desires are not rules by which we must live: we are free men, not shackled slaves. If there are those around us who resent that mindset, we invite them to adopt it for themselves. It will add amazing joy to their lives, for the glory of God is man fully alive ! (St. Irenaeus.)