Sarah Driscoll is 36-years-old and lives in Bedfordshire.

From an early age I didn’t coo over babies like the other children. I remember Tiny Tears dolls really freaked me out. I didn’t feel maternal or have the strong desire to have children, but wasn’t totally put off by the thought and expected to have kids in the future. Growing up on a stud farm I was surrounded by animals so devoted my childhood to nurturing them. I certainly have the ability to be maternal and care for others.

I met and had a five year relationship with a man at university and had an abortion at 19. I was a student with little support and no burning desire to have a baby. I approached it with little emotion and to this day I’ve not felt anything about it. This troubles me sometimes as I’ve been conditioned to think I should feel guilty, but I don’t.

When I was 28 I got married. My husband was very upfront about not wanting children when we started dating and by then I had settled on a life without kids. We discussed it at length and neither of us changed our minds so he had a vasectomy four years later.

I spent most of my 20s and early 30s getting bitter and angry about the stigma attached to being a non-mother. The mainstream media is geared towards promoting white heterosexual women as mothers. If you’re not one you’re some kind of pariah, and my husband doesn’t have his lack of children questioned nearly as much as I do. My family have been supportive but a significant proportion of my female friends have kept on asking me when I will have kids, usually around the time they start having theirs. Reactions have ranged from being told I’m missing out, to saying that I’d regret it or I’ll change my mind, to saying that I’m selfish or too focussed on my career to have them.

It’s also been implied that I enjoy my free time and disposable income too much. This may be true but it’s a consequences of not wanting children rather than what’s motivated me. Most of the women I know are deeply connected to social media and too many have formed their opinions from whatever is being peddled on there. For a while I was angry about their comments and argued back saying that they were the selfish ones for having children in this overpopulated world. But when I reached my mid-thirties I realised that I had fallen victim to the hysteria. Mothers and non-mothers feel they have to be polar opposites, take sides and fear each other. Each has to be jealous of what the other has and have an opinion on the other’s ovaries. It’s so ridiculous. I really do not care what someone chooses to do with their internal organs.

I have worked in education for all of my career as a teacher, head teacher, school inspector and now a consultant. I have helped thousands of families raise their children over the years. I love my job, I love children and I want to nurture them. That is always a difficult thing for others to grasp – I love children but I do not want my own. I simply don’t have the emotional desire. It really is that simple. There is nothing about a child-orientated lifestyle that appeals to me and I don’t think I would find looking after a baby rewarding or interesting. I’m told it’s taboo to say that, but I don’t see why. Why have we made it taboo? We fight so hard for women to have access to family planning and have control over their bodies, so why is my choice questioned?

A childfree life is different – not better, not worse. I’m happy, I’m satisfied, I’m fulfilled. There is a massive world out there, and your life is your life. You can live it regardless of whether you have given birth or not. Trust me.

Resources for childfree living
Life without baby – Lisa Manterfield
Coping with infertility – Nagar Nicole Jacobs and William T O’Donohue
Living the Life Unexpected – Jody Day
Gateway Women
Accepting Infertility
Childfree