Why Aren’t I Taken Seriously?
Age is a very important indicator in a person’s life. It determines whether the person can drive a car, join the armed forces, or smoke a cigarette. Age is used as a marker for the time in life when people can be trusted to take care of themselves. But when a person is childfree, age is wielded as a weapon by those who don’t agree with the choice.
People who don’t understand or respect the decision to live a life free of children feel the need to coerce others into reproduction. They will use whatever methods of persuasion they can, and when you’re young, they’ll call into question your maturity. Advocates for reproduction find no issue with a fifteen-year-old fantasizing about a life of minivans, bake sales, and Little League. However, a childfree person of twenty-five is thought of as clinging helplessly to adolescence.
As a childfree woman of twenty-one, I live a life full of responsibility. I hold down a job, pay bills, volunteer, and attend college. But once I reveal I lack the desire to have children, I am seen as wholly ignorant about life. I’m told I will feel differently once I “grow up.” I’m told that an alarm on an internal clock will change my mind soon enough. It’s almost as if these statements should be followed with a pat on the head and the promise of cookies and milk. It’s hard to understand why a decision based on deep thought and knowledge of self is negated simply due to age.
When faced with a lifestyle choice different from their own, some people feel the need to defend they path they’ve chosen. To question a person’s well-thought-out decision due to their age is just another way of saying “I’m smarter than you.” It’s a way of reassuring themselves that they are right because they have the advantage of age. But the age argument is sometimes used by those younger than me. There’s nothing like a sixteen-year-old telling you that you’ll feel differently at twenty-five. I’m also told my mind will change when my friends start having children because “we’re almost at that age.” The truth of the matter is, no person of any age likes to have their lifestyle choices questioned by someone who may have never even given much thought to their own. Age and maturity are not synonyms. Rational thought is not reserved for people over thirty. Personal life decisions should be respected whether a person is entering college or a nursing home.
To be childfree is more than saying no to children because it wouldn’t be fun. It is the knowledge of your strengths and weaknesses. It’s the knowledge of your likes, dislikes, limits, needs, and wants. And these are all things a person can know regardless of age.
Copyright Ashley Sowell. Published 1 October 2006 in Editorials.
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