Uncensored Money Season Three: Child Free by Choice

Melissa Browne: Ex-Accountant, Ex-Financial Advisor, Ex-Working Till I Drop, Now Serial Entrepreneur & Author, Financial Wellness Advocate, Living a Life by Design | 08/11/2022

Show Notes

In this solo episode, Mel discusses her decision not to have children and the importance of having the courage to make decisions based on what you want, not what society or your family expects of you. 

If you know you need more help with your finances make sure you join the waitlist for the next round of the My Financial Adulting Plan. 

If you're not already, come play over at insta at MelBrowne.Money and make sure you are signed up to Mel's Money Musings and Monday Money Moments (yep, we love us some alliteration) for more tips, tricks and ideas on how to best work with your money.

Finally, if you love this episode please make sure you subscribe and leave us a review.

Transcript

Hey, and welcome to a bit of a different episode today. As you know, one of the things that's really important to me is that you design the life you love and figure out the finances that will move you from where you are now to where you want to be. I talk about it as living a life that you don't want to escape from.

Now, that's not to say you still don't wanna escape overseas or escape on holidays or whatever, but it's less of 'I need to escape my life' and more 'this is simply something I'm choosing to add to my life and to the fullness of my life'.

And as part of those discussions around goals and what you want to do, I wanna talk about one of the choices that I've made that I've started to talk more and more about recently. But I put a post on Instagram on the International Child Free Day when I was over in Paris this year. And I received so many DMs about it from so many people who asked questions and who just wanted to know more about it. And so what I said I would do at the time is I would do a quick dedicated podcast episode where I talked about all things child-free and I'll talk about my decision to be child-free and more.

And just one of the messages that I received captured why I wanted to talk about it. And they said that they were struggling to swim against the tide at present. There's so much pressure and they'd love to hear my thoughts and how I came to this decision and how I managed to stick to it with conviction and without regret. So interesting language there. So we are gonna talk about that today.

I think I wanna start by saying that personally if I'd had children, that would've been my regret. And I wanna say from the get-go that there is a big difference between childless and child-free.

So being child-free is a choice. I've made the decision not to have children, whereas I have girlfriends who are childless. They would love to have kids. Some of them have gone on to adopt. Some of them have gone on to long-term foster care and more, but for them using the term 'child-free' for them would be wrong, and it wouldn't acknowledge the fact that they feel like there's a lack because having a child is something that they desperately wanted for.

For me, not so much. If you'd asked me at 18, I would've said to you I wanted to be a lawyer, wanted to get married, first child 28, second child 32. The reason I said that is because I simply thought that's what you did. I didn't see anyone who had chosen not to have kids. I knew some single women who didn't have a partner and didn't have kids, but I thought that was the consequence of that decision. I didn't realise it could be a life choice.

And it really wasn't until much later in life that I realised, ha, this is actually something I can choose to do. And so that's why I use the term 'child-free' to me because it is absolutely something that I have chosen to do.

And certainly, I get less pressure now about having kids. Obviously, I look old enough that people assume that I have moved past that time. But I remember in my thirties and even early to mid-forties, I reckon there was not a day that went past where someone didn't ask if I had kids. Cause it's a natural question, I guess. But also if I said no. They would then ask, Oh, when are you thinking? And if I'd said, we've chosen not to, one of two things would happen. One, they'd kind of look quite uncomfortable and presume you couldn't. If so, I was very clear ultimately with how I prefaced that and how I phrase that.

And then almost to a person, they would try to convince you usually in one of two ways. One, they would use the line 'you'll never know love until you have a child'. And then the other one was 'Who's gonna look after you in your old age?' And it's interesting. You gotta love some manipulation to get people to make the same decision that you've made for yourself.

But because we don't know many people that have chosen not to have kids, I think there'll be more and more over the coming decades. The presumption, and I think it's a very arrogant presumption, that you don't know love and that you'll have someone to look after you in your old old age.

Because I would argue so and I don't think she'll mind me saying this. My mother isn't your typical maternal mum. I know I've got friends that said, in another life, I don't think I'd have kids. I think this concept of you have a child and the expectation is there will instantly be love that's above and beyond anything that you've ever felt. I absolutely believe that's the case for some people, but I don't believe it's the case for everyone. Have I known unconditional love and have I given that in my life? Absofreakinglutely with my grandparents. I have known unconditional love and I have given unconditional love. Have I loved someone abundantly and with everything that I am? Absolutely. I absolutely believe there are different types of love, but to say you don't know love until you have a child, I think is underestimating what love can be. So I wanna say that from the get-go.

The other thing that is said all the time is that who will look after you in your old age? And I'm sorry, but I will not be looking after my parents in my old age. That's number one. But number two is who's to say that your children will look after you in your old age? I know so many parents who where there's either a falling out or their kids choose to live overseas, their kids move away or the parents move away. So this concept of having someone to look after you, I intend to be part of a community where we look after one another, and I think as we age, we are going to see a change in what that looks like. And I'm looking forward to that change and how that could be.

But to go back earlier. So first of all what I will say is how I came to the decision is, so I came to the decision before I met my now husband. So interestingly, my first husband and I were unable to have kids. I won't tell you the reason but suffice it to say, I still could have chosen to have kids. We went through the IVF process but, to be honest, we never talked about whether is this something we wanted? It was just a default. Oh, we've been married so long, we'll just start trying. All our friends are having kids, so therefore we should. It's not something we even talked about. It was only where we only did one cycle of IVF. It was only when that didn't work, and I didn't have a great experience with that, that when we broke up, I reassessed everything from work to relationships to more. And one of the things I realised is I didn't want, I didn't want kids.

It just wasn't something that was natural to me. I'm not maternal, I'm the one at the christening that if you pass me a child, I'm gonna wanna pop it on the floor. My husband actually prefaces me if we go to the hospital of friends that have had kids, he'll say to me, Honey, you have to hold the child, so just work yourself up to it. And we had good friends where I was sitting down, I'm holding the child and I'm kind of working myself up to a bit of a sweat and the grandmother came and grabbed the child off me and went, Oh my gosh. It's roasting.

And I'm there sweating going, Oh, thank God. So I'm not maternal. And having said that, when I got together with my husband, because I love him so much that if he had wanted children, I would have done it. But I said to him when we got together, and I did it quite early on, cause I thought, if this is a big deal, then we need to deal with this early. I said to him, Look, I really would rather not have kids. And he looked at me and went, Oh, okay. Well, that's good. Cause I don't particularly want them either. And we kept asking that many times over the first five, six years of our relationship because he's so good with young kids. And in the end, he said, Honey, it's just like having a dog will that you get to play with at the park and then hand it back. I don't want a dog because I don't want the work. I don't want kids either, but I love them. I love playing with them and they're adorable. And then I love heading them back to their parents at the end. So I was grateful that I had just happened to be with someone who didn't want them either. If he had wanted them, I would've sat him down and said, So, I don't want to be the stay-at-home mum. I don't wanna be this, I don't wanna be that. And we would've had boundaries around my role because I really didn't want them.

So all of the reasons. Primarily, it's just simply cause I'm not maternal. I don't see myself as a mother. It's not something I want for myself in my life. And Tone's the same. It's just not something, And you might say is that a childhood thing? Did you have great parents yourself?

I think all of that is irrelevant. I've gotta be honest. Sure. do I believe I would make a good parent? I look back at mine and go, Ugh, you really can screw a kid up, and I would be really scared of that. However, I'm scared of a lot of things and I do them anyway. So I don't believe that's one of the things that led to the decision not to have kids. Simply, at the end of the day, if I have the choice to have them or not, I'm far more comfortable with the 'not'.

But if you do choose not to have kids, if that's something where you're like, no, I don't see myself as that person, know that you will need to justify yourself and have what I do is you just have a line that you use for me. I've got a couple. So I've got a line for strangers that I think are inappropriate and that is essentially, how do you know I can't? Because I just think it's really rude. And the second one is, oh. Why did you want kids? Cause have you really thought through your decision to have children?

And I think it's one thing is to know that people will judge you and they're going to, if they find out, part of it is curiosity, but part of it, let's be honest, is judgement. And we judge what we don't know. So if we don't know it, if we don't understand it, if we don't see it, know that people will be curious. And yes, judgmental. And as I said at the very beginning, two of the biggest phrases that are used are 'You won't know love until you have children' and 'Who will look after you in your old age?' So just be aware, these things are gonna come up and just know what you are going to say in response.

The other thing is to know that people will judge you if you don't try to fill the time with other things. So for example my family. Especially cause I've chosen not to have kids, they therefore thought that I should be the 'on call' auntie and I should want to fill that time with their kids.

This is one person particularly, and I don't want that. There's a reason I've chosen not to have kids and that is, I'm just not maternal. I'm just not. So do I wanna be invited to staff? Absolutely. Do will I get to everything? No, I won't. I'm not gonna be that person that will wanna be at every single event in your child's life, but I still wanna be asked and if I can get to it, I absofreakinglutely will.

And for those ones that I know is super important to you, of course I'm gonna turn up to it. But my family particularly because I'm like that, I think if I was a guy I would get away with it more. But because I'm a woman, it's absolutely not acceptable and it's absolutely not okay how I've behaved in that I don't turn up to absofreakinglutely everything, and I won't, I'm not the babysitter. I'm not the 'on call' person because we've chosen not to have kids. So therefore I'm not gonna fill that void with your kids in my in my life. And again, you might go, Oh God, Mel, that's a bit selfish. But is it? Because I actually see having children as a selfish act. And I'm not saying it's wrong, like, it's selfish.

It's saying I want to create, I want us to create something that we are going to love. That is selfish. I'm not saying it's wrong or selfish, please don't hear that. Please don't hear that. But like so many choices that we make in life, if we genuinely looked at the planet and sustainability and all the rest of it, we probably should choose not to have children. Certainly, that's not why I've chosen not to have kids. But having kids could be argued to be a selfish act. So, just don't say that to a sibling. They will crucify you for it. But again, I absofreakinglutely have been judged by family for this. My mum once said to me, how can you just turn off your mother heart? I didn't realise we had a mother heart. So that was really strange to me and we have a strange relationship now that has taken a long time to even have one cause she doesn't know how to relate to me. Because I'm not a mother, which is really strange. And I get it. I get that she and my sister share a connection that we simply don't have.

But know that there will be people that don't know how to relate to you, cause they'll see you as an alien life form. You don't act as they expect you to act. So therefore they're gonna have a problem with that. Now, if you care, if that relationship's important to you, you're gonna wanna sit down and say, hey, I still wanna have a relationship with you. It's just not gonna be like a typical relationship, but we can still have quality time together. You're still important to me. Let's outline what that could look like. I've tried to do that with mine. That hasn't necessarily worked. But again, you cannot ultimately be responsible for how other people are gonna respond and act, and that's okay. That's okay.

The other thing is to know that it will be seen as unfeminine. So if you don't act a particular way, as I said, I think I get judged differently than a guy would. Because the expectation is I'll step into that aunt role. I'll step into that other nurturing role. And I'm not a nurturer by nature.

So therefore my dad will see things like, Oh, you just doing this again, and business and the races, and he always throws in the races. I don't know why that's like his thing. But he'll throw in as, Oh, you are busy doing those things. And I think it's interesting, isn't it, where if you are busy with family, it's acceptable, but if you're busy with other things, it's actually not acceptable.

And again, you have to be okay with that. You have to be okay that maybe you are doing things that society doesn't necessarily think is acceptable for a woman to do it. And I think there have been leaps and bounds with this. I really do. But it's still there. There's an undercurrent that's still there. You know what? Mother's Day, I hear it all the time. The role of a woman is to be is a mum, blah, blah, blah. That messaging is starting to change, but God, it's still out there a lot. And I think we really need to be careful of that. I think we need to redefine femininity cause I absolutely believe that I'm feminine. I'm just not a societal norm feminine, and I don't even mean how I look. I'm not curvy. I'm not, I don't have big boobs. Like I don't look particularly feminine and I don't behave in a way in that I don't have kids, etc. But that doesn't mean I can't be feminine in my own right. I love dressing up and going on dates with my husband. I love so much that comes with being a woman. I love that when he opens doors for me and does all that sort of stuff. However, I think what you need to do, if you've chosen this, is to define what femininity looks like for you and what you want your role with children and even with the children in your life to look like.

Because I know some women that have chosen not to have kids, they wanna be the best auntie they can possibly be and hat's off to them. My family don't live near me. Perhaps if they lived around the corner it would look very differently. But certainly with my husband's kids, as they get older, we see them more and more.

My sister's kids are overseas, so it's harder. My brother's kids are a little bit scattered, and again, you see them and connect with them on social media. But I think, more and more, that is a changing thing with how we behave as we branch out more, but then you can have those other types of connections.

What else do you wanna know? Do I regret it? Absofreakinglutely not. I had one pregnancy scare. It was very early in my husband, and my relationship where we genuinely thought that I was. I cried, I think for two days straight. I was absolutely devastated. Absolutely devastated. And I wasn't pregnant.

But if I needed to know if I would ever regret that moment showed me how much I did not want them. Have I regretted it since? No. No. And I think part of the reason I don't is cause I have a very fulfilling life. I have a big full life, and I think if you choose not to have kids, it's about asking the question, what sort of life do you want?

Because you then have the choice to create a life that looks very different from the norm. So for some of you, that life might still look very traditional, but for others you have the option to ask the question: without kids, what do I want my life to look like? So for me that. Living some of my time in the Blue Mountains and a house there, some of my time in an apartment in the city.

More and more it's going to involve living part of the year overseas, but it means writing and legacy work and just having the choice to be more flexible and fluid, which for someone that's a bit of a control freak is a lovely construct.

So I have never regretted it. Will there be wistful moments ever where I think, I wonder what that would be like? Sure. In the same way that I imagine that someone without kids must look across occasionally and go, God, that must be nice. I might see a friend as a grandparent for the first time, which has not happened, thank God, yet. Or I might say a friend's kids be walked down the aisle or have had that special moment with them and think, oh, that must be nice.

I attended a very good friend's christening of her child on the weekend and there was one moment where I went, That's so lovely. But it's very fleeting and it's a moment for them of 'Oh, that's so lovely'. It's never envious or I wish I could have that. Never, and I've never had that 'I wish I could have that' or that envious moment. And I think that's where I know for sure that this decision was right for me.

And certainly I think more and more there are people that are choosing not to have kids. Certainly Lawsie who works with me doesn't have kids, and I remember saying to her, she'd been working with me for some time and she just started to voice that she was thinking about not having kids. And I turned to her one day and went, I haven't influenced your decision not to have kids, have I? And she just looked at me and went, Oh, Mel, no. You're a friend, but you're not that much of a friend. But I think it is one of those things that more and more we're seeing we're seeing it. I grew up not seeing it, and I think this will become more and more normalised where more and more people will choose not to have kids. So this kind of conversation will simply be less and less relevant because we'll have people in our life that we'll know.

Certainly in my early days of choosing, as I started to talk about, I had loads of people that would contact me and either want a conversation or a coffee and just ask questions because they didn't know anyone that didn't have kids, and they were receiving so much pressure. And they didn't think kids were for them. And I used to walk away feeling grateful that I did that, but also really sad for them cause I knew what they were gonna go through in that some families just won't get it. Some friends just won't get it. And really if they love you, it won't matter what you do with your life, within reason. They should love you anyway. And it seems such a ridiculous thing to say that people should love you anyway, regardless of whether you have kids or not. But sadly, that has been my experience where that thing around, we don't get it.

I hope this has been helpful to someone. It's only a baby episode, but I thought it was important after that tsunami of DMs that I received on International Child Free Day. And I have had people contact me since saying, Hey Mel, Are you ever gonna get round to that episode? Cause I really want to hear what you have to say about it.

One of the things I love most about being born in this time is that we have choice. Choice around who we love. Choice around how we do work, choice around where we live, choice around where we can have kids or not have kids or more. What I implore for you is that you have the courage to make them your choices.

Cause it's really easy just to go, You know what? It's just easier to do what everyone else is doing. And you know what? For a lot of people, that's gonna be right, but for some of you it's absofreakinglutely not right. And if that's you, then know this. That walking the same path that not everyone walks down can actually sometimes feel like you really have to take some strides through some places that you are like, really, should it be this difficult?

But I tell you what, some of the views you get on that path, some of the places you get to go totally freaking worth it.

Get the podcast at all your favourite locations, or jump through here: