Justifying Child Free Lives

In recent months I’ve seen a number of friends “like” and “post” on pro-child free groups and while i can appreciate anyone’s life decision, I’m just not understanding the need for people to justify that decision. 

When it comes to having kids or not having kids I can see both sides. I wasn’t a girl growing up with the urge to grow up and become a mother, actually not in the slightest! I wanted a career, travel, life experiences that settling down young wouldn’t support. So what did I do from the end of high school to when “settled down” was an 11 year awesome life altering experience combining living abroad in 3 different continents, a uni degree, a diploma, traveling whenever time/funds allowed, working in jobs that I never envisaged, a wedding, buying a house and all that life experience and maturity to get into a role I could never have planned to do, which led to my career. Oh and now we have 1.45 children. 

My point is, had I not met my husband and met someone else who didn’t want a family I could easily chosen that path. 

The thing is, we all have the choice to make our own life decisions and I don’t understand why people choosing a child free life feel the need to justify their decisions. A recent post by an acquaintance made mention of how they can’t imagine their life being any happier… They don’t want to give up what they currently have.. Their pets feel like their children.. Their friends lives (became shit) changed when they had kids… It went on and on. 

My point is you don’t know what your missing out on. So by all means choose your own path but during that process don’t try to justify your decision by reflecting negatively on others lives, for example this post mentioned “our friends didn’t have money to do fun things anymore” .. Translation.. Your friends lives changed when they had children and their priorities shifted, did you think of fun things (that didn’t cost much/anything) you could do with your friends now or did you just discard them because they didn’t fit in with your idea of a fun life?  ….

I guess after reading the posts I really just wanted to give it the middle finger, awkwardly it’s entirely possible now with the emoji. My philosophy is to respect individuals and their own decision, but unfortunately I then expect the same in return. I don’t justify my decisions to people and they don’t need to justify them to me. Can’t we all just live harmoniously together?