I've always known inherently, I just always thought that it was just something other people did, like working in a stuffy office. I first said it when I was 10/11 and got the usual patronising remarks. I know it can be hard to take such a young person seriously about anything, but I HATE bingos in any form. I have a sister 3 years younger, and oh GOD, some of the odious and horrific things from the toddler and kid years, both visceral and behavioural and disciplinary still scar my mind. I always could not understand why anyone would volunteer for this hell. We are great friends now, but I have a stronger hatred for kids cause I was the elder. Children tend to have higher thresholds for disgusting things other kids do but I was picked on at school and saw them for the cruel, vindictive predators that they are. And babies were just boring as fuck to me. I was one of those horse mad kids who worshipped them completely. My life ambitions were always animal/career oriented, never family.

The CF concept first arrived in the form of my (amazing) CF married aunt and uncle. I assumed almost everyone had them until I found out they are CF. I thought instead "when I have horses" whereas most people think about when they are parents. They have been married forty happy years now! In your face bingoers!

Provided bedside support for the mom during the birth of one of my nephews. I very nearly passed out.

This is a hard one! I am 26, been married for 3 years. We had been about 75% CF when we got married. We thought, maybe... but not until we have done a bunch of travelling and such. I think a year later, I really started looking into the whole CF trend and what it means. I read a lot of books, articles and blogs and made a lot of pro con sheets. We talked about it a TON. SILs stated having babies and then we finally realized it wasn't for us. I hated holding babies. The moment they drooled or puked on me I was DONE. Runny noses make me gag. It took us a while to announce it fully though. We were very nervous of what our families would say and do. Some took it better than others. I can honestly say that we are now 100%. It took time, but both me and my husband feel the exact same way.
I don't think I can pinpoint the exact moment. But my pro con sheet was a mess. The only pros were pros for other people (parents mainly). I never put a pro down for me. And my cons out weighed my pros 10-1!

Realised around the age of 13 or so, when my baby cousins were plopped in front of me.
I instinctively thought they were quite unattractive blobs of human and that feeling has never really gone away. When people jam an infant in my face and tell me how cute it is, I get very uncomfortable because I'm yet to find a baby human that I think is cute. I just say nothing.

I can't tell you what a relief it is to actually talk openly about this, and that there are so many of us out there with absolutely NO stirrings for babies and all the horridness that goes with it.
Being here is like being [i]free![/i]
:D

Actually I have never, as far as I remember myself, been comfortable around children, even when I was a child myself. I much preferred sitting alone reading than entertaining in the loud (and, to my mind, quite stupid) company of other kids. But since I live in a very family-oriented country I grew up thinking that having children is just something you do as you grow up.

Nevertheless, I did not feel the slightest wish to have them. I never cooed or asked to hold my friends' babies when they started to arrive, and I avoided child-centred conversations as much as possible. But I got married, still thinking "this is what naturally follows". Thanks God, I did not give in to the relatives' pressure to start trying for a baby immediately after wedding, and still used contraception religiously.

I felt the pressure grow, and so grew my disgust and reluctance to have children.T he major turnoff, though, was my DH's nephew, some of whose behaviour is described in this theme: http://www.thechildfreelife.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13451 -- seeing him grow up just erased if there was any last last shreds of ever wanting to have children.

I started to think there's something seriously wrong with me, since I had not met a single girl/woman who would feel the same. Then I somehow heard the term "childfree". I did not know exactly what it implied so I googled it.

What a relief it was to come upon this site and find out there are a bunch of likeminded people! I read a couple of themes, identified with them completely, and then I knew 100% - if that is an option and a choice, then my choice is clear.

Thanks, TCFL!

When I was 17 and my biology course covered human reproduction in exacting detail, this is when I knew I would never, ever go through that.

I'm only 99% certain that I'll never want to adopt or foster a kid, though. Probably the 100% mark will come up soon, since the meter has been steadily increasing (starting from about 50%) since I found this site.

I posted on this thread ages ago but a thought struck me last weekend that I just had to share:

All my life, I have had this feeing (call it sixth sense if you will) that I will die in childbirth. I have posted a few times on here about how my family history is littered with difficult births and "near misses" and I have a cousin who is slightly brain damaged as a consequence of a complicated birth with one of her children. I have always had this feeling that I will be the "unlucky" one and will die scared and in agony during birth.

Anyway, I had a bit of a pregnancy scare last week - which turned out fine - but whilst darkly obsessing over my options, it suddenly occurred to me that whilst I was still terrified of dying in childbirth, I was actually starting to think that this was the better option than surviving the birth and having to deal with a newborn and all the things that go with parenthood.

This was my epiphany moment. I had already made my choice but now I [i]know[/i] it is the right one.

I realized that if I ever became pregnant right now, I'd abort.

I can't remember a specific point in which it dawned on me that children weren't something I wanted. But everything about pregnancy and childbirth has always disgusted me. I still can't figure out why anyone would subject themselves to that, when there are already enough children in the world.

My husband and I always use protection but if something ever happened, I have ultimately decided that I'd abort and then simply be abstinent or push as far as I could to get myself (or him) sterilized. I'd rather have cancer of the reproductive organs (that's the only way I could ever get a hysterectomy at my age, and for being childless) than to ever have to carry a child. I value my figure, my personal space, and my time to myself too much to bother.

[quote="VikCat"]Of course, I broke up with the boyfriend - he wanted kids for sure, and I came to the realization that I didn't want any part of it.[/quote]

There is no compromise with the frother/kid topic. It's black and white.