Hi Guys!
Another Bharatiya Nari here!
Wonderful to find a few desis here, at last!
A quick intro about myself:
Sandhya, 32, married, working, childfree (duh).
I read through all the previous posts on this thread. Interesting. About the nationality / generalization, oh come on.
It was interesting to see how CFBC people in India have trouble finding partners... hmm. I'll go into some detail about how I and my husband have gotten here, in case it is of interest to someone here.
In my case, I can't say I knew I wanted to be CFBC, till i actually got married to my long-term boyfriend and the possibility of children loomed. In my early 20's I didn't see myself as a mother, but I thought that age will fix that... At some point, hormones will catch up and I'll have kids then, that's what I expected, and that's what friends, family said too. But as I aged, if anything, I've become more and more clear that kids are not for me. I do not dislike them, no, but they are simply not for me. Age has brought clarity... my 30s so far have been the most clear in this regard. (Someone who said about the possibility of finding 30+ cfbc woman is rather on the right track.)
Anyway, my boyfrind and I hadn't really discussed kids, but we both assumed they would happen, somewhere in the future. When we did get married we were both 27, we said we'll think about kids a couple of years later. But when those 2 years were gone, we still felt unprepared. As we spoke about it and explored our thoughts further, we realized we simply don't want kids.
For me, as a woman, there was this internal pressure about the clock running out... I was the one who first said that I don't think I want kids at all, but then I used to be conflicted. THe conflict would stay for a couple of days, and then I would return to the no kids thing. (maybe i would hit confusion while ovulating

) Then we said to ourselves that if either of us feel a lasting need, then we'll revisit the decision. Then when I hit 30 (this was 3 years after marriage), the clock was definitely ticking rather loudly. It was gonna be soon, or never. But nope, we still didn't want them, if anything we were clearer about this than we were earlier. So, to make peace with conflict, we came to the decision that if at any point we see why we should have kids, we'll simply adopt. If anything, India is choking with kids who arrive unwanted in this world, and are promptly abandoned. Why make new ones when there are kids already here, waiting for a home? There are adopted kids in my circle, I love them just fine.
That is where we are now. We don't want kids. If ever, by some unanticipated turn of events, we decide we want to raise kids, we'll adopt. But I don't see that happening either, to be honest.
My husband is relieved, if anything, that we waited, because he thinks we would have been miserable if we had succumbed to pressure and had kids, only for all this realization to dawn on us.
As for family, initially there was some shock, but both my family and his, though middle class and conservative, were able to see our point. We got them to pay attnetion to how hard it is for people to raise kids now (crowds, competition, security issues....). It has ben 5 years since we got married, and I think they have also reached a place where they see the pointlessness of it all. As they see other people pumping themselves full of hormones to beat infertility or stand in overnight queues for school admission, I think they realize that it is all pretty meaningless. Most importantly, when tehy see their brothers and sister, as grandparents, become free baby-sitters while their sons and daugthers (in law) go to work, my MIL and mom see they've got the best deal possible
So if you want to know how to handle your parents further, ask me, I'll give you the full package we used
Sorry if that was long winded guys, but as a cfbc woman, a married woman at that, I realize I'm a rare creature in our country, so I thought I'll share.
As a closing thought - I really think there are fewer kids, and more childfree by choice (or by infertility) people around in our generation... don't you think? I see fewer kids around me than my parents did.