A big part of the reason I don't want kids is simply that I don't think I would be a good parent. I'm short-tempered and can be vicious when I'm angry. I hate loud noises, repetitive noises, sticky sensations, and being touched when I'm not expecting it. I like getting drunk and high. I like doing things quickly and efficiently. I always have to be at least 15 minutes early to everything. I have horrible sleep as it is, and that's living alone and having a big comfy bed all to myself and never having to get up in the night unless I need to pee. I love being alone and doing things by myself.
Other people have always rushed to console me when I say this -- "you can learn to get good at it! I was the same way before I had kids!" But like. I don't want to change. I like my life and I like doing things the way I want to do them. In many ways I'm a lot like the woman who raised me, who I can best describe through the anecdote that she didn't let us have balloons on our birthdays because there was a chance they could pop and make a loud noise that would hurt her ears. I love her and I always will, but there was a lot of warmth and comfort I needed that she just wasn't able to give me and I know I would probably be the same way. It wasn't her choice to have to raise me. I get to make a choice that she didn't.
Women in particular are shamed for possessing the qualities I've listed above. It's seen as morally wrong for women to not be intrinsically nurturing, endlessly self-sacrificing, interminably patient. I get that we will be shamed a lot for admitting that we aren't. But I hope that those of us who lack those qualities can just accept that, because it's a terrible thing to bring an unwitting child into the world just to prove to the haters that you're not a cold mean b*tch.
