I negotiate the terms of my life every day and work hard to maintain an emotional status quo that I had to create from scratch.

As bothered as I am by having to defend my decision, I’m more incensed that people think they have the right to ask.

Every day, I try to be my own parent – the parent I never had.

As a woman who chooses to be childless, I generally have just one problem: other adults. Living in a culture where women are assumed to prioritize motherhood above all else and where a woman’s personal choices are often considered matters of public discussion means everyone things they have the right to discuss my body and my choices, so anyone curious about my lack of spawn feels the right to march right on over and ask me about it.

I decided to take the love that I’d have for a child and give it to myself instead.

Gender is a social construct, but everyone likes to cuddle.

Normally when I tell people I'm a gender studies major, they look at me like I'm studying Sanskrit or Latin. But now, NOW I had something to show my family, to possibly convince them that one day I would be employable. Look! People still like feminism! Or maybe they just really like Ryan Gosling's face. But they're getting that face with a dose of feminism! Like it or not.

Grandma had been encouraging me to castrate men since I was old enough to know what dicks even were.

As a woman who chooses to be childless, I generally have just one problem: other adults. Living in a culture where women are assumed to prioritize motherhood above all else and where a woman's personal choices are often considered matters of public discussion means everyone things they have the right to discuss my body and my choices, so anyone curious about my lack of spawn feels the right to march right on over and ask me about it.