Letters to My Children

I don't have any children.

Nor do I want any children.

I haven't wanted a child since I was 10 years old and didn't know what having a child really meant. I'm sure my mother hasn't expected grandchildren from me. At least, not since I declared at 12 years old that, "I'll have one kid at 28 for the health benefits."

Even my little brother saw through that one.

Many of my friends are in the child-bearing, child-rearing years. More and more friends are announcing pregnancies, experiencing births and raising babies to toddlers, toddlers to kids.

I'm not. Nor will I.

I do not want children.

But that doesn't mean I don't have words I'd like to tell them. Words I wish I had heard when I was younger. Words I wish I had heard and listened to when I was growing up.

If I did have children, well then, this is what I would tell them.