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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Lifestyle
Eleanor Gordon-Smith

I don’t want children. Is it hypocritical to not be forthright about this soon after meeting someone?

Young lovers sit at a garden table
‘More people than ever are deciding they don’t want kids,’ Eleanor Gordon-Smith writes. ‘The fact that you’re one of them is not shocking.’ Painting: In the Garden by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1895). Photograph: Prisma Archivo/Alamy

I know that I don’t want to have any children, and that to not offer this up early in any relationship would make me a hypocrite. But I have become convinced that the reason I never meet anyone is because I am forthright about my opinion about children. How can I meet someone without having to be a liar or a hypocrite?

Eleanor says: If it’s your job to figure out when to share this, it’s also a partner’s job to figure out when to ask. Wanting kids isn’t like monogamy or working for a living, where until instructed otherwise people can basically assume that’s your plan. More people than ever are deciding they don’t want kids. The fact that you’re one of them is not shocking, confronting or even especially unusual. If that’s a dealbreaker for a partner, they need to share their preference as much as you need to share yours.

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