Growing up Sarah Bailey never played the mum in playground games - she was always the aunt.
It’s the earliest memory she has of knowing she didn’t want children.
“I didn’t like playing with babies and dolls, my mum never gave me any of those toys anyways,” the 26-year-old says.
“Maybe she knew.”
Knowing she never wanted children led Sarah, who identifies as queer, to the decision to have a tubal ligation, also known as getting her tubes tied, at the age of 24.
She’d had issues with a range of different birth controls and knew if she was to get sign off from a doctor for the operation, she’d have to prove she’d tried them all. So she did.
But she still received push back from doctors.
She says she was refused twice before finally finding a doctor that agreed.
“So I went to another doctor who was like ‘yeah, why not’ and I appreciate her so much for doing that and going with it.”
However it still took another 6 to 12 months to get it signed off and get the operation.
Beth Messenger, medical director of Sexual Wellbeing Aotearoa, said it’s rare she would decline a request to refer someone for the operation but she does set expectations.
She says at the moment the health system does not have the capacity for a lot of optional requests like this.
The minimum age someone would tend to get accepted for a tubal ligation would be roughly 30, Beth says, however she has referred successfully for younger than that.
“Actually a lot of women are delaying having children so that number should realistically be 40.”
Beth says getting permanent contraception like this is a lot easier for men who have the ability to go private for a vasectomy at the cost of around $500 and won’t get asked the hard questions.
However for women, Beth says there is definitely a perception they will change their minds later.
“Even if women go private they will still experience push back and questioning.
“When we do get a referral accepted it’s still a long time until the surgery happens so a contraception plan in the meantime is still needed.”
When Sarah shared her decision not to have kids with others, she was often met with ‘oh you just don’t like children’ or ‘you’re just scared of childbirth’.
Which Sarah says is absolutely not the case.
“I think childbirth is really cool and fucking magical but I know for a fact I’m not going to regret [not having kids].
“I would date or marry someone with kids, it’s about me, I don’t want biological kids.”
However Sarah says she has found the childfree community quite isolating at times with the conversation being judgemental towards people with kids.
“The whole argument though is very much damned if you do, damned if you don’t. If you’re a mother you’re going to get judged, if you’re not, you get judged.
“It’s very gendered.”
Stacey Adams and her husband Matt know they don't want children and have done for a while.
Mind could change - but not looking likely
While Sarah has known she didn’t want kids since she was a child herself, 32-year-old Stacey Adams says she only made the decision in the last four years.
She always says her mind could change, but it’s not looking likely.
“My now-husband Matt and I were driving to Hanmer and I said ‘I don’t think I want kids’ and he said ‘me either’.
“Nothing in particular led to the decision; it was more of a knowing. I like to do things when I want to do them, I want to travel and kids are constant, they need so much entertainment and you can’t just give them back.”
She and her husband check in with each other all the time on the issue, which Stacey says is important.
Recently they became an aunty and uncle and thought that might change their mind, but if anything she says it solidified their decision.
“We love our time with the kids but we love giving them back.”
‘It’s a bit selfish’
Stacey estimates she gets asked about having kids once every two weeks.
Most comments are well intentioned such as “you would make good parents” but others range from “don’t worry, you will change your mind” to “who is going to look after you when you’re old” and even “it’s a bit selfish”.
“People put their own values onto us and think they know better for us,” she says.
“Once we were married it was the next question people asked.”
When Stacey and her husband tell people they don’t want kids, they find it can get awkward.
And if they were to suggest a kid-free brunch, it never goes down well, she says.
“It is changing though and I have a few friends who have made the same decision.
“I don’t like it when people think I have it easier because I don’t have kids, I remind them that it is all a choice, just like they had a choice to have kids.”
How common is it to not want kids?
Research around the childfree community in New Zealand is limited.
But a study by Pew Research Centre in the United States from July showed 57% of adults under 50 and 31% of adults over 50 who say they’re unlikely to ever have kids say a major reason is they just don’t want to.
We do know however in New Zealand that the birth rate is declining.
In February Stats NZ figures showed the country’s birth rate was the lowest it had been since World War II.
Associate professor at University of Waikato Sonja Ellis says there are a large variety of reasons people choose not to have children such as not wanting to place more burden on the world in a climate crisis, wanting to focus on career development, having no personal motivation to parent, and financial pressure.
But the major thing to focus on is we have a choice, she says.
“When I think of my mum’s generation having kids was not a choice, if you were married, you would have kids.
“You couldn’t just say ‘actually no I don’t want kids’.”
Kids and LGBTQIA+
Ellis has done research on those that are voluntarily childfree especially in the LQBTQIA+ space.
She says there used to be the assumption if you were lesbian or queer, you didn’t want children.
“But actually there are a lot of lesbian women that do want children.”
Alternatively, she says, there are a lot who don’t but it’s because they choose to, not because they can’t.
“It’s a very heteronormative discussion and the assumption you can only have kids if you’re having hetero sex.”
Having kids is ‘embedded in our society’
Ellis mentions “pronatalism” which refers to the policy or practice of encouraging people to have children.
It’s something embedded in our society, she says.
“People’s reasons for not having children are so diverse and often it’s framed as being a choice or not a choice, black or white, but it’s not that simple.
“The number of people who didn’t really make a choice not to have children, but ended up like that and it wasn’t a big deal to them - like if it happens, it happens. That kind of ambivalence is quite interesting.”
Tracy Morison, associate professor at Massey University and coordinator of the health psychology programme has been studying sexual and reproductive health and how people make choices in those areas since 2012.
She says the childfree community is certainly gaining more visibility.
“There’s always been people who haven’t had children in society but they’ve hidden away.
“Now it’s become an option, but maybe a difficult one to exercise, and a stigmatised one.”
She hopes society is becoming more sensitive to the invasiveness of asking people about their choices.
Morison, who has predominantly researched older women, and queer and gender diverse people, says society frames the choice not to have children as being a selfish one, however often it’s actually very considered.
People think about what kind of life they can provide for the child, if they are going to have the time and energy a child needs, and what impact it will have on the planet, she says.
“Ultimately any decision is selfish, we make decisions in our own best interest and so any decision is selfish so I don’t think it’s a helpful argument.
“It should be something we should reflect on more and not something we just do because society expects it of us.”