DINK...Y?

Aside from a few hormonal blips, I've never really wanted children. My friends and family tell me I'd be a great mum, but I've never really seen it myself.

There are probably 2 really big reasons for this:

• There is so much left that I want to do with my life, whether it's long holidays abroad and seeing different parts of the world on holidays that don't have to revolve around finding kids' clubs and creches.
  
  I want to set up my own business.
  
  I like the standard of living that we currently enjoy and I'm not sure I want to give that up. Having a child requires 24 hour thought about someone else and their wellbeing and I'm not convinced I want that responsibility.
  
  Plus there's the fact that most of the people we know who have had kids have, as a result, had major fallings out - having kids puts so much pressure on your relationship with your husband/partner/ boyfriend that cracks appear where there were none before, and cracks that were there widen in to chasms.
  
  I do like kids, and their company, but I also like the fact that I can leave them behind when I go to visit with friends and siblings. Or I can give them back if they're staying with me.
  
  We babysat for my niece and nephew a while back. Now, my sister pretty much brings up her kids the way I would (or would hope I could!), and they are lovely. They go to bed at a decent hour, leaving time for Hubby and I to spend together. However, for the entire time that they were awake I barely saw him!
  
  And I think that's the crux of it - I actually like spending all of my time with my husband - holidays with 24 hours of togetherness are bliss. Work gets in the way of that already - kids would make it 10 times harder to bear and I'm not sure I'm prepared to let kids take over my life and for my life to revolve around kids and not just me and Hubby.
  
• High expectations. Both Hubby and I have a clear idea of how we would raise kids - the family traditions that we would want to create, and the way that we would expect the kids to behave and grow up.
  
  I can't be 100% sure that if my image of us with kids would match up with the reality, and therefore I can't be sure that I would love my kids unconditionally if they didn't match up to my expectations. What if they didn't want to do the things that we wanted them to?

My mother says that I am selfish for the above reasons, and maybe I am, but I am happy. I've never been the person who says "I can't wait to be a mum" and I don't think I ever will be.

I entertain the notion every now and then, but I just can't picture it except in a Christmas-matching-jumper kind of way.

I know there's things that I am missing out on, but it just means that Hubby and I have different experiences. They're not any better, or worse, than those experiences our friends with kids have, they're just different.

But I truly believe that our quality of life (by our reckoning) is better for not having them (and I mean better vs. our life with them, not anyone else's!).

I have no doubt that if we had an accidentally pregnancy, the hormones would kick in, and that we'd probably be okay parents, but I don't think we'd ever have a child through choice.

I hope I haven't offended any parents out there - there seems to be a misconception amongst my friends and colleagues that because I don't want kids, I therefore don't like them. This isn't true - I love all my nieces and nephews and spending time with friends' kids - it's just not a life I want.