No Kidding!

While it wasn't a requisite when I started dating my now husband, I realised that his support made it easier to go ahead with my decision to be child-free

- By Sukriti Shahi

While having dinner the day before we left Mumbai, my husband's grandmother expressed her keenness to visit us in Wellington, but she had a condition, "I'll come once you give me my great grandson," she said. I continued to eat because besides the food being tempting, after a few years, you grow thick skin. Then I heard my husband telling her not to come if that's her condition. Well, you could tell at that moment that I was so proud of my decision to marry him five years ago. Earlier this year, while we were in the middle of our move from Mumbai to Wellington, suddenly everyone around us could only think of us 'starting a family. My husband, an Army officer, and I got married in 2019 and since then, he never got a 'family posting' where I could accompany him. We were going to be staying together for the first time in five years and even I could only think about having a good time, so I don't blame them!

I have always found it triggering when someone tries to guide a couple on the timeline of 'planning' their family. For the record, I don't hate kids, and I am child-free by choice, but I have friends and cousins who have been trying to get pregnant but medical, financial, and other personal issues have been in their way. I have witnessed their faces getting pale as soon as someone brings up that topic.

However, in an Indian society, family, elders, and relatives decide the graph of your life while enjoying chaat at your wedding when all you can think of are constructive ways to spend the money you got as blessings at the wedding functions.