Not wanting kids isn’t especially unusual, advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith writes. It might help to frame the conversation as what you’re saying yes to rather than what you’re refusing
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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.
So yes, there’s a reason to share this but it’s not because you’d be a liar or a hypocrite if you didn’t. It doesn’t need to be as hair-shirted as all that. After all, do people who want children start all their relationships by announcing “I know I want children”? If they don’t, do you immediately think, “liar”? A hypocrite is two-faced, preaches one thing and does another. Unless you’re banging on pots and pans saying “everyone should be totally forthcoming” while keeping this to yourself, I struggle to see why disclosing in your own time would make you a hypocrite.
