I’m queer and don’t want kids. It’s been hard for my big, religious family to accept, but I know it’s the right decision for me.

L Brinks. Credit: Violet Cristina Photography I’ve known since I was about 12 years old that I don’t want to have kids of my own. I come from a big family, and it’s been hard for them to accept, but I know it’s right for me.

As a queer person, I have a lot of support in this choice, and some of my family has come around. My mother always knew she wanted to have a big family. She often told my three younger sisters and me how she had dreamed of having six children, a bustling home filled with love.

I could see in her eyes the future she was dreaming of with grandbabies and great-grandbabies, and I subconsciously felt the pressure of beginning this new generation as the oldest child in our home.  I watched my mom’s eyes well up with happiness as her grandma met my youngest siblings — her great-grandchildren. Her love of seeing us all together often resulted in my being pulled into photographs with multiple generations of my family so that we could preserve our time together in a snapshot.

Our house was filled with propaganda for large families, and the blessings of having children were imparted on my sisters and me through church sermons, internet media, and TV shows like “19 Kids and Counting” and “VeggieTales. “Sharing my truth seemed to hurt my familyIt is not difficult to imagine my mother’s horror, then, when at the tender age of 12, I declared I was never going to have children. I remember standing together in the kitchen, the best place to catch time with her while she cleaned or made dinner.

Brinks in 2012. Courtesy L BrinksAs I leaned up against the countertop, my grandma was seated at the kitchen table, visiting for one of our pizza Thursdays. She’d made an offhand remark in my direction about having babies of my own, and my eyes darted to catch my mother’s gaze.

 “But I don’t want to have kids,” I said before frowning back toward my grandma, whose eyes widened with shock. My mother said my full name, a warning evident in her voice. I remember her body language toward me turning stiff as my grandmother rebuked my statement.

“Oh, you don’t mean that,” she said, and the subject was immediately dropped. People didn’t believe me, and I felt alone as a queer childThis announcement seemed not only to disturb the adults in the room on a general level, due to societal expectations placed upon me at the time, but also shocked them based on what they knew about me. I was a neighborhood babysitter and dreamed of a future in education.

Despite these things and the love I had for kids, I also knew innately and early on that my concept of a family would likely be very different from what I had been exposed to growing up. I didn’t dream of getting married and being pregnant with babies of my own. I was scolded for sharing this, as though I was trying on purpose to hurt my parents’ feelings — as though I was saying something cruel, something inappropriate.

It was somehow taboo to share at my young age that I did not plan to have children, a conversation most adults around me might hesitate to broach, while my siblings often mimed dramatically giving birth and breastfeeding around our house, without anyone taking issue. I started going to therapy when I was a junior in high school, and in one of my first sessions, my therapist encouraged me not to speak in absolutes. It was an attempt to end my obsession with certainty, to leave a window open in case I felt a door had closed.

Brinks in 2015. Courtesy L BrinksWhile we were discussing the issue of having a family, my therapist asked me to amend my concrete statement about having children. She told me to speak of my decision in the present, rather than speak for myself in the future.

“Right now, I don’t want to have children,” I said, instead of assuming I would always feel the same.  She was also the first person to whom I had come out as bisexual. I was a nervous wreck in her office and could feel the tides of trust turning when she assured me I might not always feel bisexual.

I realized then her platitudes about being childless by choice had been a ruse; she didn’t fully believe what I was sharing about myself with her, and her empty words rattled around in my head for years to come.  I was afraid to trust my own feelingsMy parents pinned my queerness on falling in with “the wrong crowd” when I came out to them a few months later, a reaction that made me doubt my own identity. They often implied my decision to be childless was a reflection of the people I surrounded myself with, who often challenged heteronormative nuclear-family ideas.

I let their opinions sink in and allowed myself, too, to worry that perhaps my friends had influenced my decision. But my parents’ reactions were fear-based, and because I have transgender and nonbinary friends who do want to be parents, I know my feelings toward having children are real and valid. I have, and will always, offer my support and in-depth knowledge of babies and child-rearing to the people I love.

I would be pleased to help provide relief, give rides to soccer, and take care of late-night diaper changes. While I don’t want to have my own children, I still have immense respect and love for those around me who have chosen to have kids. I’ve gotten clarity over my feelings and know what I want for myself I maintain that two truths are not mutually exclusive: Children are wonderful and important, and I do not want to have them.

The fact that I wholeheartedly believe both often causes great discomfort to people who think differently. It’s impressive, really, how invested some parents are in trying to win me over to their side. Time and again, seasoned parents will tell me about the struggles they have with their children and try to sway me with “the miracle of life” as a firm cornerstone in their argument.

Because of these experiences, when I am able to share without backlash that I do not plan to have children, it comes as a pleasant surprise. The moment that brought me the greatest clarity in the matter was a recent conversation with my aunt. We were talking about relationships, one of our favorite topics to catch up on when we have a moment, and how the anticipation for some of my cousins to have families was building.

She surprised me when she told me, “You know, you’ve always been so sure you won’t have children. ” I asked her for clarification; I wanted to be sure I’d heard correctly. “Well, I always knew I wanted to be a mom, even as a kid.

I never knew what it was like to not want to be a parent until I met you,” she said. In that moment, a light bulb came on. Some people simply don’t experience the desire to parent, and there’s nothing abnormal about that.

As a young adult with friends who are beginning their families, I am comforted by the fact that this path is not for me and that’s OK. I have the support of my chosen family while remaining childless by choice. Read the original article on Insider.