I teach kindergarten and I love kids and adore working with them every single day, but I have no desire to have kids of my own. I love my life outside of work with lots of traveling and seeing things and doing and trying new things and the freedom of having a significant other, but not an entire family taking up my time.

I don't necessarily view family as a burden, but having kids definitely limits your time and money. I'm not knocking parenting, it's a great thing and perfect for a lot of people. My boyfriend of 6 years and I are both on the same page, we're really adventurous and have a huge list of things we want to see and do together. So far, we're not willing to give that up to raise a family.

I've always felt like I'm not cut out to be a mom and I'm okay with that. I'm very nurturing with my students and a lot of my job involves playing the 'mom' rule since my kiddies are adjusting to their first time in school and being away from their families/homes all day every day. I love my job with all my heart and couldn't imagine doing anything else.

As ironic as it is that I don't want kids of my own, it's just how it is. It's hard explaining that to people who refuse to understand why. Some call it selfish, but is it really that selfish to avoid something you don't want/feel you would not be good at? Would it really be better to have a child that you're not fully invested in/may possibly resent for preventing you from living your life the way you want? We've talked about possibly in the future adopting or fostering older children in the "less desirable" age brackets, but we're not at a point to take any action yet.

I don't know if this is necessarily an ENFP specific thing. The free-spirited, don't want to be tied down nature of it may be related, but also I feel it's a universal struggle for all women that don't have a strong want for children, regardless of personality type. The biggest struggle in my experience is people that try to make you feel guilty/inadequate for wanting a life that may be a little less conventional or different from what the norm may be. "oh you'll change your mind", "you're young and don't know what you want", "you don't know true love unless you have a child of your own", responses like these are common and even though they're not usually intended to be rude, it really can be offensive. Oh I'm sorry, why do you think you know me better than I know myself and what I want? Different strokes for different folks is basically the motto. Your life should look how you want it to, not how other people tell you it should look.