Quote Originally Posted by xeney View Post
But at some point I realized that I was lacking good role models for living a happy life without children. For various professional reasons, most of my female colleagues are older than I am, and about half of them don't have children. At some point I noticed that that was definitely the unhappy half. They weren't taking advantage of their freedoms to do anything but work a lot of unpaid overtime, they were just a pretty unhappy group. I don't know if the unhappiness is a cause or effect or totally unrelated to not having kids, but I have been looking for some happy role models for a while, pretty unsuccessfully.

That is one reason I started spending more time here at TE, honestly ... I noticed a lot woman about five to ten years older than I am, without kids, who seemed to be having pretty fulfilling lives. It breaks my heart to find out how many of you got to the point after going through fertility struggles, but it is good to know that there is an other side out there.
From what I have read so far in this thread, I think you may have come to the right place!

I am only a year older than you, but wanted to let you know that I am childless and have a VERY fulfilling and happy life! While I may work more than 40 hours a week (in high tech, who doesn't?), my focus and fulfillment come from outside of work - friends, family, biking (a HUGE part of my life), skiing, snowmobiling...

This has been my first year of competitive cycling - something that I don't think I could have done with children, given the training requirements and travel schedules on the weekends to attend races. I am having a blast racing and training. It is amazing to see just how far I have come over the past year. I have races scheduled until the middle of December, and then I will transition into ski/snowmobile season!

My point in sharing this with you is that there are PLENTY of childless women out there, either by choice or unfortunate circumstance, who lead happy, fulfilling lives that aren't necessarily just defined by a career. I love my job too, but it is not what defines me. I guess this is what you would call the "other" side .

SheFly