Hi, I'm Courtney and I live a child-free lifestyle. People react to me being child-free in a lot of different ways. A lot of the time they don't know what to say or they think that it's a fad or a moment or something that's not going to last a lifetime. They believe that I'll change my mind one day and quite simply I won't. I'm very happy living child-free with my husband. I get a lot of negative feedback and a lot of doubt. What if you get divorced? What are you going to do when you're older? Who's going to take care of you? How are you going to find fulfillment in life? You won't know what real love is until you love a child. And those things just simply aren't true. You can live a fulfilling child-free lifestyle and not be scared of it and not be scared of what's going to happen when you're older. Or if your marriage breaks down or if life changes because life isn't about living or what's going to happen in 30 years, it's about for living right now with what makes you happy and what makes you fulfilled in this moment. I always knew that I didn't want to have children ever since I was a teenager and I was lucky enough to meet my life partner who felt the same way. It's not that I don't have maternal instincts. I love to take care of my friends and my family and my pets. And I have a really big heart and I'm very an empathetic person. But just having children was never something that I wanted to do. It was never something in my soul that felt right. I felt that I needed to do other things with my life and with my partner. I feel my lifestyle with so many great things. I travel, we go on trips several times a year before COVID was a thing but we're still planning for some amazing trips in the coming years. I spend time really getting to know myself. What makes me happy? What do I enjoy doing? Meditating, doing yoga and really just getting in touch with my soul and my purpose for being here? I feel my life getting to know my husband and my partner. What makes him tick and what makes him happy and how to communicate better and be a good partner to him so we can enjoy our life together. I spend time in nature going hiking and just being outside and soaking that in and all the wonders that come with it. And mostly spending a lot of time with my friends and with my family and just enjoying their company and being with them. To define yourself without children is not something that women are taught. It's not something that you see in society. It's not something that you see on TV or even really read about in books. Being child-free and knowing who you are as a woman is not something that you're taught. And I find that I identify with who I am based on my values and based on what I do and how I conduct myself on a daily basis rather than having a child. If I can live my life in line with my values, which is being loyal and being trustworthy and being open and being excited about life, then if I can live those values and at the end of the day, I feel that I can identify with those things over being a mother, which is just as special and just as important. I write Dink Life Blog, which really came from my love of my child-free lifestyle and wanting to share with other people who live that same lifestyle. So you can follow me on Instagram or come check out the blog at dinklifeblog.com to learn more about being child-free and to share your thoughts and comments on different topics about being child-free or being in a dink.