Dear Carolyn: I’m pretty sure my mom would have chosen to be child-free, if that concept existed in the 1970s when she had me. Instead, as a schoolteacher, she faced a lot of social and professional pressure to be a mom herself. Now that I’ve been the ages she was when she raised me, I understand my childhood a lot better. She hated every part of raising me. She gave up a lot of personal freedom, financial security and much-needed introvert time (another concept that didn’t exist back then). As someone who became child-free myself (no surprise why), I feel a lot of sympathy for her.
