Complete Without Kids by Ellen L. Walker

“The populations of different countries go through a specific curve. Mrinal Jha, 30, who works at AIIMS Rishikesh as a senior resident psychiatrist. The child-free trend is “natural, predictable, and in a way inevitable,” says Dr. Simply put, we do not have the desire to be parents. Just as there are couples who know they want to have kids, we are the ones that know we don’t.

In both our cases, there is no reason such as a career path, or travel. “Most of us conform to societal needs, and in this din of the noise, we forget to listen to our inner voice. The 2011 census recorded that as many as 22 per cent of urban households fell in the category of so called DINKs, or the Double Income No Kids group. This fact is borne out by the most recent census figures as well. It was a time when staying single, marrying someone of your liking and not having children were among the choices that families were increasingly more willing to accept. Of course, there will have been hundreds of couples in the past that may have also done the same, but the Keers are from a generation that came of age in the 1990s and 2000s, with unprecedented levels of freedom of choice and action. The Keers represent the first generation of Indians who consciously decided against having children. That’s probably the only decision we agreed to together,” says Keer, who works as a brand manager with a fashion company in Dubai. Somewhere during our courtship, my husband - now 50, and a professional photographer based out of Dubai - suggested the idea of going child-free. “Initially, we discussed adoption instead of having our own children. A courtship period, which lasted for 12 years, was followed by an exchange of vows in 1995.

A chance meeting with Ajay Keer whilst training - they were both track and field athletes - developed into romance when she was merely 13 and he, 15. An insight into “how women in desperate conditions left their newborns,” profoundly impacted her, something which lingered on, prompting her to embark on her special journey. For Christina Keer, 48, her visits to Mother Theresa’s Ashram during her formative years in Mumbai turned into a moment of reckoning. A teenage rendezvous can leave an indelible imprint in the mind.

Complete Without Kids by Ellen L. Walker