Dangerous Women Project: I’ll be lounging on a beach in Thailand, wrinkled and leathery, my sun-burnt skin flapping away in the wind

Tonie’s story appeared on the website, DangerousWomenProject.org.The Project asks: what does it mean to be a ‘dangerous woman’?

The Dangerous Women Project will curate 365 responses to those questions from all over the world between International Women’s Day 2016 and International Women’s Day 2017.

Bit of background on Jasmine Tonie. She is a ‘Britain’s Got Satire’ sketch show finalist Jasmine Tonie is a comedy writer/performer from the Midlands.  Tonie has just been accepted for the Edinburgh International Television Festival’s Talent Scheme ‘The Network’ at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe.

This mystical ’emotional need to create’ still supposedly exists in every woman; I’ve been told on countless occasions that I will ‘obviously change my mind’, that my life ‘would be empty without children’ and challenged with the seemingly horrifying concept of ‘who’s going to visit you when you’re old?’. Interestingly, and perhaps inevitably, more often than not it is men that offer these kind of responses, whereas women usually tend to be more sympathetic to if not entirely understand of my ‘radical’ views.

I can hear no loud, intimidating tick-tock of an internal body clock, only the ever-present tick tock of time clicking by and I intend to make the most of every second. If I’m lucky enough to reach old age, I’m fine that no children will come to visit me in my nursing home. I won’t be there anyway, I’ll be lounging on a beach in Thailand, wrinkled and leathery, my sun-burnt skin flapping away in the wind. Knackered, battered but crucially, fulfilled.

Tonie’s story is an insight into childlessness by choice – Tonie tells us about how she her experiences being exceptionally open about not wanting children and wanting something different from societal norms.

There’s something about Tonie’s directness and self awareness that is truly likeable. Forget likeable, for a moment, her direct and self assured words illuminate the often unconvincing, pushed to the corner idea of childlessness by choice.

Source: http://dangerouswomenproject.org/2016/07/23/childless-by-choice/