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45yr old woman here, I have never wanted kids. When I was a kid myself and all the other little girls were playing with Barbies and baby dolls, I was playing with Transformers and building forts with the boys outside. When the little girls wanted to play "house", I was always the pet. Babies and little kids have always had this weird, foreign feeling to me and were something I never wanted to be a part of.
My dad left my mom when I was 8 and my brother was 3. Guess who raised her brother from there on out because mom was working? Add to this that we were poor, it was the 80's so we were latchkey kids and alone a LOT, and now look at how shitty the world has steadily become since then, and there is no fucking way I was gonna bring a child into it and do that crap all over again, but this time from the very beginning of their lives. Now my aging mother bemoans the fact that she's the only one left in our extended family that isn't a grandma (because SURPRISE! My brother is childfree too! Can't imagine why!), and I have to threaten to stop speaking to her for the hundredth time because I've told her I will NEVER have children, do not ask me again.
As I've grown into adulthood, there have been so so so many instances where life has gone bad for me, and the FIRST thing I always say to myself is "Thank GOD I don't have kids!" Every one of those moments would have been exponentially harder if I'd had kids during that time.
Then I look at people I know/have known growing up who have kids, and the ones who have kids with Autism, behavioral issues, major learning disabilities, the parents who know they're stuck for life with some of these kids, and I thank God again that that is not me, because I dunno how they do it.
Call me selfish, tell me I don't know what "real love" is, tell me I'm not a "real" woman because I don't have kids, I don't give a shit. This is my life, not yours, and I chose not to have kids. "But what if you meet someone you like who has kids!?" I very deliberately only date childfree people, it said as much on all my dating profiles, kids are a deal-breaker. Lo and behold, I've been with a childfree partner I found for 5 years. They do exist!