No Kidding..."How Can You Not Want Kids?"

by Tired
(New York)

My husband and I are childless by choice, and I'm curious as to how Miss Manners thinks we should respond to queries (often very long-winded, obnoxious queries--"But why? Who will take care of you when you're old? How can you not want kids--they're so cute?--It's so rewarding, you're missing out?--and so on.) We have tried many different tactics, and nothing seems to convince our friends and family that we seriously just don't want 'em. We aren't sure why people find it so strange that two people who don't want kids wouldn't have them--we think it'd be far worse to have kids we don't want....

In any event, I'd like your opinion. I don't want to offend these people by explaining to them that an important choice they've made in their life is so very unappealing to us, though the opposite seems to occur without hesitation. I'm tired of coming up with apologetic explanations, when I've nothing to apologize for.