Childfree? You Obviously Chose A Career Instead of Children (Part 1)
27 08 2006Maybe. Maybe not. But even if I did, so what? Is it not my choice?
The career minded working woman who happens to be childfree is likely to face this accusation from a raft of people, but particularly women who have chosen to stay at home and raise children or, as they are called, stay at home mums. With a certain amount of smugness, they will accuse you of choosing money and God forbid – a career – rather than the lofty and saintly work of having and rearing children. The same accusation is almost never directed at men (with or without children), who are expected to have a career. Women are expected to make a career of their children.
To make matters worse, in most cases working women who have children are unlikely to be particularly sympathetic to the childfree either, after all they are having to slug it out at work, trying to keep up the balancing act of juggling work and career. And interestingly also putting up with the critical chorus of SAHMs who seem to also have an issue with women with children choosing to continue to work instead of staying home to raise children. As far as SAHMs are concerned, these women are Bad Mothers. Childfree women are even worse. We are Selfish Career Women with all the negative connotations solely reserved for women.
For most women, having children will impact their careers. Many have to give them up, with the hope of returning to the workplace once the children have grown up. At which time they may find it too late, the workplace has moved on. One has to wonder – do they then swell the ranks of the SAHMs, who feel that other working women should do the same, regardless of whether or not it is right for them? Alternatively, many women play the work-children juggling game, with work often losing out to children. They feel guilty being at work and away from their children, and guilty not being out in the workplace using their talents. Constantly torn in two from the responsibilities of both. What amazes me is that so many women seem unprepared for the impact that having children would have on their careers. So while I understand how hard it is, I find it rather hard to sympathise.
I believe that’s because many simply do not give the issue enough consideration. Or they fail to talk to the people who can tell them how it is. Or maybe they are listening to people telling them that it’s O.K, that having children is the be-all and end all for women anyway, far more important than any career. Or those who are telling them that giving up their hard earned career is “worth it”, a worthy sacrifice, after all are they not producing and raising the next generation? Who by the way are going to be supporting all those self-centred career women who turned their backs on motherhood. Or maybe it’s simply a matter of the biological clock drowning out any other consideration.
Of course there are also women who make a career out of having children. Having found their niche, they are only to happy to denigrate women who have decided that’s not for them.
But most childfree women and their partners do assess the impact of children on their career or ability to work. And it’s a part of the why we decide that having kids might not be such a good idea. We see our female working parent counterparts struggle, the guilt and exhaustion (the Second Shift is real) and think – no way is that for me. We enjoy our careers, have invested in them and want to devote time to building them up (The Mommy Track is also real). We also enjoy having economic clout.(a fact that SAHMs either ignore or conveniently gloss over). You are unlikely to be able to do any of the above if you’re a woman bringing up children. At least not without a lot of extra help. Regardless of what anyone says, it’s a myth that woman can have it all.
To be continued.
These are interesting posts, and I will continue to read. Now married and child-free in our 30s, we’re starting to get “the pressure” more often, though I’m sure it is worse on my wife than me, as women receive the brunt of it. It’s funny how people feel free to dig for details about this very personal decision, and then often discount it, assuring us that we’ll “change our minds” as if we are imbeciles who don’t know enough to make our own decisions.
I personally think many people with kids attack the child-free because they’re a little jealous. It’s sad because I already see a gulf developing between us and our friends who have had children, even though nobody means for it to happen.
Frankly, modern life is stressful enough as it is. Even most average jobs today demand long hours and overtime, whether you like it or not, and by the time the weekend comes we’re exhausted. It takes two full-time incomes now to maintain the same standard of living as one income could in the 1960s, and we live a modest life: contrary to popular belief our lack of children does not make us rich. I wish!
If we had children the exhaustion would be much worse, and I fear we wouldn’t be able to be good parents. With the way the world is going — climate change, environmental destruction, wars, terrorism, religious zealotry from all sides — I’m not sure why so many people still feel a need to add to the population. I don’t think the children of today will enjoy the same safe, secure world that we knew until recently.
Sorry for such a long comment. Hang in there, and please keep sharing your insights!
There is an intensity, an intimacy a best friendness and soul mate sealing that happens between those who have chosen to remain child free and devoted to one another. There is a pulling together, an ability to focus when either partner strikes off in a new direction because you have the security of knowing that your biggest fan is silently cheering you onward without distraction. There are no feelings of “guilt” that stem from dumping the parenting responsibility on your partner. There is no need to balance the ledger later.
Donning the parental hat inevitably leads to a series of small scenarios of coming together and breaking asunder. Competiveness develops between parents and bewteen children seeking the favour of parents. Family factions form and dissolve. The emotions, devotions, expectations, and negotiations sap an individual’s energy reserve as characters are built, wounded and healed, or not.
Our “free” time is in short supply as Gary has so eloquently said. And that short time frame is rarely adequate to retrain for a new career or to pursue a hobby or passion with abandon. Following a workday or work week our energy levels are far below what it takes to deliver quality parenting, quality partnering and quality participation in sports, theatre, music, dance and other hobby pursuits. Moreover, in a relationship with children there exists a pressure to spend most “free” time together as a family and to give the children the best part of you.
This means that many couples become trapped in jobs we may want to leave with no way out. It means they can become frustrated because the creative, passionate, athletic, etc. aspect of their inner “self” does not get the opportunity to develop or flower. And it means they can become shadow people, who look in the mirror and wonder what happened to the vital person bursting with potential that they once were.
I have been married for 30 years to a person who has grown with me, beside me, rather than way from me. I have been married to a person who encouraged me to fly on my own two wings free from the obligation of taking him on my flights, confident in the knowlwdge that he would always be there when I returned to the hangar eager to share my report of the experience. Only two other couples we have known throughout those three decades can make the same boast of intimacy and independence and one of those couples is likewise childfree.
During this 30 years I became a libarary technician, a paralegal, a model, an equestrian, an actress, a dancer, a singer, an artist, an areobics and yoga officianado, and a writer and much much more. I gave my time an energy to many charities and clubs including children’s groups like 4H. When I took stock on my 50th birthday I celebrated my life recognizing that I became a “realized” fulfilled and happy person who is still transforming and growing. In a childfree relationship we are need not become obliged to play the role of being joined at the hip in all we do. Interestingly, enough my partner charted his own course a has a string as long as my own to report but only one of those “horsemanship” in common.
@ Gary - thank you for the encouragement and for your very insightful comment. I’ll certainly keep sharing!
And I hear you. Given the stressfulness of a working couple’s life without children, not to mention many of the other environmental and social issues you mention, it never ceases to amaze me that people do their utmost to encourage more people to re-produce.
I call it the conspiracy of silence, but it’s more than that. It’s as if,on discovering how tough it will be raising children in today’s reality they set about trying to make everyone live their reality.
As you say, I have long been convinced there is more than a little envy when the childed attack and criticise the childfree. Except for a few very honest parents, who, if you find them are like gold dust, because they will tell you the truth and they will respect your decision.
Once the child is there, there is no going back, this is their life for the next 20+ years - or the rest of their life. Perhaps they see what could have been and resent those that really looked, saw a glimpse of what it would be like. And were able to say “no thanks”.
@TT - I appreciate your sharing this, thank you… so much for those who would say a childfree person’s life is lonely, empty or unfulfilled.