Like It Is

Alison Marshall likes spending time with their niece and nephew. She also likes giving them back at the end of the day and returning to the relative peace and quiet of her home. Alison and her husband are childfree. Like me, she likes children in small doses. I can certainly identify.

This article in the The Times Online, called Two’s Family, Three’s a Pain by Anabell Thorpe, makes an interesting read. Although much of it isn’t news to most childfree people (um, yes, we’ve been living quite happy fulfilled lives, thanks very much, despite the ridicule and hostility we face at almost every turn) it is at least good to see an article in the mainstream media that is fairly supportive of the childfree life. Or at the very least doesn’t condemn it. I also liked how they included input from Nicky DeFago, who is childfree – and whose book Childfree and Loving It I highly recommend.

A few points in the article I thought were worthy of mention - you’ll probably be familiar with these already:

• The childfree numbers are growing, says the Office of National Statistics (UK). One woman in five now remains childless, with nearly one degree-educated woman in three never becoming a mother. In the US, according to a census in 2003, 42 per cent of women don’t have children.
• Far from what the childed would like to believe we are not tragic figures
• We aren’t “child haters”
• Parenthood isn’t necessarily natural
• Many men married to childfree women, even though they would not ask their spouses not to have kids were relieved when they decided not to. The weight of responsibility lifted, along with the fear of restrictions children bring, they find their relationships stronger
• The differing treatment of mothers and childfree women is becoming more and more apparent
• Having kids does not necessarily make you happier
• It’s often women that exacerbate the divide between the childed and the childfree (If only they would stop trying to recruit us into their childed ranks!) Italics mine.

There continue to be many who can’t understand why a woman wouldn’t want children. The article says the obvious answer is selfishness, because children are 24/7. What I say is that it may appear to be the obvious answer to the childed, and those who believe that a woman’s life is purely to be in the service of others, and who look for an easy explanation, but it’s far too facile to be the answer.

As we know, there are a range of reasons why women choose not to become mothers, and men choose not to become fathers. And as I have said before, it seems to me to be far more selfish to have children with no thought other than the fact that you want them.

Last month, according to the article, the Pope said that Europe no longer seemed to want to have children and blamed “the wish to have one’s whole life to one’s self” for people choosing to be childless. A clear indication that as far as the Catholic Church is concerned a woman isn’t supposed to want to have her life to herself in any way shape or form. She’s supposed to give her life over to breeding children – a state fully supported by the Catholic Church’s stance on contraception.

Looks like more and more women are realizing that they do, in fact, have a choice – and that they want more from life than eternal breeding.

Original article: Times Online