Christmas and the Holidays are here and a brand new year is just a couple of weeks away. Even with all the economic upheaval a New Year brings new hope. It’s been a very busy year for me… and on Like It is – which seems to be growing in leaps and bounds, thanks to the thought-provoking comments and conversation we have here. I always learn something.
Childfree Articles Worth Mentioning
So, what, if anything has changed for childfree people? Maybe it’s my imagination, but I feel I am seeing more and more people speak out about being childfree, in the sense that they decided not to have them, and, far from being unhappy are very happy, thank you. The post Married, Successful and Happy to be Childfree (link sent by a Like It Is reader and commentator) so impressed me that I’ve wanted to repost it for a while. 518 comments (mostly from childfree people) on an ABC site is not small potatoes. I tried leaving my own comment on the site, but there was such a cumbersome registration process I gave up.
See the link here:
Married, Successful and Happy To Be Childfree
The other great post which I thought worth a mention was this one:
The sheer number of childfree women who gave such frank, insightful and in-depth interviews has done every childfree person a great service. I wished the post could got more comments, but just the fact that the post is there means I can highlight it here. And I hope to be able to take the time to read through those interviews at some point. It’s always great to know that there are so many happily childfree people out there – if you feel you’re alone in being childfree, or not wanting kids – you most certainly are not alone.
A Long Way To Go
Having said that, when I was thinking about this post and where we are as childfree men and women, I still think that we’re still seen as “lesser” because we’ve decided not to have kids.
Here are some rather sad facts
- We still pay more tax than our childed counterparts, get few, if any benefits – and are actually financing those who do have children.
- Despite this we’re still lectured as to our “lack of contribution to society” which is really old
- We’re still expected to pick up the slack in the office since we’re seen to “not have a family after all”
- We still have little or no representation… in popular media, unless it’s stereotypical – and invariably negative
- We’re still judged based on whether we’ve reproduced or not… though what that has to do with doing a job well is beyond me.
- As women we are still assumed to be “missing something” . This missing something (giving birth or at least being desperate to give birth) apparently qualifies us for womanhood.
- It’s still assumed that anyone who doesn’t have or want kids is somehow living the life of Riley, is feckless and irresponsible
- If you’re a man, you’ve not grown up until you’ve fathered a child…you’re also feckless and irresponsible and presumably the act of reproducing you will get you kicking and, if necessary screaming into the “real world”
- When we say we don’t have kids we are still interrogated as to “why not?”
- We’re expected to justify our choice not to reproduce
- We still have to fight to get a tubal ligation to prevent pregnancy and told to go off and have a few kids before some doctor will be able to put aside their personal views to give what’s our right to have.
Oh, and only the childfree are reminded regularly that we’ll change our minds… for any number of reasons from wanting to prove our love for our spouses to wanting something to cuddle.
I’m sure you can add more, however I’ll stop there.
I’m very happy and contented being childfree because it’s right for me, and only me knows what’s right for me. All the childfree people I’ve met (a few offline and many more online) are very happy being childfree and we’d just love those pressing them to change their minds to just lay off.
Perhaps in the not to distant future our voices will count for something. There’s more to life than having kids.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Season’s Greetings – and Best Wishes for a safe and peaceful New Year to you and yours. See you in 2009! 
Feel free to leave comments as usual – I will be reading them. I’ll be back posting in the New Year.
Cheers,
BG.
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
That is indeed a sad list of sad facts. And there are so many counter arguments which justify being childfree. (you have created a whole blog on the topic and did not run out of arguments yet)
Many of my friends around are happily childfree and I can see the advantages of that too of course. I also experience that I have to depend my childed state of being to them very often.
Everybody has their own life to decide about. And I feel that people should criticize less and support more.
I intend to read some of the Chilfree Interviews while on holiday, hope I will actually find the time to do it, they are inspiring!
Thank you so much again britgirl for this blog, it really is a breath of fresh air.
I wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy and blessed 2009. And to everyone reading this too! Cheers!
The interviews look good. Xmas reading for me too.
I hadn’t read the article before, and I’m always amused how – when the last sentence invites CHILDFREES to comment, the inevitable parents get in there, start telling us how it’s all worth it, and then when we politely disagree – wheel out the venom. Some things never change, dum dee dum.
To all the wonderful CF people who visit this board – have a great Xmas, enjoy and spoil your nieces and nephews, and then enjoy the quiet happiness of your family home. Salut!
Thank you and Merry Christmas to you, Britgirl, as well as everyone else who reads this blog!
I seem to have found THE answer that has managed to shut everyone up when they start on the “having kids” topic – “Don’t you think kids deserve, at the VERY least, parents who actually want them?”
Here’s to more acceptance and tolerance for people’s choices!
Britgirl, I want to offer you a special holiday “thank you” for creating this blog and offering so many thought provoking articles that have helped me through those darker moments when faced with yet another smug comment from the childed.
I thought I would share another slice of life anecdote which illustrates how all is not what is seems of the surface of those with children or soon to have them.
Just two nights ago my husband and I were out with another couple who announced that they were three months pregnant. The husband sat across from us with his arms folded across his chest and this look on his face that can only be described as a cat having eaten half a dozen canaries. He didn’t say anything but the look said, “See what we have that you don’t have”. He of course assumed that we want children because how can you live a real life without them.
But then it became quite clear what was going on there when he proceeded to get into an argument with his wife, who does not want to quit her job. He said “What are you going to do, put it in day care and then have them call you on the cell phone when it starts crying?” I had a few “hmmm” thoughts. First–did you two even talk about how this pregnancy would affect your professional lives?, second–why is the onus on the mother to run from her job to day care as if the child is her primary responsibility and only a side hobby for the husband? and third– what kind of cave man did my friend marry? She has a Ph.D and he assumes that she’ll put seven years of school behind her to take care of his child. She is about 12 years younger than him and he lived the grand bachelor life until his mid 40′s when he felt the panic and decided he needed to play catch up and get all the standard issue life accoutrements. I wanted to thump him on the head with the French baguette. UGH! So unoriginal and so very America circa 1950′s, which is surprising given that he is German and didn’t move to the U.S. until he was in graduate school. Whatever happened to feminism? Oh, yes, I know what happened, the republican right wing in america started a media attack against women in the 1980′s scaring them into thinking that if they go down the career path they’ll have a greater chance of being killed by a terrorist than getting married. The moral of that story was to look for the agenda behind the directive.
Sorry for the side track.
I want to add that this blog has provded me with a psychological haven which has made a great difference in my brain space around being child free. If britgirl hasn’t posted a new article and I’m having a bad stroller war day, I go back through the archives and can always find something that makes me feel a little less alone. When I read the blog articles and the insightful, often humorous posts by your visitors, I know that I am in good company and I salute all of your readers who have the strength of character to make thoughtful life choices that work for them. We only get one go around here on the planet and we all deserve to live in a way that fulfulls our own particular destiny.
I wish you and all your readers a wonderful holiday season and all the best for a grand 2009 with lots of childfree time for adventure seeking!
P.S. for britgirl, my mother was also a nurse who worked the night shift while raising the me and my five siblings. Dad worked days and mom did nights so there was always someone there for us. Puts the daycare/nanny whining into perspective.
The comments of the childed on the ABC article were so incredibly cliché. Yawn. They really do need to start coming up with some new insults.
Holiday greetings to everyone who hangs out here and best wishes for a happy and healthy new year!
Thanks for your latest blog entry, as well as the whole blog. I found this about a year ago and have been reading it since. I haven’t commented much, but I read every entry and thoroughly appreciate the thought-provoking reading!
I really enjoyed going through the interviews. Thanks for posting!
Looking forward to go through the interviews. I especially like to read the comments from the CF veterans to see if its possible to track any regrets.
Thanks for this great blog.
Merry x-mas and happy CF new year to you all!
Merry Christmas, Birtgirl! I’ve been quite busy but I wanted to drop in and wish you a Happy New Year as well.
XOXO
A belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, Britgirl! Thanks for this blog and all you do for the childfree community.
I read through the interviews and really enjoyed them – I’m always interested in how and why others end up CF. One thing which struck me though, was that very few of the women had any childfree role models growing up. Neither did I – and though I would’ve been CF anyway, I can’t help but think it would’ve been easier if I’d known other CF women.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – you need to be made of tough stuff to be CF in this ridiculously pronatalist world.
Thanks for your blog and for this entry in particular. My husband and I have never regretted our childfree choice: Neither of us likes kids or has patience for dealing with most parents, anyway. But one thing I’ve been focusing on lately has to do with the issue of lacking community.
As I get older (early 30s now), I feel more and more isolated and lonely, as I really don’t have a community that I belong to (I know he feels it, too, but he works outside of the home–albeit mostly with parents–and I write from my home for a DC PR firm). We live in a smallish city in the middle of the country, and our childfree choice, political views, and nonbeliever status exclude us from pretty much all groups and social opportunities here. (We own our home outright and garden extensively, so we can’t and won’t be moving–also, we do live near my parents, and they are getting close to the age where they will need us.) There are no childfree social groups in this area–I think the closest is 4 hours away, which isn’t convenient, especially considering the time we spend gardening and working on home renovations–and around here, it’s pretty much accepted that everyone has kids and goes to church and eats meat and votes Republican and drives an SUV. We have 4 cats and a dog to spoil, and we enjoy biking and hiking and reading and cooking. Our home projects and garden keep us busy and can be overwhelming, but it’s still difficult to feel like we don’t really have any peers here, and it’s especially difficult to be surrounded by those who tell us, over and over and in a million little ways, that we don’t count and that we are less than. Our marriage is strong and rewarding, and we consider ourselves a family of two, but it’s strange and lonely to feel sometimes as if it is just us standing in opposition to everyone else.
I don’t really know why I wrote all of this, except I guess just to say that I feel a little less lonely and isolated when I read entries like yours, so thank you for that. Happy new year, and here’s hoping that the childfree “trend,” as described in these links, makes its way to my area eventually, too.
Pendrift-I love your response to childed people and need to try it out next time people go asking me why I don’t want babies. =)
Ang-sometimes I too feel quite isolated being the only childfree person I know. I’m lucky that I have friends with children that understand and respect my decision (as I do theirs) but deep down I know that they will never truly understand the childfree view. I’m also fortunate that they have brought their kids up brilliantly and even the little ones although typically mischeivous 5 and 6 year-olds, are darn well behaved for their ages. I really admire the efforts they’ve made to raise their kids properly and I’ve told them this.
As for the articles, it was great to see some things said in those interviews that I related to.
Thanks for all your comments everyone. Just stopped in to say hope you’re allhaving a lovely Holiday Season and Christmas and wish you all a very Happy New Year. (and have been using my “downtime” to read your comments
Here’s hoping you all have (had) a happy and safe holiday season!!!
Thanks for this blog, Britgirl!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! I really appreciate your blog, Britgirl.
Hi all,
Happy New Year!
Britgirl, I am not very tech savvy, so I don’t know if this is right place to send it to you, or if there is some link I should be using, but I thought that you would find this article amusing…poor woman.
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/090101/K010104AU.html
And sadly the breeder got the last mention in the article. No one seemed to reflect on why an 89 year old got riled up enough in the first place to want to go to all the bother of suing someone…
Re: being seen as living a reckless and irresponsible life
I travel a lot. In fact, it’s what I hope to turn into my job, as I am working on becoming a photojournalist. Travel photography is one of the most fulfilling things in my life, and without it, I simply would not be me.
Despite this, people still seem to think that I would be more happy to be home taking care of a kid than to be out, doing what I have done for most of my life. I have also been advised to have a kid, as a way to “help [my partner and I] finally settle down”. Uh, we’re just fine the way we are, thanks.
How do you convince someone that a child is not everyone’s ticket to happiness?
Hi Britgirl,
I am the person who conducted the Childfree Interviews. They were part of my larger masters thesis on pronatalism and the experiences of childfree women (http://yestochildfreedom.blogspot.com/). Anyway, I think altogether I had about 50 interviews for the project, but I thought you would be interested to know that I could have had many more – I had to close down the survey because I had more interviews than I possibly needed for my project. Women were clamoring to participate.
There are many more of us than people realize.
I also wanted to tell you I really enjoy your blog and feel it is one of the better childfree blogs out there. I always enjoying checking in to see what’s new.
Happy Holidays to you and all your readers!
Hi, Britgirl – I, too, have interviewed a few child-free people in an article I wrote for my newspaper, and commentary also comes from N.O.W. co-founder Sonia Pressman Fuentes.
I also wrote an essay for Women’s eNews (“Married Without Children is the Life for Her”) you might be interested in, about the joy I experienced the day I knew I would never have children.
How to (not) Have Children is a short book I recently published that includes a few interview subjects and discusses the child-free choice with humor and stark honesty, but without questioning or analyzing the decision (there’s already been enough of that, hasn’t there? Sometimes a girl just doesn’t want to have a kid).