So said a commentator in a comment to Polly Vernon. Polly was commenting on Cameron Diaz’s comment on being childfree and what we already know: “Being a woman and admitting you don’t want children is taboo.”
It takes guts to say you don’t want children
Cameron was echoing what the childfree have known for ages. Saying you don’t want children can bring out a range of reactions from those who have them or who want them. Sometimes curiosity, but more often criticism, disdain and questions. And of course the cold shoulder.
Writing about Cameron Diaz on being childfree clearly brought back memories for Polly, and as I read how she used to explain it to people I found myself nodding even as I wondered why we always have to explain to people why we don’t want children and how great being childfree is – if it’s a choice we’ve made. There are many instances where parenting is questionable at best, yet no-one ever has to explain why they want children or why they have children.
I thought the reception Polly got from parents was fairly typical – and I wondered how much of that is because I blog about being childfree and hear so many experiences from other childfree people on this blog. At one point I even wondered how she got to 37 without obviously being bingoed:
“Unlike Diaz, I did not know that voluntary childlessness is an unacceptable crime to cop to. I thought I was merely expressing an opinion. I thought that people who want – or have – children, would accept that I do not, just as I accept their choice. After all, it’s my (notional) babies I am rejecting, not theirs.
Had she known, she may have been better prepared for the vitriol she received when she wrote her piece on not wanting children for the Observer in February. All she did was state her case. Her heartfelt reasons for not wanting children and whey she was happy being childfree. The fact she loves her life as it was and wasn’t at all bothered about being infertile while her peers fretted about how to get the latest round of IVF, or how to mortgage their already mortgaged homes to pay for expensive treatment to have a kid. I mean basically all the reasons we’re familiar with because they are our reasons too. We chose to be childfree and we are happy with our choice and don’t see why we need answer to anyone for it.
Instead, Polly was unprepared for the vitriol she got in response to her piece:
“The reaction to the piece was terrifying. Emails and letters arrived, condemning me, expressing disgust. I was denounced as bitter, selfish, un-sisterly, unnatural, evil. I’m now routinely referred to as “baby-hating journalist Polly Vernon”.
Even though I am not too surprised at this, at the same time isn’t it shocking to think that people, many of whom purport to be caring parents, who will be passing values on to their children, can take the time to attack someone simply because they don’t want to have children – and said it. But of course, the sin is magnified. Not only did Polly Vernon not want children, but she DARED to actually SAY she didn’t want children.
As she says…
“So yes, Cameron Diaz, I can tell you from experience that you are right. Admit that you don’t ache for children with every fibre of your being and you will be shunned. Shunning’s the tip of the iceberg. I wish I’d been shunned. Shunning would have been blissful, relatively.”
One commentator even asked whether it’s because she voiced her views about being childfree in a certain way, as if by doing this she asked for the condemnation. Of course, if you’re childfree be quiet about it.
“Is it possible that the way you expressed yourself accounts for some of the animus you describe? It’s hard to comprehend the simple fact of choosing childlessness as a sufficient catalyst for serial (verbal) abuse.”
Is there some double standard going on here? It’s ok to talk about being pregnant, wanting to be pregnant, wanting kids. It’s perfectly fine to bring in scans these days. And of course it’s perfectly ok to talk endlessly about your kids. But go on about not wanting kids – and you leave yourself open to ridicule… that apparently you’ve asked for.
I‘ve no idea if Polly “went with the wrong crowd.” But pretty soon you have to absent yourself from pro-child, pro-natal and mommy groups and company. You just won’t fit.
However Polly “expressed herself” she was not deserving of being analysed, sneered at or anything else.
If the childfree have no problem accepting the choice to reproduce why do parents find it so hard to accept our choice?
I like Polly’s last points… people had better get their heads out of their backsides and start recognizing that being childfree is a choice. It’s here, it’s an option and it isn’t going away. Go Polly. Stuff the nay-sayers and the critics.
Thoughts?
There were over 400 comments on the Observer article so you probably won’t want to read them all. Good to see the most recommended ones where positive towards the childfree. And thanks to the reader who sent me the link!
It takes guts to say you don’t want children
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=29644ca5-9613-4caf-93a5-33bc249f06e5)
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
I first read Polly Vernon’s article via another blog post, and two things came to mind.
First, people who say that she must have been asking for the flak probably have never been at the receiving end of bingos on controversial subjects (politics, religion, being single, to name a few) and have no idea how annoying they can be.
Second, to paraphrase the other blogger, outside of appropriate venues (like this one) where such discussion is expected, talking about how wonderful/difficult it is to be childfree is every bit as boring as having children and bending everyone’s ear about how fabulous/difficult it is.
Over the past two years, I’ve seen my attitude shift from defensive to militant to neutral to pretty much indifferent when the issue of children comes up, and it really is directly tied to how secure I am in my choice, and to the company – online and offline – I keep. When I found a community whose members share and discuss an enormous range of interests, it finally hit me that individual reproductive choices were truly not an issue for some people, and that they were the people I wanted to hang out with. It’s saved me a lot of grief and stress since. I still get worked up about plenty of things (war, injustice, the usual suspects) but it’s been a good year since I actually got upset about childfree bingos. Mild irritation is just about as far as it goes.
Nowadays, when family, friends or strangers bring it up, I find that “I don’t want children, and I think children deserve to be wanted” closes the topic very rapidly.
I actually think it’s important to talk of the wonderfulness of being childfree. Obviously not all the time, but more frequently than we actually do. That’s because most women and men have no idea that it’s a viable choice and a great choice. All the PR is pro-natal – the only accepted lifestyle is one with kids, therefore women talking about wanting or having kids are taking care of entrenching that choice. Most people, certainly in the offline world don’t know anyone who is childfree. And they are not going to read blogs. Most of the time the subject doesn’t even come up as we don’t generally find the need to talk about our reproductive facilities. If it comes up in conversation, particularly a childed one, I’m all for talking about it because people need to know it’s a choice. They don’t need the same info about having kids… but they still get it
Not long ago, a friend of mine who used to attend my church jumped down my throat — on Facebook, on top of that — about always going on about being childfree. She told me that my constantly bringing it up “was tiring for others to hear”. It burns me up that pregnancy and kid issues are acceptable to keep going on about, yet people want to continually chastize people who are childfree. That is one reason why I speak up about my childfree status, and let the chips fall where they may.
Recently, on “Chelsea Lately” one of the comedians on her roundtable grumbled about all the reality shows that feature parents with crowds of children. She admitted she was childfree then said, “Why don’t they make a show about a single woman who has a great life, no kids, and does whatever the hell she wants?” The audience clapped in approval.
I always find it amusing that while parents in waiting and parents are allowed to talk forever about getting pregnant, having kids or anything to do with kids, immediately a childfree person talks about being childfree and liking it, the knives come out and we’re told we’re “bragging”, “talking too much about it” or “constantly bringing it up.” Which is utter rubbish.
My first reaction to this piece is that anyone who would actually trouble themselves to write to a journalist to castigate her simply because she has chosen not to have children has lost any moral high ground that they claim to have because they are parents. I’ve said this before but I truly believe that the childfree choice only offends religious fundamentalists and unhappy-to-be-parents. Since choosing not to reproduce clearly harms no one, it would only trouble someone who is bothered (read jealous) by the inherent freedom of the associated lifestyle or someone who thinks it goes against the bible or their God. The first group should probably do some soul searching and figure out a way to make themselves happy and the second group should be aware that as a citizen of the U.S. I have been promised freedom of religion which also means I can choose not to follow the big book in any way shape or form.
I’ve lived on the planet long enough to know that total strangers don’t really care what I do unless it somehow negatively affects them. They don’t care if I’m happy, sad, rich, poor, healthy or ill. That said, they shouldn’t care if I reproduce. Those who are close to me and genuinely care about me, should want me to be happy. If I say that being childfree makes me happy and they say that it doesn’t or shouldn’t, that means they have a selfish agenda that has nothing to do with me. The hubris of those who would claim to know me better than I know myself is peculiar and offensive. Those parents who try to guilt their children into having kids prove that they themselves had children for the wrong reasons. Good, loving parents hope their children will create a fulfilling life for themselves in whatever form. Selfish parents want their children to conform to their ideal.
I’d also like to add that people who get their life instructions from the TELEVISION (it’s called “the idiot box” for a reason) are probably more likely to readily buy into the traditional family paradigm as that it what is fed to us 24/7. A cursory hop around the channels in the U.S. and one would be led to believe that the only thing women care about is being considered “hot”, money, McMansions, cat-fighting, big, vulgar weddings and large-scale motherhood (6 to 18 offspring). As Hillari pointed out there are very few positive role models for women in the media. I thank the religious conservatives and the right wing Republican machine for the cultural shift that occurred in the late 80′s. When I was graduating from college, feminist was not a dirty word. Women were excited to finally be empowered to create a life for themselves that could take any shape that appealed. Then the boys club started to worry that too many smart, capable women would be taking their jobs and/or be unwilling to keep house for them and suddenly the articles started to appear. “Single women over 35 more likely to be killed by terrorists then marry”, “Feminists are anti-family” and blah, blah, blah. Now, the feminine ideal, as per advertising agencies and media outlets (run by men) is a woman who stays at home, has a gaggle of children, has Botoxed any genuine emotion out of her face and dresses like a paid escort when grocery shopping. They can keep selling it, but the smart one’s aren’t buying it. Is it a coincidence that studies have shown that the more educated a woman is the less likely she is to have children? I think not.
@Lee – I wish I could say i found feminists supportive of the childfree choice. Maybe it’s the ones I’ve happened across but I’ve found them almost as critical as childed critics. In fact, on a feminist board a couple of years ago i was advised that it’s ok to be childfree but that we shouldn’t “broadcast” it. I responded that we had as much right to talk about our status as the parents who go on about their status, but we tend not to. The animosity was palpable. Very anti-childfree and I couldn’t work out why.
I managed to make my point, but after that I never went back to a feminist board. The militancy took me aback, frankly. I thought they were supportive of a women’s right to choose, but I was wrong and it was a waste of energy trying to argue with them.
I still find it odd that those who have decided to have children get so worked up when the issue of being chilfree – and not wanting children – comes up and critical, as if it threatens them.
Just for the record, I consider myself a radical feminist, as well as childfree. I also frequent a few feminist sites, and run into a much higher percentage of childfree women there than in “real” life.
My encounters on “feminist” blogs has been much more akin to the scenario Britgirl described. I very much felt that “prochoice” meant the freedom to choose WHEN to have a child, not IF.
As a P.S., I’d like to share my beloved mother’s comment to me when, as a young woman, I asked her if she thought a person could be happy without children. She said, “Why do think I worked the graveyard shift (as a nurse) for 30 years? To help provide funds so that you and your sisters could go to college. Why did I want you to go to college? So you could have options, because people who have options are the happiest of all”. This from a Catholic woman with six children. Go mom!
For some reason, I cannot get the comments to load for the article. It tells me it’s loading, and is at 0%. It never gets past 0%. I left my laptop sitting one day and did something else for about fifteen minutes, and it still never got past 0%. I would LOVE to read those comments.
And, I hate this comment:
“Is it possible that the way you expressed yourself accounts for some of the animus you describe? It’s hard to comprehend the simple fact of choosing childlessness as a sufficient catalyst for serial (verbal) abuse.”
That’s strange. I tried and did get them to load, albeit it did a few seconds. They’ve closed comments though…i suppose 405 was a bit much for them. To the person who posed that patronizing question – it really shows up their own ignorance.
I use the Firefox browser, so I opened the article in Internet Explorer instead, and I the comments loaded so I could read them. I don’t know why Firefox wouldn’t load the comments. Anyway, I didn’t read all of the comments, as I grew tired of the ones that were negative. I might try to read more of them later. I honestly cannot fathom why ANYONE would comment on someone else’s choice to remain childfree. After all, you never hear of anyone questioning someone else’s choice to HAVE CHILDREN, now do you?
No, they don’t question you if you decide to have children.
I recently went to my doctor’s office as a 31 year old, college educated adult woman with a demanding professional career to ask about the Essure sterilization procedure. My doctor flat out refused to consider it. She said she would not perform a sterilization or tubal on a woman who was unmarried and had not had at least one kid since “you are too young to make a permanent decision like this and you’ll change your mind one day.” I handle millions of dollars for my company but apparently, I’m incapable of making the decision to remain child free.
Yet, the 17 year old pregnant girl who had the appointment after mine was not told “you are too young to make a permanent decision (to have a kid) and you’ll regret it.”
Hi Britgirl:
The generation of feminists that are posting to the internet now have zero in common with the second wave of women who fought for equal rights and opportunities in the U.S. beginning in the ’60′s and 70′s. Those are the feminists I’m referring to in my post, not the current more socially acceptable version.
I’ve been on some of the blogs and what they espouse has nothing at all to do with the feminism that broke down barriers for women at home and in the workplace. (Blogs didn’t exist when that happened
. I don’t relate to these women at all. It’s like feminism lite. The second wave feminists believed that women should have the same rights as men and complete control over their reproductive rights–period, no exceptions. Totally different ballgame. Anyone who calls themselves a feminist and thinks that a woman shouldn’t have a right to choose to be childfree is stretching and distorting the original meaning of the word. In my mind the narrow thinking that you experienced on those boards isn’t even humanist. Probably, because feminist became a dirty word, or an unattractive thing to be, it’s been reinvented to be more palatable. To whom, I would ask.
@ Lee – “Anyone who calls themselves a feminist and thinks that a woman shouldn’t have a right to choose to be childfree is stretching and distorting the original meaning of the word.” I agree with your there.
It’s a shame those seem to be the ones with the loudest (and I would say bitchiest) voices. I hope the original feminists take back the truth – though I fear they might think they could put their energy to better use elsewhere.
Hi BG- One of the things I noticed on those fem lite blogs is the rabid defense of the SAHM’s. I’m not really sure why they need to be defended as no one is preventing them from doing what women have been doing since the beginning of time. No one had to take to the streets and march on government to ensure they had the right to stay home and have children. My take is that they feel insecure and threatened by women who accomplish something besides egg fertilization, which, let’s be frank, takes little special talent. The way that so many of the current generation of SAHM’s desperately seek elevated status (need a title) and treatment is rather comical to me. So many of the stroller mafia in my neighborhood push that carriage as if it carried an heir to the throne.
What? No body guards?!
They made a choice and now they want to be regarded as people with a unique set of skills who are making a tremendous contribution to society. Whether or not the contribution will be meaningful remains to be seen, since it will take about 25 years to determine the quality of their parenting. According to a recently published book that I read titled the “Narcissism Epidemic”, the current generation of parents have given birth to and are in the process of creating a group of entitled, self absorbed mini-me’s who seem to be completely lacking in desirable human qualities such as empathy, compassion, caring or generosity. Why anyone would want to defend that is beyond me.
It is really annoying that in order to placate people we don’t really respect or value we have to wrap everything we say in piles of excuses and self-deprecation – I can’t even take care of a plant, ha ha thats why I don’t have children, but of course I adore them! I volunteer at a children’s hospital and give all my money to orpans in Peru! and of course if I could have a child as great as yours, I would immediately! Please. Children suck, and I would shoot myself if I woke up in some mchouse in new jersey with a bored husband, a litter, and 40 extra pounds covered in Kmart ready-to-wear. There.
Haha, so true og217! (Especially funny is that I, too, equate kids with KMart.)
*applauds this*
We should be able to answer with any one of the following – and not an excuse in sight.
Q – why don’t you have kids?
A 1 – Because I don’t want them
A 2 – Because I don’t like them
A 3 – Because I’ve no interest in them
A 4 – Because I don’t
A 5 – Because they should be wanted
A 6 – Why is it any of your business?
On my Facebook profile – where I have very little of my childfree stuff – I recently re-connected with a friend I knew a few years ago. since we’ve reconnected I’ve had to endure pics of her kids, her kids and more of her kids in my news feed. I reconnected because of her (she’s a graphic designer) but arrgh, I just wish the volume on sharing the kiddie stuff was a little lower. I don’t mind the odd one or two, but I am finding especially those with younger kids get a kind of verbal diarrhea about them and don’t even seem to realize it. They assume everyone’s interested because they are interested in them. I am not. And that could be the topic for a whole other article.
But, if we mention being childfree, except if you’re among like minds watch the atmosphere become frosty fast. I don’t even think it’s about the way it’s expressed. It’s about daring to mention you’re childfree at all.
I could not agree more! How dreary and annoying is it when a new mother assumes you find her children as interesting and entertaining as she does and also assumes that you want what she has simply because you share her gender? ARGH!!! For me, it’s like someone showing me pictures of their newly acquired pet wallaby and assuming my life is lacking because I don’t have one. I feel like saying, “Please don’t force me to be rude by pointing out the myriad of reasons why I wouldn’t trade places with you for a king’s fortune.” Maybe I’ll get a set of facial expression flash cards made up that show the difference between “boredom face” and “wistful longing face” as some of the mom’s I know seem to be unable to tell the difference. Oh! Could it be it’s because they are lacking in empathy?
I have been a part of the same online community for almost ten years. As the years have gone by, 90% of the people in my little circle have had kids. Suddenly, they really don’t know how to talk about anything else. It’s astonishing, because until each one has their own kids, they yammer about how parents don’t talk about anything but their children. And these are intelligent, capable, professional women *and* men who used to be some of the most interesting people I’d ever known. I’ve stopped interacting with a few of them, and of course they take offense. But if I wanted to spend my spare time reading about who threw a cup of grape juice against the wall or which genius-enhancing videos were the best for the 18-to-24-month set, or if I really wanted to see a thousand pictures of a gelatinous-shaped baby (when is it going to grow out of that hideous phase?) in every outfit it owns, I would have my own spawn, ’cause it’d be really cute.
*g*
This is quite a funny site about that phenomenon: http://stfuparents.tumblr.com/
[I thought I was merely expressing an opinion. I thought that people who want - or have - children, would accept that I do not, just as I accept their choice. After all, it's my (notional) babies I am rejecting, not theirs.]
This really hit home. When I “went public” with my decision to remain childfree, I didn’t think it would be a big deal. I don’t care that other people have reproduced, why should they care that I choose not to? I use the term “going public” loosely as well, as nearing 30 and getting married means you get bombarded with the question of children. A tired parent dealing with misbehaving kids all too often utters “just wait til it’s you.”
It won’t ever be me, and I rejoice in that. That’s not what I want for my life, and I am embracing that CHOICE. Fully realizing this is my call has been such a great and freeing feeling. It’s too bad so many people don’t think so, but I won’t let that destroy my resolve.
What I didn’t realize initially is that I would be shunned from this sub-culture of parenthood, which I’m sure will eventually include most of my friends. Thank goodness you guys are here and active in this web community!
I have to say that two of my oldest and best friends have one child each and they are still fabulous and honest. I have come to them when I was not sure about not having children and they were kind, supportive, understanding and truthful. So true friends and smart people stay true.