We live in the 21st century. We’re more connected that ever before (or so some would have us believe). We have Earth Day, Women’s Day, this Day, that Day… in fact a day to celebrate or remember anything that comes to mind. Mother’s Day has come and gone and Fathers Day is just a few weeks away.
Yet when it comes to being childfree, even though many more women now have the choice to enjoy – or at the very least explore – a life without children a childfree woman is still looked at with a great deal of suspicion. Childfree men are initially simply assumed to be immature… having a kid or two is thought by most to be the ideal way to make them “grow up.”
Saying you’re childfree still brings out varying shades of inexplicable hostility in many, including women who have children and who can’t understand why anyone in their right mind wouldn’t want them too, women who want them and can’t have them and people in general who simply think women have children – what’s to talk about? While I may mention mothers and women who want kids, it’s not limited to them. There are of course men who also don’t understand why anyone would want to be childfree.
Most of the beliefs about childfree people are plain false. In a day when women have more freedom to live the lives they choose the odd beliefs about people who have chosen not to have kids have somehow persisted sometimes only being refuted via blogs and other online outlets.
It’s a toss up as to how many still believe, erroneously that childfree people are sad, lonely, selfish, don’t appreciate or can’t feel real love and are stressed out child-haters who really want to have kids. Most of those who hold those beliefs don’t actually know any childfree people but believe they must be all of the above because they don’t have and don’t want children. When a woman is appointed to political office, one of the first things the media ensures they write about is the number of kids they have… as if it’s a stamp of approval and assurance. Should a woman not have have children it’s not long before it comes up.. but rarely as a positive.
But since when does having kids determine how well you can do a job? Most childfree people don’t endlessly go on about being childfree in general company so it rarely comes up in conversation. Getting on with life without constant reference to one’s reproduction is usually far more interesting. Perhaps that’s partly why those who regard childfree people with suspicion remain in their ignorance. The older I get the less interested I am in talking about being child-free. It’s part of my life and it has been for years. I’m even less interested in the ramblings of those who persist in maintaining motherhood or fatherhood is the ultimate accomplishment for women or men. There are far too many other things to talk about.
Thoughts? In this day and age just why are the childfree still regarded with such suspicion? And will it ever change? If yes, what will change it?
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Oh I think it will take some sort of catastrophic world disaster that results in us all frantically competing for resources… people with kids either love having them so much they can’t grasp why everyone doesn’t want them, or they regret the decision and want others to be in the same position. Most often it seems to be the latter.
Sigh!
We should have a designated “Child-Free Day.” Most every holiday is practiced as a child-centered event. I’m sure the child-laden will be awestruck with horror at my suggestion, but why shouldn’t we celebrate this wonderful freedom that we have chosen and are privileged with?
You correctly observe that with age, there is less need to speak about one’s choice to be child-free – and people seem less bent on conducting an inquisition about this choice. This does, however, depend on one’s interactions. In my vocation (hairdresser), I can count daily on at least one client asking me whether I have children. And, you’re right, people generally make conclusions when I say that I have no kids. Occasionally, it’s a conversation stopper.
The child-free are an under-appreciated lot. We’re the ones that cover when mommies have to leave work early to take junior to a soccer game, the orthodontist or the out-of-town karate tournament. We’re the ones who arrive on time when daddies have to drop junior off at school because he missed the bus (again). We’re the ones who don’t get priority vacations in the summer because parents need to spend critical formative time with their offspring.
Our sacrifices are not recognized because we are not valued in the same way as parents in the workplace and we are far outnumbered. Parents often see themselves as martyrs – staying up all night with junior who had the sniffles, investing in $400 worth of essential hockey equipment, having to shell out for all those groceries! (Of course, it’s what they signed up for!) Parents look at our lifestyle choice as evidence of selfishness – we didn’t have to pay for junior’s horsebackriding lessons, stay in the emergency room when he had to have stitches or get up extra early to make his lunch.
As the birthrate declines, the child-free may gain some measure of acceptance, but I doubt they’ll let us have our own holiday.
-sigh-
I actually think that it’s other things, repackaged as suspicion.
It’s jealousy – be it deep rooted and bitter, cemented by years of parental toil and self-denial – or simple envy of our freedom and confidence to go off the life script.
It’s insecurity – “You don’t want kids for yourself? But that means you wouldn’t want to be me, because I’m a parent. That must mean you think your life is better than mine. Wow…maybe it is.”
It’s bigotry or intolerance: We’re choosing non-traditional (read: progressive, non-Biblical) paths. We must be heathens or feminists or some such other misfits.
I’m probably weird, but I actually love when I come up against a wall of negativity (like suspicion). I relish the chance to force hand to throat for some serious pearl-clutching as I declare my non-interest in child-rearing. By the time I start listing my reasons, I’m looking at eyes so wide, I can only imagine how fast the mind behind them is reeling: “Wait a minute…I could have done that, too??!”
So please, world, bring your suspicion to me. I’m happy to address it.
Love it
I don’t think they should go as far as to making a child free day, but maybe a little positive recognition would be nice. It’s really a choice, and people shouldn’t judge based on a person’s circumstance.
I remember back when I was about nine years old, being taken by one of my grandparents to meet a friend of theirs. I don’t know why they thought I should meet this man; he was friendly and funny, obviously a batchelor, living in a house that seemed overpopulated with books. He wandered about chatting to us, wearing what I seem to remember being a dressing gown. If he had been a woman, my grandparents would have referred to this person as certainly wierd but they wouldn’t have introduced me to them!
Men have always been allowed to occupy space and fill it with whatever ‘stuff’ they like. We are expected to populate with babies and stuff to clean with!
I had a great uncle like that friend of your grandparents’. Prior to 1945, he was a professor of ”Asian Studies” (one of those nebulous subjects where orientalism has a chance to be objectified, if at least intellectually) at Princeton and was involved in the reconstruction of Japan. To what length he ”involved” was extant to that he was sent home persona non grata by SCAP, and *not* by Japan’s Diet. Heh, I loved visiting his home. Both him and his wife were professors (though only his wife was working in any academic capacity at this time) and their home was a wall-to-wall library.
They had no children between them, even though Gretta (my great-aunt) obviously wanted them; and I never heard of any biological reasons why Ben couldn’t giver her any. But their relationship was strange, it wasn’t so much an anger or longing over not having kids, but like a warped form of adaptation. They just seemed to know they couldn’t really care for them and didn’t have them.
Yes, we are in the 21th century and there are a lot of women in the world who can’t yet decide their lives: Muslims, gypsy, African women…etc. I think that this the most scary thing: not having the freedom to decide upon your own life.
Having grown in up a Catholic household, I almost think being Muslim would have been a blessing of liberty.
Hi Britgirl, We’re viewed with suspicion because we are going against a powerful norm in our pro-baby society…and it leads to judgment, which breeds the myths. I know how you feel re tired of talking about it..I have been talking about it for at least 10 years since Families of Two came out, and am still talking now. But I think it is important to keep the awareness and education out there. While I see a bit more acceptance with each generation, but I also find that more parents talk acceptance until it hits close to home..their kid tells them s/he does not want kids. The pressures are still there, the myths are still out there. This has not changed in the last ten years. Why? Because the pronatalist values remain deeply intact. That is where we need to start talking–why do we hold on so tightly to these values? They need to be challenged, and ultimately change so that there is true reproductive freedom and so that there is better reproductive responsibility in today’s world..that’s my sopabox and I’m stickin to it! ~Laura http://lauracarroll.com
[This has not changed in the last ten years. Why? Because the pronatalist values remain deeply intact. ]
The last ten years, eh? It is more like the last 200,000; if you want to be thorough and take the biology and ingrained instinct of us Hominidae into account. Don’t be so hard on yourself, the last ten years have been pretty eventful as the decade stands. Why, even five years ago I couldn’t find an Arab barman anywhere in the city I grew up, now there’s a hookah joint not too far from my old family home! Talk about progress!
However, seriously, I think the pronatalists will always hold their constant influence, and not just for the shtick of neo- religious, conservative, or…whatever values. At least speaking for the US, the racial makeup of the ‘States will more than likely not be majority-white after 2050, if not sooner. The demographics making the most headway in that direction (Hispanics) have a pretty solid grounding in family-building and hell, there might even be an increase in the American birthrate.
Laura – Great points. I think many pay lip service to accepting their is a childfree choice in that they say each to their own but should it be their own kids it is a different story. Everywhere you look you can see that indeed the pronatalist values are well and truly embedded alive and kicking.
One of the reasons why I don’t think these attitudes will change anytime soon is because we live in a capitalist society, and babies/kids/parents are a huge market. It’s not just about the media and the culture – this is about business too. Parents spend an ungodly amount of money on the precious ones and companies know it. As long as there are companies targeting kids and their parents, the pronatalist attitude in the society will prevail. That’s just my humble opinion.
Well I’m doing my best to re-purpose said expenditures on, say, a nice clean house, extra vacations, dog gear, more books, a good camera (one must document the good life), and organic produce. But I can try harder — ha! : 0 )
Government is actually one of the most concerned players in the market for babies. As any good armchair economist will tell you, a steadily growing labor stock is critical to long-term macroeconomic growth. The government always needs more taxpayers to subsidize the non-working elderly and companies always need more human capital to provide cheap output as well as generate demand. It’s a great bit circle-jerk!
But don’t forget that almost every institution in human society depends on pro-natalism for its survival. Religions for new believers/tithers, and on down the line. To fight for other paths is to fight against these institutions and you better believe they do not plan to go quietly.
I REALLY think that even the most “horrified” people go home and re-consider after they give us a talking-to. No thinking person who’s been up all night with a baby/struggling with bills/fighting with teenagers can brush this topic off without mulling it over. I encounter the gamut–from friends who wish they never had kids to those who get very defensive (even over humorous CF postings on Facebook). But my approach is not changing no matter who I’m talking to or writing for. I have a right to make jokes about it, throw research around, revel in my contentment, and not go gaga over their offspring.
I just compiled a bunch of CF videos, by the way. Although you may have already seen them all : )
http://www.anklebitingterrier.com
You wanna see really heavy suspicion? Try the full set of freedoms: Childfree, HusbandFree, and MommyFree.
The same assumptions and lifescript that say you “must” have kids, also say that you “must” be financially dependent on a husband (even if you work, he is supposed to earn more and be the real breadwinner.) And also that you must be emotionally dependent on your own mother (including living in close proximity so as to see her frequently.)
Add on FriendFree, meaning the refusal to cling to needy so-called “friends,” who want to drag you into their loser lives.
And the icing on the cake? The ability to make choices concerning jobs, rather than just doing the lowest-effort/skill gig, and feeling trapped. Choices all the way up to EmployerFree, meaning the ability to generate income without a boss.
Some people’s lives revolve around feeling coerced and trapped, in every possible way. And, lacking any ideas to correct that, they want everyone else to feel/act/live the same. It freaks them out to meet someone whose acceptance of personal responsibility has lead to freedom and autonomy. And women are much, much more freaked out than men.
Had to come back to this post. You know, today I hear MANY people brag about how “independent” they are, but when I look closer into their lives they are employees, they have kids, they are in and out of turbulent relationships but can never be happy SINGLE, they have hundreds of “friends” on facebook, they can’t produce anything of value with their own hands so they have to buy everything they need including simple vegetables that could be grown in their back yard that gets zero use.
So with that said, people in America today are probably the most DEPENDENT people the earth has ever seen. God help us if we ever suffer a cataclysmic event like Japan, nobody would know how to do anything and many people would starve to death.
^^ What a post S. Godfrey! I agree 100%!
Hey, I’m late to this party! (thread) I am going to be 53 this summer (2011), I am child-free, I grew up in dysfunction junction, and was blessed meeting a kind loving man in my early 30′s, who I am still happily with today. Up to then, I had mixed feelings about ever being a mother. Having found peace and bliss, when this man said he preferred not having children, I was only too happy to make the choice to be childfree.
There is so much going on psychologically about the “threat” that the child-free pose to those with families, a very thick book could be written about it (hint hint – to some gifted writer out there).
I think one of the reasons why people choose to have kids is so that there will be somebody to look after them in their old age. It’s a built-in social security, so to speak. Personally, I think it is plain wrong to have a child for the purpose of fulfulling some preconceived role in my life.
Putting aside the argument there is no guarantee your kids will take care of you, I think those with children automatically assume that the child-free will somehow be a burden to society – because there is nobody built-in to take care of them, they will be in some nursing home consuming tax dollars. Crazy but true. Never mind the fact that many child-free pay property taxes that go towards local schools which will never educate the children they will never have, etc, etc.
And there is the brutal reality smacking the faces of the eco-conscious that the child-free, if they live resourcefully, can leave an infinitely smaller carbon footprint from not having reproduced. By not having children, there are fewer people to feed, for which to provide clean water, to house, to clothe, to consume energy resources.
I think that much of the anger directed at the child-free comes from guilt. The child-free seem willing to face old age alone without that support network of children and grandchildren; they probably gave a great deal of thought to the idea of having children, which ironically could have made some of them better parents than some of the people who ended up being parents; the child-free may be better at looking and planning ahead and deciding how they want to live their lives. I have observed a great deal of one-upmanship in parenting, and perhaps the child-frees wanted to opt out of that rat race. The child-frees are in a way saying they reject the lifestyle of so many others.
In my case my circumstances never seemed right for children. Though I babysat a lot in my teens and liked children, I never went through a hormonal thing and went baby-mad. I am in better health now than I was in my 30′s; I am probably better equipped emotionally now than in my 30′s; there wasn’t a suitable partner; economically it looked like a tremendous drain. I have a real issue with parents who dump their kids off at day care of school every day with a sack of Chicken McNuggets and Oreo cookies. How was I going to work while providing my child proper nutrition and good care, while taking care of myself, etc, etc. None of it was adding up. I didn’t want to do something stupid and make a little human being suffer as a consequence of my ego thinking I could do it all.
A few times I wonder what it would have been like to have children, but life is filled with “what-ifs.” I have friends with children, and I know they have had some tough times and there are some tough times coming. I have kept them in my prayers and have been grateful to be in a position where I could simply listen to their problems in a detached manner and let them vent.
I’m totally with Ellie.
I think jealousy comes into it a lot, I think a lot of people would love to be happy without the stresses of children but have been conditioned to think they cannot possibly be. They don’t have the independent thought, or the strength to realise this for themselves.
Certainly of all the childfree people I’ve met and made contact with they are among the most independent, smart, sassy and generally capable people I have met, and I suspect that challenges parents (well mums anyway).
To mums we are “the competition”, the glamorous, free-spirited ones that their husbands might confide in at work while they are at home covered in baby puke and totally bedraggled. To some we are competition for the attention they think they should receive for having a baby (because, at the end of the day, the men aren’t going to giving them the attention if there is a non-mum woman kicking around).
And I don’t mean any of that in a sexual way, not at all, nor in a sordid way. Just that men really aren’t interested in the state of childhood, but men are always happy to talk to members of the opposite sex. If they can combine that with intelligent, non-baby related conversation then they will.
The media plays a huge part of course. Childfree women were always portrayed as man-stealers. Nowadays we are more likely to be portrayed as heartless. It is one of the few forms of discrimination that is perfectly accepted in modern day media, and it’s really quite appalling how much society IS swayed by the media!