As A Mother, I Celebrate Childfree Women
Of all the divides that plague our country, here’s one I think we can bridge.
Krackenimagesw | Canva, Allef Vinicius Unsplash I’ll admit it: I’ve made a few snarky comments about childfree women in my time.
For instance, I have, on some occasions, shared my opinion that those who are childfree should never feel entitled to complain about anything because they get to sleep in on Saturday morning. As everyone knows, anyone who gets to sleep in on Saturday morning — or any day of the week, really — couldn’t possibly have any real problems.
I know I’m not alone in my snark, and I also happen to know that childfree women have shared a few snarky opinions about me. Resentment between childfree and childrearing women can run surprisingly deep. Like most forms of resentment, it’s both understandable and ridiculous. And like most forms of resentment, we’d be better off without it.
If you were to ask me why I chose to have children, I honestly wouldn’t have a great answer.
When I was in my 20s, I was technically a “childfree woman,” but when I use the term, I’m not including young people who are still figuring things out. I hadn’t made a conscious decision not to have children. I just wasn’t having any children yet.
Aside from a few Mormon women at a church service I once attended with my mother-in-law — who were gravely concerned that I was 28 and childless — no one regularly asked me whether or not I had kids. When I had my daughter at the tender age of 31, I was the first one in nearly all my social circles to do so.
I decided to have children not because my mythical biological clock was ticking, or because I’d yearned from a young age to become a mother. I’ve never even been all that into kids. My first summer job as a camp counselor at age 13 helped me realize that whatever path my career eventually took, it sure as hell wouldn’t involve children.
I had kids because that’s what “came next.” First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage. I never examined my own heart or considered the option of not procreating. I never did my research or conducted a cost-benefit analysis.
Most childfree women have put a lot more thought into the decision of whether or not to procreate than I did — and probably more than many of my childrearing counterparts, too.
And yet, so many of us refuse to accept that these women are willingly opting out of motherhood. The working assumption for single women is that of course they would have kids if they found the right mate. As women age, this assumption comes layered with all kinds of accusatory questions: What’s wrong with you? Why haven’t you found someone? Are you low-key crazy?
The working assumption for women with partners is that something’s “wrong.” Biologically, children must not be in the cards.
As it turns out, our working assumptions are highly inaccurate. There are certainly women who very much want children and are still looking for a partner or are unable to procreate. But according to Pew Research, the majority of childfree women, 56% in fact, don’t have children because… wait for it… they just don’t want children. An additional 13% cite financial constraints, environmental concerns, or the state of the world.
That means nearly 70% of women without children have examined their hearts, weighed the costs and benefits, and made a conscious decision to live a childfree existence.
And yet, they are constantly made to feel that their lives are “less than.” We all know the questions that are asked and the judgments that are passed.
How do you know you don’t want children?
If you had kids, you’d feel differently.
Aren’t you worried you’ll get older and regret it?
Isn’t it kind of selfish to not have kids?
These questions rest on the outdated notion of “maternal destiny,” as though by opting out of motherhood, women are not fulfilling their true purpose. Yes, it was once to our evolutionary advantage for most women to procreate — back when humans had a vested interest in growing our population, back when nearly 50% of children died before adulthood.
In today’s world, it’s to our evolutionary advantage to slow down on the procreation front. It’s a positive trend to see more women opting out of motherhood, and if anything we need more of them.
Childfree women don’t need our pity or concern. They never asked for it, and it’s not warranted.
Instead of clinging to the outdated notion that women cannot live a complete life without children, let’s honor and celebrate our freedom to make our own choices about what we are — and what we’re not — destined to do.
I bet most of us could name five women off the top of our heads who, had they not had children by default, might have been better off not being mothers.
This leads me to ask myself: Knowing what I know now, would I choose motherhood if I were faced with the decision today?
I’m honestly not sure. I certainly don’t regret having children — though of course, once you have kids, it’s hard to imagine unhaving them. But there are distressing economic, environmental, and political realities we face today that were less acute when I gave birth to my daughter 10 years ago.
If we all did the careful work that so many childfree women have done — if we stopped having kids just because it’s what was expected of us — I suspect many more of us would be opting out.
These days, having kids is ridiculously hard — financially and emotionally. In the United States, paid leave is in no way guaranteed. Childcare is sparse and prohibitively expensive. Even the middle class is finding homeownership and college education beyond its grasp.
The climate crisis casts a dark shadow over our children’s future. In addition to the gender pay gap, the “motherhood penalty” sets back our finances and our careers. Depression and anxiety amongst our children and teens are increasing at alarming rates. And throughout Covid, mothers have essentially been hung out to dry.
Despite the snarky comments I’ve occasionally made, my biggest beef is not that childfree people get to sleep in on Saturday mornings.
I knew what I was signing up for. What continues to shock me, and what has caused me profound pain, is that I feel entirely unsupported.
There is no sense of collective responsibility when it comes to our younger generations. Because parents decided to have children, the widespread belief is that they are essentially our burden to bear. It’s a burden that falls disproportionately on women.
Covid brought this lack of support into sharp relief. When schools and childcare centers closed down across the country, there was no shared effort to figure out what the hell to do with the millions of children who suddenly had nowhere to go. Our country just shrugged its shoulders and left it to the parents — mostly the mothers — to figure things out.
Photo: Tomsickova Tatyana / Shutterstock
I know that the childfree are made to feel that their time is less valuable than those rearing children, or that they don’t have important things to do. I can understand if we make you feel that way. What gets lost in translation is not how much time each of us has, or even what we do with it — it’s that childrearing women completely lose ownership of their time.
It’s not just that we’re busy, it’s that the complexity of managing every hour of every day increases exponentially. Anything that doesn’t involve our families or our jobs (including ourselves) requires careful planning and scheduling because our time no longer belongs to us.
It’s f***ing exhausting. Emotionally, mentally, physically. We’re constantly running on empty, constantly piecing together the complex puzzles of every day, constantly negotiating and making trade-offs to ensure that everyone’s basic needs are met, and then feeling guilty when ours aren’t — because it’s also on us to prioritize our self-care.
RELATED: The Hypocrisy Of The Childfree
And here’s the thing: it doesn’t have to be this way.
Our country’s lack of paid leave and childcare are glaring systemic failures that illustrate just how little our society values mothers — and our children.
Parenting is by nature intensive, particularly parenting small children, but if I’d had access to affordable, accessible childcare, my first decade as a mother would have been at least 35 percent less stressful. If my childfree neighbors had been proactive about offering to babysit or sometimes watch my kids after school, my stress would have been further reduced by at least another 15 percent.
There’s a difference between intensive and relentless. If childfree women ever wonder why their mom friends seem to drop out of their lives or can never get it together to meet up for a drink, it’s not because we think less of you or because we’re too busy over here living the American Dream (ha!). It’s because we’re underwater, and the reaction we get from society is one big shrug.
If our workplaces were built around the needs of mothers, we would all have better work/life balance. If working mothers didn’t have to expend so much time piecing together childcare, they could be better friends and more effective team members. If you had to take time off to care for a parent or loved one, a paid leave law would support you, too.
So if there’s one request I would make of childfree women, it’s to advocate for the mothers in your workplaces. Offer help to the mothers in your community. And remember that our children might be wiping your a** in a nursing home one day. Supporting the caregivers who are raising the next generation is a task that concerns — and benefits — all of us.
Is there also a divide between childfree and childrearing men? Yes, but I’ve focused this story on women because the social pressures of parenthood — including the impacts on our time and careers — are far greater for women, as is the social stigma of opting out.
Make no mistake: I don’t hold women accountable for these stigmas and pressures.
They were birthed by the patriarchy and are perpetuated by the patriarchy.
But if we want to have any hope of dismantling the patriarchy, we, alongside our allies of all genders, need to stop buying into misguided perceptions and shrugging our shoulders at glaring systemic failures. We need to recognize that they set us all back.
In a world of increasing scarcity, a world in which many populated regions will only become less and less habitable, we are all better off if more of us choose not to procreate. On the flip side, in a world where motherhood is both a choice and, by many measures, a losing proposition, we also need some women who are still willing to have children.
The bottom line is, that childrearing and childfree women need each other. Let’s hold the snark and start lifting each other up instead.
Kerala Taylor is an award-winning writer and co-owner of a worker-owned marketing agency. Her weekly stories are dedicated to interrupting notions of what it means to be a mother, woman, worker, and wife. She writes on Medium and has recently launched a Substack publication Mom, Interrupted.