Category Archives: Childfree

International Childfree Day 2024 Wishes and Quotes: Celebrate and Honour Non-Parents by Sharing Thoughtful  LatestLY

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International Childfree Day 2024 Wishes and Quotes: Celebrate and Honour Non-Parents by Sharing Thoughtful - LatestLY

Festivals & Events News | Happy International Childfree Day 2024 Quotes, Greetings, Wallpapers, Wishes and HD Images  LatestLY

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Festivals & Events News | Happy International Childfree Day 2024 Quotes, Greetings, Wallpapers, Wishes and HD Images - LatestLY

International Childfree Day 2024 Date: Know History and Significance of the Day That Aims To Shun the  LatestLY

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International Childfree Day 2024 Date: Know History and Significance of the Day That Aims To Shun the - LatestLY

Harpy: A Manifesto for Childfree Women

Author: Caroline Magennis

ISBN-13: 978-1837730650

Publisher: Icon Books

Guideline Price: 13.99

Others Like Me: The Lives of Women Without Children

Author: Nicole Louie

ISBN-13: 978-1408748336

Publisher: Dialogue Books

Guideline Price: 22

In mid-May, a graphic in the Wall Street Journal was published on its social media platforms showing a line plummeting from the graphs peak. There Arent Enough Babies, went the accompanying headline. Its Going To Change Everything. Though the headline was presented as breaking news, the decline in birth rates has been dominating media discourse for several years now, with the blame most often falling on women.

Women have become too picky, claim columnists. Women are not religious enough; #MeToo has destroyed dating; feminism has destroyed the nuclear family. Taking place against a backdrop of a worldwide backlash against womens reproductive rights, the discourse surrounding declining birth rates is of course political, but its also lacking in basic curiosity. So many column inches are dedicated to judging women for not having children, and so little writing is dedicated to listening to women without children to understand their choices and experiences. Two new non-fiction books featuring interviews with many childfree women are trying to add more voices to the conversation.

Thats childfree, as in a choice, not childless, as in a state of lack a distinction Northern Irish writer Caroline Magennis draws in the opening of Harpy, a timely, thoughtful and layered book that focuses on building up care, community and solidarity both for and among childfree women. Magenniss work as an academic allows her to offer fluent analysis of the representation of childfree women in pop culture and the role of the mother in the construction of society and nation. Irish mothers are venerated but neglected, Magennis notes; while Northern Irish mothers are reminders of history and so must be portrayed on screen with two expressions brow set in worry or shoulders hunched from weeping.

Her tone remains light and accessible throughout. Harpy begins with the author confessing that at dinner parties she finds herself looking for the women with a hint of devilment. Magennis becomes that woman for the reader, her tone mimicking that of a well-informed friend moving from personal anecdote to cultural analysis to a collective call to action, as she describes how childfree women are constantly forced to navigate the expectations of everyone around them.

Harpys chapters are structured thematically, exploring the childfree woman in the home, relationships, pop culture, the workplace, the cultural and moral imagination, and envisioning a more supportive future for childfree women. Each chapter includes quotations from interviews that Magennis conducted with 55 childfree women (as the author notes, mainly straight, cis, white and able-boded) who detail their experiences of feeling like outliers.

[Childfree by choice: Theres a narrative that your life is either Sex and the City glamour or cat lady]

Personally, their choices are constantly doubted and interrogated by families, friends and medical practitioners. Culturally, mothers are seen as the standard of good womanhood, and so suspicion surrounds childfree women; they are assumed to be selfish, immature, flaky, judgmental of mothers, uninterested in the common good.

Magennis deconstructs the constant social messaging that portrays mothers as paragons of moral virtue and childfree women as lacking in social responsibility, observing how politicians present themselves as compassionate leaders by deploying the phrase As a mother the implication being that people without children are somehow not interested in the common good when we also live in the world, care about people and want a fair deal for them.

Magennis is acutely aware of the societal and cultural pressure on women to have children, noting, if motherhood is natural and inevitable for all women, the coercive language directed at anyone who dissents would not have to be quite so forceful. We would not have to be persuaded at every level, by everyone, all the time.

However, Magennis doesnt want to create more division or solely focus on the challenges faced by childfree women. In a sentiment reminiscent of trans theorist Jack Halberstams celebration of outlier experiences in his book The Queer Art Of Failure, Magennis highlights the social possibilities that come with being childfree and embracing childfree women as important members of society though her ideas could hugely benefit from more queer perspectives on community building.

Childfree women dont base their decision to not become mothers solely on the positive aspects of a childfree existence; they also evaluate the negative aspects of motherhood and reject them

She does, importantly, combat ideas of exceptionalism, observing that childfree women are expected to be exceptionally ambitious, career-focused or successful, to compensate for their childlessness. Highlighting the right for childfree women to live quiet, ordinary lives is a refreshing break from the individualistic, neoliberal, girl-boss rhetoric that often swirls around childfree women.

This positive, community-focused approach makes for an affirming and uplifting read, though the upbeat tone can come at the expense of more layered interrogations. Magennis observes that there is a narrow path to likeability as a woman, and it narrows further if you dont have children. Sometimes the book itself feels like it has fallen into the likeability trap, determined to portray childfree women as socially unthreatening as possible.

For a book about women without children, abortion is barely referenced, which feels like a bias towards respectability. Magenniss choice of interview quotations can also make her participants seem saint-like in their reflections. When discussing the social fractures that can occur between mothers and childfree women, her interviewees express boundless empathy and patience, never once voicing an ounce of understandable boredom or frustration with friendships that radically shift after the arrival of children.

Nor do the interviewees ever linger on what they see as the negative (or, to be euphemistic, challenging) sides of parenting, which even most mothers themselves would attest to: financial stress; increased domestic labour; less time for individual pursuits; documented drop-offs in career advancement and opportunities; feeling touched out and stressed; the impact children have on romantic and sexual lives; and the seemingly endless forms of self-sacrifice.

This avoidance feels calculated towards politeness rather than realism. Childfree women dont base their decision to not become mothers solely on the positive aspects of a childfree existence; they also evaluate the negative aspects of motherhood and reject them. By not giving voice to any negative perceptions of motherhood, Harpy misses out on the radical act of letting childfree women be as clear-eyed, opinionated, occasionally judgmental and ultimately human as anyone else.

The structure of Irish-based Brazilian writer Nicole Louies book Others Like Me makes more space for the gamut of childfree womens emotions and experiences. While Magennis uses quotations from her anonymous interviewees to expand upon the specific themes and ideas of each chapter, Louie presents her 14 interviews as long, uninterrupted, first-person sections that weave through the authors personal experience.

As Louie moves from Brazil to Sweden to Ireland, she recounts her relationship with her mother and several romantic partners, constantly wrestling with the guilt of not wanting children and the sometimes realised fear that this decision will prevent her from finding unconditional love.

Louies interviews include women from the US, Norway, Britain, Thailand, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Peru and Turkey, and while the author based her interviews on a questionnaire, she allows room for each interviewees specific experience, cultural background and personal reflection to shine through. This includes honest reflections by many of the women on their perception of motherhood and their occasional frustration with mothers in their peer groups.

[I dont have children, and I never will, and I wouldnt change that for the world]

Cecilie, a Norwegian who provides Others Like Me with one of the few mentions of abortion, comments on the shifts in her friendship group as babies started arriving, and doesnt pretend to find parenting stories endlessly fascinating. I have great friends who have children too and Im always open to the idea that they will go back to being interesting, Cecilie muses, but I think its like working out. Its like a muscle, you have to exercise it.

These interviews are digestible in length and fascinating in breadth, adding depth and nuance to Nicole Louies own story, which largely grapples with ideas of gender and sacrifice

Cecilies ability to combine exasperation and boredom with warmth, wit and a genuine commitment to maintaining her friendships feels like a fully-rounded portrait of a childfree woman. Louies interviews address many other forms of specificity. Women with disabilities discuss their feelings about having children; one woman speaks of how growing up in a war zone meant she always saw motherhood as being wrought with fear; and a Peruvian addresses the emotional and practical complexity of getting her tubes tied in a country where 285,000 women were sterilised against their will.

These interviews are digestible in length and fascinating in breadth, adding depth and nuance to Louies own story, which largely grapples with ideas of gender and sacrifice. Louie witnesses the sacrifices her grandmother and mother made for their children; feels resentful of the sacrifices she is forced to make to parent her younger brother; and struggles with asking her male partners to sacrifice having children to be with her.

While her descriptions of her childhood are lushly sensory and descriptive, dialogue-heavy scenes with boyfriends can feel airless and exposition-laden, giving us little insight into who Louie and her partners are as people beyond their debates about having children. This may be indicative of the emotional repression of the conversations, for scenes where Louies mother admits her own ambivalence around parenthood, and a scene between Louie and a friend who disappears after having children, feel tender, emotive and quietly revelatory.

Or perhaps some of the airlessness comes from the absence of the body in the books first two sections, which is remedied in its final third. Here, Louie details experiencing some debilitating medical issues, at one stage resulting in a week-long hospital stay where no one can tell her what is wrong with her but male doctors are quick to dismiss her pain and undermine her decisions.

Medical professionals and institutions ignoring womens pain is a documented phenomenon as recently explored in the podcast The Retrievals, but Louie doesnt linger on a cultural analysis of this sexism she feels it. In her descriptions of bodily pain, over-stimulating hospital stays and maddening interactions with doctors, Louies writing becomes far more urgent, dynamic, and embodied. Her prose, particularly the dialogue, moves from feeling overly tidy and controlled to suddenly vibrating on the page as Louies emotions finally come, unbridled, to the fore.

In Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, writer Sonya Huber describes the ways in which her voice changes when she is in the throes of chronic pain, transforming both her everyday and writerly voice from its prettily descriptive, metaphor-laden, carefully analytical state into something more immediate and unapologetic. Pain Woman has a different voice, writes Huber. She has a kind of messianic confidence that I do not have in my normal writing or even in my normal living Pain Woman gives no shits. Pain Woman has stuff to tell you, and she has one minute to do so before shes too tired. Pain Woman knows things.

Recounting her medical issues, Louie taps into her own Pain Woman, both physically and emotionally, and her writing ignites. Childfree Woman knows things. Childfree Woman has a voice 14 voices, 55 voices. Childfree Women have stuff to tell you, and these books will make you want to listen.

Touched Out: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent, and Control by Amanda Montei (Beacon Press, 2023)

After becoming a mother on the eve of #MeToo, American writer Amanda Montei reflects on consent when it comes to both sex and motherhood the pressure, sacrifice and sense of betrayal when women are asked to consent to experiences without knowing how exploitative and lonely they can be. Fierce, well-researched and truly provoking.

Women Without Kids: The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood by Ruby Warrington (Orion Spring, 2023)

Journalist Ruby Warrington reframes the idea of not having children as being a bold choice of imagination and possibility that can show us new ways to live. Tackling environmentalism, intergenerational healing and a new, feminine from of legacy, Warrington addresses the systemic lack of support for mothers, cultural lack of support for childfree women and how we can do better for all.

Motherhood by Sheila Heti (Harvill Secker, 2018)

Hetis autofiction novel sees her narrator struggle to decide whether or not to have children. When seeking guidance from her friends and partners unearths no clear answers, she turns to mysticism and philosophy, hoping lengthy conversations with the I Ching will prove more illuminating. Witty, original and addressing questions of art, genius and spirituality, Heti makes ambivalence electrifying.

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Harpy: A Manifesto for Childfree Women; Others Like Me: The Lives of Women Without Children - listening to a wider ... - The Irish Times

Dr Shubhangi Patil, HOD economics, associate professor, K.J. Somaiya College of Arts and Commerce, Vidyavihar highlights the key benefits of adopting the DINK lifestyle. Photo Courtesy: iStock

1. Personal freedom and career growth With growing competition among employees for better placements, couples prefer prioritising their careers over children. Couples prefer to have personal freedom as they wish to enjoy a wide variety of recreational facilities. More time and resources can be dedicated to leisure activities, fitness, and recreation, contributing to a healthier and more balanced lifestyle. Individuals can focus on personal goals and self-improvement, be it through education, travel, or exploring new interests.

2. Growing awareness about fitness and health DINK couples can have high income and more time which allows them to have better access to quality health facilities and services.

3. High disposable income DINK allows couples to save their income which otherwise would have been spent on their childs education, health and raring. The high income of the couple allows them to spend more time and resources on leisure, personal health care, travel and other luxuries.

4. Increase in financial security High disposable income with low per capita family expenditure allows couples to save and invest more. No child provides them with enough time to explore various high-return investment opportunities. Risk absorbing capacity is also high. All these factors increase their financial security.

5. Urban lifestyle DINK couples can afford costly urban life as they have less per capita family expenditure. Cities having a lot of cultural and social amenities, tourist places, restaurants and modern community life reduce the importance of families with kids.

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Five benefits of having a childfree marriage - mid-day.com

Storyful

A local neighborhood cowboy proved some heroes wear hats, not capes, as he lassoed and rescued a calf stuck on a frozen pond in Paragould, Arkansas, on January 18.Max Bishop is the source of this footage and told Storyful he raced over to his neighbors farm after receiving a call for help about a stranded calf.[My neighbor] drove me out to the pond and we found the best angle for a 70 fr throw and managed to get it roped and pulled across the ice, Bishop explained.I am known in our area as the go-to cowboy to get help if stock gets in trouble, this is the first one I have roped on top of the ice before, he added.Bishop said he was glad to see the calf alive, healthy, and back with its momma. Credit: Max Bishop via Storyful

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I'm childfree by choice after growing up scared of the idea of being a mum having kids is a selfish choice. - Yahoo Lifestyle UK

Dear Prudence is Slates advice column. Submit questions here. (Its anonymous!)

Dear Prudence,

I am a vegan for a variety of reasons. I dont preach and often find it easier to bring my own food rather than pick at my hosts for what goes into a meal. My boyfriend was invited to a family summer gathering. It was very isolated and rural. I explained I was bringing my own food (his father and brother made special vegan jokes to me before). What happened was the kids raided my food (it was in my pack) when the pantry snacks got locked up. Id brought enough food for me for five days; they went through everything in five hours! I got upset, and it was just a big joke to everyone. Then it seemed to become a game. If I set aside some peanut butter and celery, someone would eat it. Same for the oranges I put aside for breakfast (I got offered cereal and milk instead). I tried to get my boyfriend to drive me to a grocery store, and he told me it would take more than two hours one way and to lighten up. By the time I left, I wanted to cry. My boyfriend and I have been fighting about it. He tells me I was overreacting and it wasnt like Id starve out there. Is he right? Weve been together for nine months and talking about moving in together. I am having doubts.

Vegan Vacation

Dear Vegan,

If you were still there while you wrote this, I was going to ask if you needed someone to come rescue you and put out a call to our readers. These people tried to starve you to death! What would make this a tricky question would be if your boyfriends relatives were monsters and he was a nice guy who was just too timid to stand up to them. Instead, his relatives are monsters and so is he. Im a little saddened and concerned that that isnt clear to you, and that he has you wondering whether youre overreacting. I can sit here and tell you that youre absolutely not, but I think you need to hear it from others, too. Do you know five people of any age who are in happy relationships, or even single people who you think of as having good self-confidence? I want you to reach out to each of them and get their perspective.

They are all going to tell you that you are 100 percent right and your boyfriend is 100 percent wrong and that you deserve better. They might add that hell only treat you worse and worse as time goes on. I bet someone will throw in that his entire family is going to find a new thing to gang up on you about every season. I hope someone also mentions that nine months is nothing, in the grand scheme of things. Please work on understanding that you deserve to be treated with respect. And please never move in with someone who cant even be trusted to stand up for you in a fight over peanut butter and celery.

Sometimes even Prudence needs a little help. This weeks tricky situation is below.Submit your comments about how to approach the situation hereto Jene, and then look back for the final answerhereon Friday.

Dear Prudence,

I was in my late-twenties when I got together with my girlfriend. We met on trips to the pub after work (we worked at the same place, but not together), and I just found myself magnetically drawn to her all the time. When I told our colleagues we were dating, I heard all sorts of things about how wonderful she was, how much they all loved her basically, she was the most brilliant person in every room, and she was choosing me. Nothing had ever made me feel so loved and so confident.

Two years on and I am finding a flip-side to this. Friends of mine that shes got to know now text her more than they text me. People at parties ask me where she is and walk away if I say shes not coming. My young nieces and nephews will wrap her in hugs and will hardly acknowledge me. One friend has been with her boyfriend for 10 years and he never wanted to hang out with menow whenever we meet up, she passes on the message that he is coming and can I bring my girlfriend. The confidence that I first got from being the one chosen by the sun of every room shes in now just makes me feel like Im the guest star in my own relationship (actual words someone used to describe me). I obviously love that she fits in with my friends and family so well. How do I stop myself feeling Im being squeezed out of my own relationships?

Guest Star

Dear Prudence,

For years, I was adamantly childfree. I constantly heard how my mom was pushed out of her job after my older sister was born, and after becoming one of the few people from my high school to go to college, I heard stories from my friends who became SAHMs super young that convinced me that having kids would push me out of a job and deprive me of an identity. If my parents or relatives tried to pester me about kids, I would firmly say no.

Then four years ago, I realized I was bisexual, and I started dating my now-fiance soon after. She knew my feelings about children from the beginning of our relationship, and had always told me that the decision was ultimately my callshe loved her siblings kids, and had wanted to be a mom, but it wasnt an absolute dealbreaker. But when we started thinking about marriage, I realized that I want to be a mom with her. I talked a lot about it in therapy, and saw how my perception of having kids was affected by my upbringing. I had believed that having kids would automatically mean that I would be forced out of my own life and lose my identity, like I heard my mom and childhood friends complain so bitterly about.

When I discussed it with my fiance, we decided that we do want to have a child, probably through IVF. We also talked through who would carry the baby and made sure to consider how we would divide up household labor with a baby, especially because that was where so much of my hesitancy came from. And a year later, as our wedding approaches, I still feel really good about this plan. My issue? How to explain this to my family without coming off as rude, or confirming their biases about childfree people and making life more difficult for my cousins and siblings who have very valid reasons for not having children.

I know that the second I say that we plan on having a child, or when we actually get pregnant, my older relatives and my parents will constantly keep telling me how they always knew I couldnt resist it, when thats not what happened at all! I cant just say Mom, you telling me that my sister and I ruined your life messed up my perception of having children, but I finally worked through it! and expect nothing to happen, but I fear that Ill end up blurting it out due to sheer frustration. How can I handle this conversation maturely while not making things worse for those who actually dont want kids? Is there a script out there for this?

Irritated by the Inevitable

Dear Irritated,

Think of this as practice for after you have a child, when youll inevitably receive an onslaught of weird, unhelpful, judgmental, downright wrong commentary and feedback from loved ones: Just let your relatives say what theyre going to say. Imagine the words coming out of their mouth, floating up into the air, and then quickly evaporating without ever getting into your head. With minimal enthusiasm, say Thanks for sharing. Who knows, You may have a point, or just change the subject. Or if you wanted to get a little dig in, you could cheerfully say, You were right all along! I probably would have changed my mind sooner if Id known I could have a child without losing my identity. I wish someone would have told me or shown me. But alls well that ends well, right? Either way, you cant be responsible for overthrowing societys procreation expectations alone, and anyway, people are allowed to change their minds! Focus yours on building the family you want, and try to ignore the told you so noise.

Dear Prudence,

Im somehow 30 but having a problem I havent had since 17: having a crush on a straight friend. Last year, a grad school friend Tara moved back to my city, and we developed one of those ultra-close, more than slightly homoerotic friendships that I had in high school. I realized pretty quickly that I was becoming romantically attached, but I cant figure out how to take a step back to kill the crush without killing the friendship. Tara may or may not be actually straight (its very hard to tell), but either way shes publicly interested in men, and this is clearly not going anywhere healthy for me. My teen-self would cling to this until it imploded, but I know I can do better as an adult. How, though?

Trying to Get Untangled

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Dear Untangled,

Great news that Tara isnt actually in a relationship right now. In whatever way is easiest for youin a text message, while on a walk so you dont have to look her in the eye, right before you leave town for a while so you can have some space if it doesnt go wellyou have to talk to her. I know, its terrifying! But the advice I always give to straight men is that its weird and a little creepy to be friends with someone who you actually want more from, so I feel its only fair to apply that rule here. Im also hopeful about how it could turn out! Best case scenario: She returns your feelings, and you two live happily ever after. Second-best case scenario: Shes understanding and thanks you for telling her, and sharing your secret takes some of the steam out of your crush and it eventually fades. Worst case scenario: The friendship ends and you survive, knowing that it isnt sustainable to have a fake platonic relationship with someone when you arent actually satisfied by it.

I am six months sober and feeling healthier and happier than I have in decades. The first few months were challenging and emotional, but Im working with my sponsor and a therapist to continue to heal from my traumatic past. A friend of mine recently confronted me about feeling uncomfortable around me in my newfound sobriety. She said she feels as though I am too dependent on her for support and that she doesnt trust me

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Dear Prudence: My boyfriend's family tried to starve me. - Slate

It is said that when a woman has a baby her DNA changes with the creation blooming inside her. She is forever shifted and connected primordially to this new soul. I was 42 when I had my first, and only son. Nothing has gone as planned.

I have always wanted to be a mom but did not think it would happen for me. I married at 38, and we were not sure if a child was an option or if we even wanted to be parents. My mind was already damaged from all the years of social work. I knew exactly what was going on in the world and was unsure I wanted to bring a life into that energy.

We watched our friends families begin, and it was an amazing experience to see growth from the people I love. We knew it would be difficult because I was older and not in the best of health with obesity and some managed health issues. We began our attempts, which lasted about six months before we gave up and I accepted that it was not meant to be for us.

My husband and I decided to plan our future with travel and adventure so we booked our first trip into the woods for our anniversary in June. We would eat, drink, stay naked all day, create, and hang with mother nature to toast to our newly defined future.

I found out that I was pregnant a month before we were to embark on our woodsy celebration of being childfree creatives. When I told my husband, he could not speak and probably saw his, or my death, flash before his eyes. He was speechless, and unnerved. I was not afraid.

I have always wanted to accept life as it was presented to me, and to strive for blessings in whatever situation I found myself in, even if it meant not getting what I wanted or causing strife and challenge to the journey.

For us, our son Vincent, was simply meant to be.

Pregnancy came easy for me aside from some changes in my palate. I was monitored relentlessly for the high risks of being an older mother. For the first time in my life, I felt the feeling of not being alone in the most symbiotic way. This baby relied on me for everything and I spoke to him often a constant dialogue that continues now that hes 12. I shared my fears that I was too old to give him the energy needed for motherhood, and shared my excitement over who he would become. We were both evolving into a new world that was a family.

My scheduled and induced delivery was set and turned into the most unnatural experience of my life. I just wanted both of us to survive. I labored for three days, had different doctors probing around my nether regions, strange devices inserted that meant to force dilation, and chemicals to induce progression for natural delivery. I came to the solution that my cervix was petrified with age as I never progressed beyond four centimeters. It was a nightmare, and my doctor was leaving for vacation to Australia. It was evident that he had already left in his mind.

My husband was reaching critical mass on day three, ready to slam the doctor into the wall for the neglect, but the physician was already on a plane.

Vincents heartbeat weakened and a whole team of people rushed in, rolling me around like bread dough to get the heartbeat back. At that point, Id had enough, did what Ive had to do all of my life without fail and stood up for myself. I demanded to speak to the legal department about why the medical staff was not moving forward with surgery. My politeness left my soul. I found myself in a queue of women also waiting for their surgeries. I distinctly remember thinking this was like waiting at Jiffy Lube for an oil change.

Finally, Vincent came via emergency cesarean by an OB/GYN Id never met.

The only voice I heard throughout was the anesthesiologist. He got me past all the fears that I was not numb enough, and stayed with me through the surgery. I do not remember seeing my husbands face but I had seen many births before and knew he would be forever changed by the experience.

After the tiger cub scream that told the world a new soul was here, Vincent was shown to me like a puppet from behind the sheet separating my head from my body, and then whisked off for all the usual tests and documentation.

I knew at that moment something was going wrong inside me. I felt like I was suffocating. I shared my fears and the voice of the anesthesiologist continued to keep me calm. The countdown for stitches and instrument accountability filled the room. They were in a hurry and I wanted to get off that table and hold my baby.

After some time in recovery, I got my wish. I looked into his squinty eyes and laid him on my chest to make sure he remembered the body that housed him. I could feel myself change as I began healing and bonding with this new little person. My body, forever changed from the experience, was entering another, more perilous journey. This was just the tip of the iceberg.

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Round the Fire: A Love You Cant Defeat - Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO Weekly)

This story is part of a week-long series on reproduction, from prenatal testing to male birth control.

Are you pregnant yet? Dont you like kids? Well, its different when its your own child. Being a parent is the most important job in the world. Youre being a bit selfish. What if your parents had decided not to have you? Speaking of your parents, isnt it cruel to deny them the joy of grandchildren? Besides, who will take care of you when you get old? Youre just saying that because youre young. Youll change your mind. Your biological clock is ticking! What if your kid cured cancer?

If you dont have kids and dont want them, apologies: Youve heard this all before from well-meaning relatives, friends, coworkers, cashiers, taxi drivers, crossing guards. If you do have kids and youve said anything like the above, the childfree community would like to let you know that youre not being as thoughtful and caring as you (maybe) mean to be.

See, all of those questions and statements are forbidden by the bylaws of popular subreddit r/childfree, where theyre known as bingos: clich phrases parents say in an effort to convince the childfree that their decision is wrong, and that they are shirking their societal duty by not reproducing. The subreddit is a forum to vent about being antagonized by mombies and daddicts. More importantly, its a place for users to speak openly about choice, offer stories and support to others, and share advice about how to respond to bingos or convince doctors to sterilize them.

By now, some of you might be forming a hard nugget of disapproval for the snarky childfree redditors. Youre far from alone: Multiple sociological studies have found that voluntary childlessness often sparks immediate disdain and moral outrage, even from total strangers. The stigma knows no race, religion, gender, or border. Researchers have found similar negative judgements of childfree adults everywhere from India to Italy to Israel. (If youre having trouble imagining the hostility, try typing childlessor even better, childless millennialinto Google.)

Still, fertility rates in the United States (and everywhere else) continue to drop. And contrary to certain hypotheses, voluntarily childfree people seem to rarely regret their choice. r/childfree has nearly half a million subscribers, and similar communities exist on just about every social media platform.

For the childfree, the reasons to consider childfreedom extend beyond baby hatred, questions of bodily autonomy, or suboptimal finances. Concerns go broader, ranging from the economy to politics to climate. We basically have 12 years until the planet is an apocalyptic hellscape, says Justine, a longtime r/childfree member in her early thirties. We aren't as lucky as our parents, and they seem to have no idea how much more difficult it is to get by for us than it was for them.

When responding to crusading parents who might try to convince them out of their stance, many childfree people use prepared scripts, formed by years of entertaining the same inquiries. They know theyre working against ingrained biases: The childfree are keenly aware that they are prefigured in the eyes of most as a band of entitled, disrespectful millennials, trading tradition for self-interest.

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'Why Don't You Want Kids?' 'Because Apocalypse!' | WIRED

In recent years, Ive heard members of the older generation complain that it is no longer considered acceptable to ask a younger person whether or not they have children. Its true that this isnt polite, especially during small talk with a stranger. They may as well be saying: So, tell me all about the inner workings of your/your partners uterus.

Personally, I used to dread this question, even more so when it was framed as, Do you have a family? Of course I do, I just havent birthed any of them. Peoples feelings on procreation are often complicated, sometimes painful, and always deeply personal. In the context of increasing panic about the birthrate, the question of having children or not, as it may be is even more loaded, because it intersects with so many other factors in our lives: health, finances, employment status, gender or sexuality, housing, relationship status, and so on. These are not things you necessarily want to delve into over the course of a casual conversation.

Or, perhaps revolutionary as it might sound you simply dont want to have children, and its your right to not want to discuss that or be interrogated about that.

The fact that the word childless seems to be going out of fashion is largely to be celebrated. It positions having a child as the default, and has the power to be intensely wounding. As a word, it carries with it a feeling of lacking, when that is certainly not everyones experience. This stigma is why the term childfree is increasingly becoming the default in media reporting after being popularised on internet messageboards in recent years.

I was interested in how people without children may feel about that, so Ive been asking them on- and offline whether they see the use of childfree as an improvement. People who had chosen not to have children generally preferred to be referred to as childfree, but those whose childlessness was involuntary, due to infertility, bereavement or life circumstances, felt erased by it. Many complained that both terms positioned having children as the default, when it shouldnt be (Im just a woman living life, said one respondent). Why define by deficit? Indeed, Id say the overwhelming majority disliked both words, with one being seen as stigmatising and the other gleeful and nasty in its implication that parents somehow need liberating.

Others took issue with the term childfree because it has become the chosen moniker for an online community with a too often misogynistic undercurrent, according to several I spoke to. I checked out a few subreddits, and luckily my skin is as thick as rhinos hide after more than a decade of newspaper journalism, because some of what I read was pretty unpleasant, including several threads about people finding pregnant women disgusting and how looking at them makes them feel sick. Sobering reading for someone who was pregnant at the time.

After reading these forums, and then cleansing my palate with several videos of babies and kittens interacting, I can understand why a person without children may not want to be associated with a community that often expresses strong dislike, even hate, for children and their parents. I can understand why communities for those who have difficult feelings about pregnancy (including phobias) need to exist, but some comments were profoundly misogynistic.

After all, we are all part of a collective and a community, and not having your own children doesnt mean that your life is childfree, and that the people you love havent made a different choice to your own. There are many ways to care for children, from being an uncle or godparent to fostering, step-parenting, volunteering or working with them. Perhaps we need to focus less on the act of having a child and more on the act of parenting.

Theres also the fact that, for many people, including myself before I became a mother, we are neither childless nor childfree, but hover somewhere in between or oscillate between the two. I have had days where I have spent time with a baby and felt desperately, profoundly childless, only to take to the dancefloor that evening after a dangerous fourth martini and feel blissfully, hedonistically childfree. Perhaps thats one reason why when absolutely necessarily doesnt have children is the kindest, most neutral descriptor we can hope for. Though we can also hope to be moving away from ones parenting status needing to be defined at all, especially for women, who still face this question far more frequently than men. Language matters, and as ever it often says more about us and our assumptions than we realise.

What is working: My response to the mother of all impertinent of questions has often proved very effective, so I thought I might share it here. Thats a very personal question, I reply, looking the querent dead in the eye. It usually has the desired effect.

What isnt: At risk of causing paroxysms of revulsion among the childfree Reddit community from being forced to imagine the following scene, I had the most appalling bath while heavily pregnant: lukewarm, as medically recommended (I used my husbands homebrew thermometer to check it was below 37C). The baby first kicked to the Adagietto in Mahlers Fifth, so I thought Id try the whole symphony, not realising how bellicose and bombastic it was. Are you OK in there? my husband asked, as I sat in a cold bath listening to a cacophony of trumpets. You sound like you should be piloting a spitfire.

See the rest here:

Whether youre childless or childfree, you shouldnt have to talk ...