Wow. Here's another article you've written that almost feels was conjured up by a magic algorithm based on what's been going on in my life lately. I wasn't sold on the idea of having kids, and yet my wife and I recently discovered that we're going to be parents sometime in December. I've been going through mental warfare playing out the decisions in my life that have led me to this point, and to the fact that a future without children is now closed to me, and how I really feel about it. So naturally my eyes were glued to the screen as I read this. Great piece.
Huge questions. Thanks for the great comment and for reading.
And congratulations!!
For what it's worth, we were planning on having a kid and then when it happened, we were totally confused about the prospect. :) Good luck and enjoy the ride.
Thank you for this post, Kate. As we have discussed before, these are all ideas that interest me and my research into women. I cannot - and have never been able to - understand the need for others to get involved in other people's life choices or relationships. I have heard relatives "question" why a couple hasn't had children yet, and I don't get the "selfish" tag at all! What could be less selfish than choosing (if it is a choice) not to being a child into the world, for whatever reason. It must be so painful if you also want children and are subjected to this type of questioning. As always, you have made me think this morning!
Regarding books, Sheila Heti's 'Motherhood' might be of interest.
You make so much SENSE. And I guess people are just projecting, but I really wish they would think more carefully about it. I guess this isn't a topic that typically comes up in school; and then how many people after stop debating and seeking out different viewpoints? I don't mean to blame; I just wonder how we can create better dialogues.
And wow, that books looks great. Kate, you are filling up my to-read shelf!! (and that's not a bad thing)
I'm not really sure where to start in typing out this comment and so I'm just going to ramble through this whilst holding back some emotion. This article is important to me and I'm glad you've written about it. I've read your others in this series, if it's OK to call them that, but didn't leave any comments because, well, I couldn't directly relate I suppose.
I write here under a pseudonym (although it's probably not hard to work out who I am) and so I feel more comfortable penning this down. My wife and I are childless, though not by choice. After turning 40 this Feb, I've spent a lot of this year wondering whether I will be OK if we remain that way. I know that we, as a couple, will be totally OK, but I just mean what impact it might have on us in the future on wondering on the children we never had, if it eventuates to remain that way. All the while all of our friends (the vast majority, anyway) and siblings have families. You start to question everything, then you start to question whether it's for a reason, etc etc. It can be hard.
Family haven't helped in piling on pressure without understanding circumstance, and we haven't been open to them because it has been something that we've felt is private between us. I wish they could have been (would be) more understanding, especially for my wife, because of course she feels that burden, despite the fact it is shared.
It's very comforting to know there are more and more discussions and considerations about growing older into communities that share being childless or childfree or whatever ends up being the most appropriate term to use (I've never actually considered what term to use, but your post made me stop and think). I really appreciate you sharing some stories, too. It was/is awful what the media did to Jennifer Anniston. I had no idea about Michelle Yeoh (I didn't watch her Oscar speech. So happy she won, though).
Anyway, thank you for this article. I appreciate it and you for writing it.
Thank you for such a personal and thoughtful response, Nathan. [No, I don't know who you really are. :) ]
Questioning our lives' directions are difficult enough for ourselves without others putting pressure or judging, often projecting their own insecurities or ignorance. I'm so sorry you're going through this experience. It's easy to say we shouldn't care what other people think, but of course it's not that easy. At one time in my life, I had a fairly nasty sister-in-law who spoke about me not having children (at the time) in front of me in another language (which I understood, but she excluded me from the conversation) and a colleague who asked if I knew "what my period was for." (??) I know many have it worse. So, I don't know your experience or how it feels at 40 (I had my kid at 38), but that kind of thing made me feel it is something that maybe maybe maybe with more talk can bring more compassion and kindness.
I'm so happy there's at least some comfort in this article. I guess I always try to think of writing helping us move toward truth (not that I usually know what that truth is), so I'm really pleased it's had a little of that purpose today.
I can say that becoming gentle on yourself about childlessness will happen with time, if you allow it. I grieved so much until I was around 50. Of course there are times when I wonder. But I can't change it, and everytime I hear some messed up kids story, I remind myself that I also may have dodged a bullet (for me!)
Thank you for sharing this comment. It isn't often that we hear the male point of view (as Kate's brilliant piece points out) and your honesty here is both poignant and refreshing.
I would like to use this opportunity to shill my friend Maxine Trump's documentary To Kid or Not to Kid, where she looked at her circumstantial childlessness and made documented her decision whether to have children to be child free. Basically making it her choice either way.
In the course of the documentary she looks into child free groups and talks to people who can't have children to get their perspectives on what it means to live without having children.
Thought-provoking post, Kate. I never really thought about childlessness in relation to men, so this was an interesting read. On women who are childless, Victoria Smith in her recent book Hags talks about the weight of the 3 'F's that women live under in our patriarchal society, without which they are demonised: fuckable, feminine and fertile. Once you're past childbearing age, you're none of those things, and if you don't have offspring you're also useless. It's a fascinating book, which has given me a lot to think about in my middle age.
Sounds fascinating and I can see this 3 Fs already before reading. Really could use an English library here...so many great recs from my fellow writer/readers. Does Hags leave hope to reject the labels or is it rather dire? I sometimes feel there is something liberating in moving beyond objectification. Although it would be better not to have to move past it. And then what does one need to be able to stand on one’s own, so to speak. Not sure I’m making sense. And the idea of being left behind in society is appalling. I think there can be a lot of isolation especially for my female friends who don’t have kids despite all the wonderful things they are offering society (even just by being themselves). I shall read and get back to you for a conversation!
I love stories about childless women. City of Joy by Elizabeth Gilbert comes to mind. When I was going through IVF in my late 30s, I would have loved all this talk around childlessness. All I had in Australia were IVF forums which were full of women who were on their 2nd and 3rd babies. It was terrible. I googled for years just to find more women who knew what I was going through. Today, I see this conversation opening up, and that means that going people will begin to question what they want. This conversation should not be about the childless. It should be about why people choose to be parents. Every choice is valid. Including the one to stop trying.
Thanks so much for sharing your story, Jo. It’s such a shame it was hard for you to find people to talk to at the time of IVF.
The Gilbert novel is fantastic and I thought of it a week or so ago wondering why I hadn’t mentioned it here, so THANKS :) She is a phenomenal writer I think many judge purely on Eat Pray Love.
Yeah it's incredible how things have changed in the last 15 years. Social media has actually done one good thing and that is to help childless people, women in particular, find their tribe. I have made wonderful friends through my Facebook childless group.
That's wonderful to hear about the group. Every time I think of leaving FB, I think of a couple groups I'm a part of there that I wouldn't want to let go.
It reminds me of one online encounter I had with an older Australian feminist academic maybe 10 years ago. She'd never realised there are women who don't want children. I was gobsmacked. All the classes she'd taught, all the women she'd encountered, and she assumed everyone of them was the same as her. I told her first and second wave feminists such as herself made it more possible for women like me to make choices, including the choice to not have children and to cope if it's not a choice. But this life was always possible (if more difficult) in earlier times. Like mountain climbing. Just because I have legs, and can move them doesn't mean I am required to use them to climb Everest. Similarly, just because my body perhaps could give birth, it doesn't require me to do so. Also, plenty of people without working legs do make it up mountains and become parents. I've never been particularly interested in Everest or kids. I shouldn't be demonised by society nor ignored by policy makers for either situation.
However, imagine if having children was more like mountain climbing, where mountains are protected sacred spaces, and people making the climb required training, physically, mentally, and spiritually so as to make it up and back and also to value the achievement. Imagine a world where all children were precious and cared for by willing, capable parents in a loving society that made space for every person to follow their goals. Imagine the freedoms we'd all enjoy if people were celebrated for only making the climb if they really wanted to, after being informed of everything it will take to get there. And those unable or uninterested in mountain climbing are supported and equally valued. Perhaps that way children wouldn't be living in rubbish heaps or murdered in schools, and those without children wouldn't be criticised or questioned. Because I have plenty of questions for people with children who hurt them. So maybe, until globally we become a place that values children (no child will live in poverty by 1990 said one Australian PM, and lol that didn't happen) we need to stop with the hate and blame towards any one not having kids.
Thank you for such a rich comment. Your response could turn into a poignant short story or film! How shocking about the professor. I think all the connections you make her are apt. All these “problems” I agree are from this matrix of needing to take care of people. Listened to a great Dr Chatterjee related to this recently.
Thanks again for taking the time to share this idea with us.
Thank you for such a thoughtful article, Kate. As a childless woman, and having had two cat companions for nineteen years, I’ve encountered questions and presumptions. But, quite often, there isn’t just one reason why you don’t have a child, but rather a series of reasons. I was actually first asked why I didn’t have a child at the age of eighteen (at a family party). But, I’m so impressed by the parents I know. They are just amazing!
I like how you say the “series of reasons.” I imagine families - whatever they may look like - come from a matrix of choice and chance. Thank you, likewise, for the thoughtful comment and for reading.
I have so enjoyed your series on parenting. This subject can make people feel very isolated, whatever their situation, and it is so important to see this subject treated in a rational manner. I will just summarise my view: 1 Now that women have control over their fertility, it is their choice and their choice alone as to whether they have babies. 2 A man also has the right to choose whether to become a father and should not be pressured into it. 3 The concept of selfishness in this context is irrelevant. The decision is too important for the individual to be distracted by the expectations of others. 3 Questioning someone else's choice on this complex and personal decision is an impertinence.
I'm not keen on either the term "childless" or "child free". They imply either a lack, or a freedom from something, which I think commodifies the child. They are also imprecise. You may not have given birth but be surrounded by children on a daily basis for whatever reason.
Does it have any value to categorise people in this way? I think that might be the key. We like to categorise people in an attempt to make sense of them, and I think that human beings are just too complicated to be reduced to an assessment of their reproductive capacities/inclinations, or indeed any other decisions they make in life. To live is to be presented with a series of decisions: we decide, we move forward. I don't tend to regret major decisions because I know I will have made the best decision I could at the time based on the available data. Whatever you decide there will be advantages and disadvantages, so I think the best thing to do is to appreciate the good bits of the decision you have made and keep moving forward.
I've just looked up The Four Agreements and that looks like a good read. I hadn't heard of Chelsea Handler. The links in your article don't seem to be working for me at the moment so I will find her on YouTube. Thanks for the tips! I'm prepping another article about censorship. It's a hot topic at the moment!
Excellent insight and points here, Jules. Thanks so much for this comment. I also like your reflection on the problematic labeling.
Related/unrelated, the book The Four Agreements sort of comes to many of the conclusions you have here but in broader terms. It really changed the way I felt about people's reactions to things.
Wow. Here's another article you've written that almost feels was conjured up by a magic algorithm based on what's been going on in my life lately. I wasn't sold on the idea of having kids, and yet my wife and I recently discovered that we're going to be parents sometime in December. I've been going through mental warfare playing out the decisions in my life that have led me to this point, and to the fact that a future without children is now closed to me, and how I really feel about it. So naturally my eyes were glued to the screen as I read this. Great piece.
Huge questions. Thanks for the great comment and for reading.
And congratulations!!
For what it's worth, we were planning on having a kid and then when it happened, we were totally confused about the prospect. :) Good luck and enjoy the ride.
Congratulations, Cameron 😊
I hope the mental warfare dies down!
Life's not so bad really lol. Thanks, Nathan.
Just another example of why these open conversations (without judgement) are so important!
Thank you for this post, Kate. As we have discussed before, these are all ideas that interest me and my research into women. I cannot - and have never been able to - understand the need for others to get involved in other people's life choices or relationships. I have heard relatives "question" why a couple hasn't had children yet, and I don't get the "selfish" tag at all! What could be less selfish than choosing (if it is a choice) not to being a child into the world, for whatever reason. It must be so painful if you also want children and are subjected to this type of questioning. As always, you have made me think this morning!
Regarding books, Sheila Heti's 'Motherhood' might be of interest.
You make so much SENSE. And I guess people are just projecting, but I really wish they would think more carefully about it. I guess this isn't a topic that typically comes up in school; and then how many people after stop debating and seeking out different viewpoints? I don't mean to blame; I just wonder how we can create better dialogues.
And wow, that books looks great. Kate, you are filling up my to-read shelf!! (and that's not a bad thing)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/07/sheila-heti-wrestles-with-a-big-decision-in-motherhood
Ha! Thanks, Kate : )
Sanity! Thank you Kate!
I wish all people shared your views, Kate. 🙏
I'm not really sure where to start in typing out this comment and so I'm just going to ramble through this whilst holding back some emotion. This article is important to me and I'm glad you've written about it. I've read your others in this series, if it's OK to call them that, but didn't leave any comments because, well, I couldn't directly relate I suppose.
I write here under a pseudonym (although it's probably not hard to work out who I am) and so I feel more comfortable penning this down. My wife and I are childless, though not by choice. After turning 40 this Feb, I've spent a lot of this year wondering whether I will be OK if we remain that way. I know that we, as a couple, will be totally OK, but I just mean what impact it might have on us in the future on wondering on the children we never had, if it eventuates to remain that way. All the while all of our friends (the vast majority, anyway) and siblings have families. You start to question everything, then you start to question whether it's for a reason, etc etc. It can be hard.
Family haven't helped in piling on pressure without understanding circumstance, and we haven't been open to them because it has been something that we've felt is private between us. I wish they could have been (would be) more understanding, especially for my wife, because of course she feels that burden, despite the fact it is shared.
It's very comforting to know there are more and more discussions and considerations about growing older into communities that share being childless or childfree or whatever ends up being the most appropriate term to use (I've never actually considered what term to use, but your post made me stop and think). I really appreciate you sharing some stories, too. It was/is awful what the media did to Jennifer Anniston. I had no idea about Michelle Yeoh (I didn't watch her Oscar speech. So happy she won, though).
Anyway, thank you for this article. I appreciate it and you for writing it.
Thank you for such a personal and thoughtful response, Nathan. [No, I don't know who you really are. :) ]
Questioning our lives' directions are difficult enough for ourselves without others putting pressure or judging, often projecting their own insecurities or ignorance. I'm so sorry you're going through this experience. It's easy to say we shouldn't care what other people think, but of course it's not that easy. At one time in my life, I had a fairly nasty sister-in-law who spoke about me not having children (at the time) in front of me in another language (which I understood, but she excluded me from the conversation) and a colleague who asked if I knew "what my period was for." (??) I know many have it worse. So, I don't know your experience or how it feels at 40 (I had my kid at 38), but that kind of thing made me feel it is something that maybe maybe maybe with more talk can bring more compassion and kindness.
I'm so happy there's at least some comfort in this article. I guess I always try to think of writing helping us move toward truth (not that I usually know what that truth is), so I'm really pleased it's had a little of that purpose today.
Oh Kate, how could they be so cruel and heartless?!! I'm so sorry.
Thank you for your kind words. Means a lot. And thanks again for posting this article 🙏
I can say that becoming gentle on yourself about childlessness will happen with time, if you allow it. I grieved so much until I was around 50. Of course there are times when I wonder. But I can't change it, and everytime I hear some messed up kids story, I remind myself that I also may have dodged a bullet (for me!)
Thanks for this Jo. My apologies it's taken me so long to see this, it seemed to get buried in my inbox.
I really appreciate the thoughts 🙏
Thank you for sharing this comment. It isn't often that we hear the male point of view (as Kate's brilliant piece points out) and your honesty here is both poignant and refreshing.
Thank you Kate. I almost held back on commenting, but I think I think I needed to write something, if only for myself.
This really hit home. Thank you for including a male perspective on this.
You’re very welcome. 💙
Sounds like the topic could use a lot more discussion as well as art that explores it.
I would like to use this opportunity to shill my friend Maxine Trump's documentary To Kid or Not to Kid, where she looked at her circumstantial childlessness and made documented her decision whether to have children to be child free. Basically making it her choice either way.
In the course of the documentary she looks into child free groups and talks to people who can't have children to get their perspectives on what it means to live without having children.
https://www.tokidornottokid.com/
Thanks so much for sharing. Trailer is amazing. And I see it’s available where I am in Switzerland. Hope
Others will check it out. Many thanks.
Thought-provoking post, Kate. I never really thought about childlessness in relation to men, so this was an interesting read. On women who are childless, Victoria Smith in her recent book Hags talks about the weight of the 3 'F's that women live under in our patriarchal society, without which they are demonised: fuckable, feminine and fertile. Once you're past childbearing age, you're none of those things, and if you don't have offspring you're also useless. It's a fascinating book, which has given me a lot to think about in my middle age.
Sounds fascinating and I can see this 3 Fs already before reading. Really could use an English library here...so many great recs from my fellow writer/readers. Does Hags leave hope to reject the labels or is it rather dire? I sometimes feel there is something liberating in moving beyond objectification. Although it would be better not to have to move past it. And then what does one need to be able to stand on one’s own, so to speak. Not sure I’m making sense. And the idea of being left behind in society is appalling. I think there can be a lot of isolation especially for my female friends who don’t have kids despite all the wonderful things they are offering society (even just by being themselves). I shall read and get back to you for a conversation!
I love stories about childless women. City of Joy by Elizabeth Gilbert comes to mind. When I was going through IVF in my late 30s, I would have loved all this talk around childlessness. All I had in Australia were IVF forums which were full of women who were on their 2nd and 3rd babies. It was terrible. I googled for years just to find more women who knew what I was going through. Today, I see this conversation opening up, and that means that going people will begin to question what they want. This conversation should not be about the childless. It should be about why people choose to be parents. Every choice is valid. Including the one to stop trying.
Thanks so much for sharing your story, Jo. It’s such a shame it was hard for you to find people to talk to at the time of IVF.
The Gilbert novel is fantastic and I thought of it a week or so ago wondering why I hadn’t mentioned it here, so THANKS :) She is a phenomenal writer I think many judge purely on Eat Pray Love.
Yeah it's incredible how things have changed in the last 15 years. Social media has actually done one good thing and that is to help childless people, women in particular, find their tribe. I have made wonderful friends through my Facebook childless group.
That's wonderful to hear about the group. Every time I think of leaving FB, I think of a couple groups I'm a part of there that I wouldn't want to let go.
It reminds me of one online encounter I had with an older Australian feminist academic maybe 10 years ago. She'd never realised there are women who don't want children. I was gobsmacked. All the classes she'd taught, all the women she'd encountered, and she assumed everyone of them was the same as her. I told her first and second wave feminists such as herself made it more possible for women like me to make choices, including the choice to not have children and to cope if it's not a choice. But this life was always possible (if more difficult) in earlier times. Like mountain climbing. Just because I have legs, and can move them doesn't mean I am required to use them to climb Everest. Similarly, just because my body perhaps could give birth, it doesn't require me to do so. Also, plenty of people without working legs do make it up mountains and become parents. I've never been particularly interested in Everest or kids. I shouldn't be demonised by society nor ignored by policy makers for either situation.
However, imagine if having children was more like mountain climbing, where mountains are protected sacred spaces, and people making the climb required training, physically, mentally, and spiritually so as to make it up and back and also to value the achievement. Imagine a world where all children were precious and cared for by willing, capable parents in a loving society that made space for every person to follow their goals. Imagine the freedoms we'd all enjoy if people were celebrated for only making the climb if they really wanted to, after being informed of everything it will take to get there. And those unable or uninterested in mountain climbing are supported and equally valued. Perhaps that way children wouldn't be living in rubbish heaps or murdered in schools, and those without children wouldn't be criticised or questioned. Because I have plenty of questions for people with children who hurt them. So maybe, until globally we become a place that values children (no child will live in poverty by 1990 said one Australian PM, and lol that didn't happen) we need to stop with the hate and blame towards any one not having kids.
Thank you for such a rich comment. Your response could turn into a poignant short story or film! How shocking about the professor. I think all the connections you make her are apt. All these “problems” I agree are from this matrix of needing to take care of people. Listened to a great Dr Chatterjee related to this recently.
Thanks again for taking the time to share this idea with us.
Thank you for sharing these reflections and bringing up the topic. I belong to one of these groups and I just wrote about it today. https://open.substack.com/pub/acabinetofcuriosities/p/you-know-that-scene-from-alien?r=bu9kr&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thank you for sharing such a touching and courageous story with us. Agree these things need to be talked about more!
Thank you for such a thoughtful article, Kate. As a childless woman, and having had two cat companions for nineteen years, I’ve encountered questions and presumptions. But, quite often, there isn’t just one reason why you don’t have a child, but rather a series of reasons. I was actually first asked why I didn’t have a child at the age of eighteen (at a family party). But, I’m so impressed by the parents I know. They are just amazing!
18?! Wow.
I like how you say the “series of reasons.” I imagine families - whatever they may look like - come from a matrix of choice and chance. Thank you, likewise, for the thoughtful comment and for reading.
I have so enjoyed your series on parenting. This subject can make people feel very isolated, whatever their situation, and it is so important to see this subject treated in a rational manner. I will just summarise my view: 1 Now that women have control over their fertility, it is their choice and their choice alone as to whether they have babies. 2 A man also has the right to choose whether to become a father and should not be pressured into it. 3 The concept of selfishness in this context is irrelevant. The decision is too important for the individual to be distracted by the expectations of others. 3 Questioning someone else's choice on this complex and personal decision is an impertinence.
I'm not keen on either the term "childless" or "child free". They imply either a lack, or a freedom from something, which I think commodifies the child. They are also imprecise. You may not have given birth but be surrounded by children on a daily basis for whatever reason.
Does it have any value to categorise people in this way? I think that might be the key. We like to categorise people in an attempt to make sense of them, and I think that human beings are just too complicated to be reduced to an assessment of their reproductive capacities/inclinations, or indeed any other decisions they make in life. To live is to be presented with a series of decisions: we decide, we move forward. I don't tend to regret major decisions because I know I will have made the best decision I could at the time based on the available data. Whatever you decide there will be advantages and disadvantages, so I think the best thing to do is to appreciate the good bits of the decision you have made and keep moving forward.
PS in regards to Handler, I also think of your great post on the importance of comedians' free speech!
I've just looked up The Four Agreements and that looks like a good read. I hadn't heard of Chelsea Handler. The links in your article don't seem to be working for me at the moment so I will find her on YouTube. Thanks for the tips! I'm prepping another article about censorship. It's a hot topic at the moment!
Excellent insight and points here, Jules. Thanks so much for this comment. I also like your reflection on the problematic labeling.
Related/unrelated, the book The Four Agreements sort of comes to many of the conclusions you have here but in broader terms. It really changed the way I felt about people's reactions to things.