A new book has detailed the many reasons women are increasingly choosing not to have children – but it’s insights have left me wondering, yet again, why people with kids are so obsessed with finding out why women like me choose to be child-free.
“What Are Children For?” It’s a divisive book title, isn’t it? But it’s a question I’m always asking myself as someone who is child-free by choice. And it seems that millions of women are asking themselves the same thing, and finding increasingly lacking answers, as birth rates across the western world have been on a downward trajectory since the 1970s.
It’s a phenomenon Anastasia Berg explored in her and Rachel Wiseman’s new book, What Are Children For? On Ambivalence and Choice. Throughout the book, Berg, who is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of California, explores the factors that have led to the increasingly popular child-free by choice movement.
Speaking to the The Gazette, Berg shared some of the reasons the women they spoke to gave for being child-free. “We look at material concerns, like the difficulty of finding romantic partners with whom to start a family. We look at ethical concerns, like climate change. But we also look at concerns that women, in particular, feel, which are often the types of feminist concerns reconciling the demands of motherhood with female empowerment and a woman’s desire to lead a fulfilling life.”
She also explains that the idea of ‘loosing your identity’ to motherhood is a factor, with many people not wanting to leave behind their pre-child life to become a parent. She also cites a focus on career as another reason. But, for me, none of these quite explain what I feel – and I definitely don’t need an entire book to spell it out for anyone.
My decision not to have children is not a practical one. It’s not a case of ‘I’d love to have kids but…’ It’s simply a feeling, deep in my gut, that I don’t want kids.
Just as some women know they want to become a mother, I know that I don’t. Of course, I could cite the cost of childcare, the difficulty of finding flexible work to meet the demands of motherhood, or the mental load I don’t want to put on my plate as reasons, but the decision is not rooted in those things at all.
If I really wanted kids, it wouldn’t matter that climate change will impact their lives, or that I’d change as a person after having them, or that my work may suffer for them – I would find a workaround to have them and fulfil that desire if I wanted to. I still wouldn’t want children if they’d cost me nothing, if I could have a nanny employed 24/7 to care for them, or if I had some promise they’d grow up to be a millionaire without a care in the world. But I don’t want kids, plain and simple, and finding reasons to explain why, beyond that simple statement, doesn’t matter to me.
That reason isn’t listed in the book. Perhaps that’s because, even in exploring the child-free movement, the authors, who are both mothers, conclude by telling child-free women to ignore their wants, leave their body autonomy behind, and have children anyway.
In words that mirror those my mum recites at me each time she’s reminded I’m not giving her grandkids, after listing the completely reasonable and understandable reasons stopping women from having kids, the book’s description reads, “Neither our personal nor collective failures ought to prevent us from embracing the fundamental goodness of human life – not only in the present but, in choosing to have children, in the future.”
So while Berg told The Gazette that people need to consider whether they want to ‘take a direct part in ushering in the next generation, bringing light into the world, nurturing and educating it’ when asking themselves whether they do or don’t want to have kids, I’m asking you to wonder, “Do I want to have kids or don’t I?” You’ll know the answer and you don’t need to justify why either way.
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