Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 07, 2020 | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 12,432 |
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Summer
If I had a kid, it would check a box: “Oh, she’s a mom, done. We know what she is. Done for the next 25 years.”
Whenever people can put you in a box – this race, gender, this ethnicity, this sexual orientation – it makes everything less threatening to them. “Mom” is just one more of those boxes, one that is very safe. You know what they do, you know their roles, she’s safe over there in that box.
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A colleague recommends I talk to Frances Kissling, president of The Center for Health, Ethics and Social Policy, former president of Catholics for Choice and an activist who has campaigned across reproductive rights, religion and women’s rights since the 1970s.
When we talk, she’s in Mexico co-teaching reproductive health ethics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She has a class coming up on children and family that will explore all the questions I’m interested in: should you have children? Why should you have children? Do you need reasons? What rights do children who are going to be brought into the world have?
Kissling knew she never wanted to have children, and was sterilized at 33. At 76, it’s a choice she’s never regretted.
For her, it’s a mistake to ignore the world around us when thinking about starting a family. “Many friends and I feel a certain relief that we are not leaving behind, in this world, children to suffer with climate change, lack of water, some of the dystopian views of where the world will go in the future.”
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I arrived very late to owning my lack of maternal desire. I was so anxious about the stigma associated with not wanting kids – so afraid of confronting further evidence that I was “selfish”, or garnering the pity and shame that had been foisted upon my older cousins who didn’t have them – that between the end of my first marriage at 26 and meeting my current husband at 38, I avoided even really asking myself whether I did want them.
Now and then, though, I would secretly entertain my biggest fears: If I were to make babies, might I feel trapped, as my mother seemed to? Would I perpetuate a family legacy of daughters feeling insufficiently mothered – as I had, as my mother had, and as her mother had – passing down to future generations the effects of trauma that began with my great-grandmother’s untimely death? Would I wind up burdening and traumatizing my children with my emotional needs in a parent-child role reversal, as both my parents did?
Then, ten years ago, as I was approaching 44, I underwent a hysterectomy that not only provided relief from a painful condition called adenomyosis; it also helped me come to terms with my lack of interest in motherhood. Ironically, my husband and I had been pursuing fertility treatment right up until my diagnosis. When we learned I needed an operation that would effectively obliterate the possibility of child-bearing, I was relieved. My husband was, too.
She's pretty pro-breeding though: "When I visited Sanjana a few weeks after her son was born, we talked about how the government should provide services for disabled and chronically ill people to help them parent and how she was lucky to have the means to pay for support and a great partner."Quote
“I want six kids,” my sister said once while holding my brother. I remember thinking, “Maybe I want none”.
While I hadn’t wavered much in my belief that kids weren’t right for me, there was always the possibility I’d change my mind. But after being injured two years ago, it didn’t feel like a choice anymore.
Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 07, 2020 | Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 3,842 |
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Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 07, 2020 | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 3,978 |
Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 07, 2020 | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 12,432 |
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bell_flower
Not stellar examples by any means:
#1 is a fencesitter
#2 did fertility treatments and was "relieved" by hysterectomy. This does not sound like a person who was determined to be CF
#3 sounds CL for physical reasons and is a Breeder Pleaser.
Granted, in this world of crazy people and internet mobs, I would not out myself as CF in print, but I would be anonymous. (but then again, that could still be leaked)
But it seems like they are not looking all that hard for real CF people.
Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 07, 2020 | Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 2,060 |
Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 08, 2020 | Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 2,363 |
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yurble
Everyone wants to disavow the ideas of not liking kids, and of thinking that other people shouldn't breed, either, because neither is seen as likeable to the general public.
Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 08, 2020 | Registered: 12 years ago Posts: 5,622 |
Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 08, 2020 | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 12,432 |
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Ann Neumann
It takes a lot of money, discipline and medical access to not have children. There’s also some hell to pay for it, even today: namely, the too-personal inquiries (our female bodies are never our own), the loss of social status (mothers are the moral future of the nation) and the steady blows to our respectability that society gleefully lands.
Childlessness is almost as radical today as it’s always been, a fact that belies the numbers: in 2018, 15% of women between 45 and 50 were childless.
As I’ve aged – I’ll turn 52 this year – my appreciation for the liberties I’ve chosen has only grown. Like a free agent, I’ve always revelled in my actions without restrictions, my decisions without ramifications. I could move to the other side of the country, then move back; spend three months making sandwiches in a cafe in Alaska; throw all my savings into a furniture store for a short year; then cut and run with a backpack across the African continent for another.
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Once I figured out that if I didn’t dirty the dishes I didn’t have to wash them, I was liberated from unfair and unequal domestic responsibilities. It’s much harder to get out from under domestic labor when you have children, your husband earns more than you do, and daycare costs more than you would earn at a job.
Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 08, 2020 | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 12,432 |
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When I was 15 my family moved to Saudi Arabia. I was traumatized into feminism. As soon as we moved there, I felt like I had been sentenced to a lifetime in prison. So I vowed to myself at 16 that I would never allow myself to be in a situation that I could not walk away from. Obviously, children cannot be walked away from. So without actually saying “I’m never going to have children” I had already vowed to myself not to have children. In my mind, I have to be free enough that I am able to walk away anytime because being in Saudi Arabia was so suffocating and stifling.
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I met someone else who said they didn’t want kids and immediately I said" “Wait, you don’t want kids? You can choose that?” When I realized that was an option and also that I didn't want kids either it took a while for me to embrace it because I was afraid I wouldn’t be accepted or respected by my friends and family or I wouldn’t be able to find a partner who wanted the same thing. I’ve been with the same partner now for four years so it worked out.
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When I told my parents, they initially went silent and changed the subject and wouldn’t talk to me about it. Eventually, they sat me down and we had an intervention. They said: “I’m sure you’ll change your mind.” That’s usually the reaction I get. “Well, you’ll change your mind later.”
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I’m Hispanic and come from a traditional Christian family; those two elements meant that I got asked repeatedly growing up and well into adulthood when I was going to have children. We’d be at a wedding or funeral, and they would be like, “Mija, are you married? Do you have kids?” "When are you going to have kids?" I’d say no, they would look at me with disappointment and say, "Sorry." I would reply with usually a smart-ass response and say: "Well, I didn't want to end up like your kids and have multiple kids from multiple guys." They wouldn't know what to say. The older I got the more I felt confident in my responses and decisions. I began not caring what my family thought. I was carving my own path.
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Do I think I could be a parent? Yes! But is it something I want for my life? No. I think people need to understand that it's OK to choose to not have children. It shouldn't require an apology. It does not make me less of a person or woman for not conforming to society. Many people equate having children to joy. I have joy. I have happiness. I have a great life, a life that is fulfilling. My joy comes from my family, friend and the adventurous life I lead.
Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 08, 2020 | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 12,432 |
Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 08, 2020 | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 12,432 |
Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 08, 2020 | Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 3,708 |
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kittehpeoples
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yurble
Everyone wants to disavow the ideas of not liking kids, and of thinking that other people shouldn't breed, either, because neither is seen as likeable to the general public.
"Don't get me wrong, I love kids!" is fucking tiring. And defensive. We have nothing to be defensive about, even if breeders think we should, and everybody who follows up "I'm childfree" with "but I love kids!" is undermining all of us. These CF (or CL?) people who insist how much they love children sometimes seem disingenuous to me, too. I mean, if you love kids that freaking much, why don't you want any?
Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 08, 2020 | Registered: 11 years ago Posts: 3,576 |
Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 08, 2020 | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 12,432 |
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freya
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kittehpeoples
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yurble
Everyone wants to disavow the ideas of not liking kids, and of thinking that other people shouldn't breed, either, because neither is seen as likeable to the general public.
"Don't get me wrong, I love kids!" is fucking tiring. And defensive. We have nothing to be defensive about, even if breeders think we should, and everybody who follows up "I'm childfree" with "but I love kids!" is undermining all of us. These CF (or CL?) people who insist how much they love children sometimes seem disingenuous to me, too. I mean, if you love kids that freaking much, why don't you want any?
The implication of that statement is that the default is for the childfree to hate children. We are individuals and we all feel differently about children. We do agree that we don't want to have children.
Apparently the childfree qualifier "but I love kids!" has become the "socially acceptable" response, so as not to offend anyone. There is so much of that going around today and most people want to be liked by everyone. It is an exhausting approach to life and the person they have to become to be liked by everyone is really a dull person who may be accepted by most but isn't really liked. At the end of the day, they still aren't validating the choice of the majority. And they tend to annoy the childfree who do not want to have to put qualifiers on their choice for not having children.
Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 09, 2020 | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 12,432 |
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My brother and I have spun off into different directions. He has no desire to have kids; I am a climate alarmist, collecting and internalizing world events, clinging to my zero-waste kit while steeped in anxiety about the future. Neither of us will likely have children.
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I just was not as lucky as my parents were, and my child will never be as comfortable or as hopeful as I have been. My ovaries can’t wait for the next election, or for countries around the world to get on track to fulfill their net-zero emissions targets. It’s hard to stay optimistic when our global leaders refuse to acknowledge the urgency of the climate crisis, when local governments can’t provide the basic necessary infrastructure to mitigate its impact on everyday people, and when corporations continue to get obscenely rich exploiting Earth’s natural resources. As I sit here, confined to my living room during a devastating pandemic and under the looming threat of a rapidly heating planet, I feel as if my own future is slowly disappearing from this world. How would any child of mine fare?
Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 10, 2020 | Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 3,842 |
Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 10, 2020 | Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 12,432 |
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When I was a little girl, I fully intended to be a mother. But later on, when a husband didn’t materialize, I simply shrugged. Motherhood was not something I ever felt compelled to do as an adult. The key, I think, is that I am not scared to be alone.
I spend considerable time by myself, and yet I am never lonely. I really enjoy my life. There is nothing special about it, but it is full of leisure. Not in the fancy sense of spas, shopping and cruises, but rather mental and physical leisure. I have friends who are mothers and still manage to do it all – pursue professional and personal ambitions, cultivate friendships, make money, take care of themselves. I’ve never been able to picture myself doing this, nor have I ever wanted to work that hard.
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There have been times in my life where my future felt unclear, or my career hopes dashed, and I remember the empty troubling feeling that accompanies this. How would I find meaning in my life? What values did I want to uphold? In such times, I can imagine it would be reassuring to have a vessel in which to pour my hopes and dreams.
Even if this is only spoken of in hushed corners, there is still this idea that kids are the best hedge against a sad, lonely old age.
Re: Guardian series of articles on childfree women July 11, 2020 | Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 2,217 |