The Importance of Having a Childfree Role Model

Check out this post by author Laura Scott: Inspired Childfree Living: The Importance of Having a Childfree Role Model https://internationalchildfreeday.com/2016/07/19/childfree-role-model/#more-664

I did. It showed me that there is another way to live instead of following the herd. I am proud that I turned out pretty much like my CF aunt. The family scorned her for some of the things she did. Nothing illegal...just fun stuff she was able to do 'cause she had no kids. She loved her animals... cooking... traveling. Exactly like me. I saw her as someone who had it all.

Nice! I did too. However, my aunt got into a major accident and became paralyzed from the neck down and lived another year. She died when I was about seven :/ But I remember her showing me another way to be an adult that I thought - I want it like that!

The closest people that I ever got in my life for CF role models were my childless aunt and uncle. They helped raise me, and my aunt wanted to adopt me when I was a toddler, but Social Services wouldn't take me from my mother.

I saw them travel, enjoy their money, have nice things in their large, luxurious home, and thought, yeah! I want THAT lifestyle. Not be an impoverished single working mother like mine was. I wanted to run as far away from the mothering lifestyle as I could. I saw that my mother was wildly unhappy with me, and that I was nothing but a burden. When I saw the fun, the parties and the joyful lifestyle that my aunt and uncle got to live because there were no kids in the picture, it did help cement my decision to never have any of my own.

I remember watching Seinfeld and loving how baybeez were never a topic. I didn't understand all the humor but loved the total lack of focus on baybeez. Also enjoyed Sex and the City until Miranda sold out and sluiced. As a kid virtually every adult I knew had kids, other than a few that I barely knew of that were single.

I had a very close CF role model growing up (older sister), but I'm not sure it mattered. I hated kids when I was one, NEVER even entertained the idea of wanting one, and had no problem developing ideas and beliefs completely different from my family's and community's, so I think I wouldn't have had a problem being firmly CF with or without her example. The one way I do think it impacted me is that it sort of "broke in" the rest of our family to the idea so I didn't deal with as much questioning about it as she did. I think some family members figured we'd both grow out of it/change our minds (spoiler alert: I'm almost 50, she's in her mid 60s, no regrets about being CF), but since they got nowhere with her by saying so, they just didn't bother with me.

One of my aunts is... well, I don't know if she's childfree or childless, but in any case, she never had kids, nor did she and her long-term boyfriend get married. I never asked her or anyone in the family why this was because I didn't know if it was any of my business and I didn't know if there was a reason for it, like they couldn't conceive or what-not. My aunt is a crazy cat lady and always has at least five in the house - strays she gives homes to, kittens no one wants, etc. She's also a homemaker, meaning that in spite of an entire flock of cats, her house was always spotless. Out of all my immediate family, that aunt doesn't look her age and I imagine not reproducing had a large role in that. I think she likes kids, as she babysat all the kids in the family (myself and all my cousins) over the years. I think we just made her not want any at home. But she was definitely one of my favorite relatives to be around in general and I was always happy to just play with her cats when I visited.

Another aunt never married or had kids and she lived on her own into her nineties. I mean she had some help from family, but she did pretty damn good for herself considering her vision was severely impaired. She was sharp as a tack up until the last few years of her life too. As far as I know, my one cousin is also CF; people ask her when her and her boyfriend are going to have babies and she reminds them that they already have one (their dog). Course, that cousin is also a teacher, so dealing with everyone else's little shits for what will never be enough money probably nudged her down the path of not breeding (personally, I think any teacher that goes and has kids after starting their job must be completely fucking batshit insane).

I never really necessarily needed a role model to validate my childfreedom, but even as a kid I noticed the major differences between the lives and stress levels of the childed and unchilded family members.

Good article! I like the dig on Hollywood

When I was very young, my father became friends with a CL couple.
The wife couldn't have chyldrun after a miscarriage.
I noticed that they had a very good relationship, they liked and respected
each other. Their house was clean and quiet.
I thought I would like to live like this as well when I grow up.

I never realized childfreedom was a possibility until I was long grown up. Every last family member older than me, and even everyone in my parents social circle has bred. I always gave the most pessimistic answer to the common question, "How many kids will you have when you grow up?" (They prime the females for breeding.)
My answer, "Only one, and only if I have to." I already had some inkling that I had control of my destiny, but it seemed so mandatory to breed, particularly because it is part of the foundational doctrine of the cult I was raised in. That we get put on earth TO breed, to bring down those spirits waiting for a body. *Puke!*
I was always scolded for that answer too. *Double puke!*

I have no role models. My mom has always drilled it in my head who cares what other people are doing, do what's best for you. Don't be a lemming jumping off a cliff or a sheep. My dad also is a free thinker who is a third party voter. Both my parents want me to think for myself. I really don't need roles models because I'm my own free bitch.

No role models here either.

There were people around who didn't have children when I was a child, but for the most part, they simply hadn't had them yet. No point was ever made of living childfree, by anyone. The expectation was and continues to be that you have children if you can. Then, as now, it was the going assumption that you were unable to have them if you were unchilded when the time to have them had run out, regardless of what you said.

There were always some fundamental things I knew about myself that I haven't wavered on, with or without role models or external validation, and that I'm childfree is one of those things. It's nothing in particular to do with being strong-willed. There simply wasn't an alternative. I couldn't get far enough away from most children when I was one. Of course my friends back then were also children. Adults didn't interact much with children beyond instruction/orders and punishment - or at least the ones I knew didn't. But my group of friends was basically the one of the odd ones out - friendships of necessity.

I'm not sure how a childfree role model could have made a difference. I never felt guilty about being childfree and despising children anyway. And if there had been a childfree adult, I'm quite certain they'd have kept even farther away from me than all the other adults for obvious reasons. After all, if a child is relatively good it doesn't endear them to me; it just makes me despise them less.

It was also abundantly clear that most adults, many of them parents, didn't actually like children either, even if most of them managed to empathise with theirs a bit more than mine with me. It was always about "me and mine", not about liking children in general, with pretty much all of them. So why should I have felt I had anything to apologise for? (Rhetorical question)

I felt invalidated of course, when I actually said something about "never", but - well... that comes with the territory, and the response doesn't change much with age. Mine does - other people's, not so much.

I think it all depends on one's immediate family--I met people who were CF and even though some of those encounters were casual, they affected me deeply, even if I didn't realize it until later. (And actually, I believe geography is a factor. I have lived in the Midwest and the South, both Breederific places IMO, although I think the Midwest was the absolute worst. I saw an expectation that young people should certainly be wed in their early 20's and bred shortly after that, definitely by age 25 or 30.)

IMO, many families are not "open" in terns of thought, particularly if religion is involved. Every time I hear religious people speak with pride about how they are raising Snotleigh with their Val-yews^TM, I just cringe and I wonder what happens to the outliers. What if the spawn are gay or CF or are agnostic or areligious? Usually these situations end poorly.

In my own case I was raised by a narcissistic mom who clearly despised having children and the limitations it imposed on her life. She was obviously resentful but spackled over it with a thick layer of hypocrisy. I and everyone else heard her gag-inducing platitudes:

"Having children is a woman's greatest glory."
"The years I stayed home with my kids were the happiest of my life." (My siblings and I would beg to differ--this was the 60's and it was more like Diary of a Mad Housewife.)

So this was the backdrop I grew up in and any childfree person I saw was like a life raft. Here are the role models that influenced me.


1. B, who was a "maiden aunt" on my dad's side of the family. She never married and she lived with the family. I knew her when she was 50+. She worked at a department store in an underpaid, pink collar occupation, which was all that was available to most women at that time. Unfortunately for her, she didn't have the means to live alone, nor was it "respectable" for her to do so. (Note to self: Thank Todd I was born 40 years later than she was.) I actually didn't have much interaction with her and didn't care for her bossy personality, but I remember she was quite stylish. And I once heard her remark with pride that she weighed the same, 125 pounds, her entire adult life. At the time I remember thinking how unusual that was, having grown up hearing women complaining what childbirth did to their figures. She showed me a woman could still be stylish and interesting at 50, 60 and beyond.

2. I have to add my mother's aunt Josephine to this list. I was a child when she died and I don't really remember all that much. She was my mother's favorite aunt, never married, despite having tons of suitors. She left my mother's Midwestern town and at one time was the social director of the QE2. She owned a fashionable dress shop in Atlantic City in the off-season. My mom talked about being a child herself and her excitement of seeing Josie's travel trunks coming to her house, because that meant Josie would be arriving soon, and Josie traveled in style. My mom thought so much of her that my middle name is Josephine's surname and we actually look alike. (Note to self: need to frame her picture and hang it in a prominent place in my home.)

3. The indomitable Helen Gurley Brown deserves a place on my list. My mom had all her books, which I sneak-read voraciously. I remember reading through a chapter that discussed children. HGB boldly wrote that she never wanted children, but if a woman did want them, she should continue to achieve and do good things with her life. The combination of hearing this brave woman state she never wanted them, + advising women that even if they had them, they need not retire at home for the rest of their lives, was a powerful message.

4. a couple I met at a picnic when I was about 14. The male half of the couple was named Don. In retrospect, his wife may not have been completely on board with being CF, because she went around the party telling everyone that he didn't want kids and that was part of the deal with marrying him (let's hope he was snipped) . But he was fun and lively and I remember looking around and thinking, wow, it can be done.

5. Boss on my first job. Her name was Marianne. She was in her late 30's when I met her. She broke through a lot of ceilings and was stylish and smart and openly CF. She was a tough but fair boss. She and her husband were restoring an old Victorian house and they did a lot of cool stuff on the weekends. I kept track of her for many years after. She never wavered in her CF decision. Marianne, if you happen to visit this website, I thank you and I salute you!

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Here are the role models that influenced me.


1. B, who was a "maiden aunt" on my dad's side of the family. She never married and she lived with the family. I knew her when she was 50+. She worked at a department store in an underpaid, pink collar occupation, which was all that was available to most women at that time. Unfortunately for her, she didn't have the means to live alone, nor was it "respectable" for her to do so. (Note to self: Thank Todd I was born 40 years later than she was.) I actually didn't have much interaction with her and didn't care for her bossy personality, but I remember she was quite stylish. And I once heard her remark with pride that she weighed the same, 125 pounds, her entire adult life. At the time I remember thinking how unusual that was, having grown up hearing women complaining what childbirth did to their figures. She showed me a woman could still be stylish and interesting at 50, 60 and beyond.

2. I have to add my mother's aunt Josephine to this list. I was a child when she died and I don't really remember all that much. She was my mother's favorite aunt, never married, despite having tons of suitors. She left my mother's Midwestern town and at one time was the social director of the QE2. She owned a fashionable dress shop in Atlantic City in the off-season. My mom talked about being a child herself and her excitement of seeing Josie's travel trunks coming to her house, because that meant Josie would be arriving soon, and Josie traveled in style. My mom thought so much of her that my middle name is Josephine's surname and we actually look alike. (Note to self: need to frame her picture and hang it in a prominent place in my home.)

3. The indomitable Helen Gurley Brown deserves a place on my list. My mom had all her books, which I sneak-read voraciously. I remember reading through a chapter that discussed children. HGB boldly wrote that she never wanted children, but if a woman did want them, she should continue to achieve and do good things with her life. The combination of hearing this brave woman state she never wanted them, + advising women that even if they had them, they need not retire at home for the rest of their lives, was a powerful message.

4. a couple I met at a picnic when I was about 14. The male half of the couple was named Don. In retrospect, his wife may not have been completely on board with being CF, because she went around the party telling everyone that he didn't want kids and that was part of the deal with marrying him (let's hope he was snipped) . But he was fun and lively and I remember looking around and thinking, wow, it can be done.

5. Boss on my first job. Her name was Marianne. She was in her late 30's when I met her. She broke through a lot of ceilings and was stylish and smart and openly CF. She was a tough but was a fair taskmaster. She and her husband were restoring an old Victorian house and they did a lot of cool stuff on the weekends. I kept track of her for many years after. She never wavered in her CF decision. Marianne, if you happen to visit this website, I thank you and I salute you!

I loved reading this! Thank your for the interesting stories