To Go On Childless Is Normal
Is this your first? The stranger asks the pregnant lady. A question containing much assumption, that there is, or will be more, a question, whether the asker knows or not, carries much pressure. In society having children is statistically considered “the normative thing to do” and if you birth one, you MUST give that child company or else, be prepared for the hefty therapy bills due to your child’s overbearing loneliness from being an only child. We are told by media that the only thing standing between us and complete adulthood is to procreate, you could be a married, childless 45-year-old archaeologist who just discovered an ancient scroll consisting of coordinates leading you to the proof of the existence of mermaids and still be viewed as an unlived callow.
To go on childless remains a taboo within society, a choice that demands reasoning and is seen, regardless of the explanation, as a tragedy. Either by choice or circumstance to be childless evokes one of two reactions, sympathy or judgment. Marriage problems? Fertility issues? By choice you say? Shun the childless woman for she is selfish! Sure, we have the “instinctive drive” to bear children, but does that mean it’s mandatory? That having children should be wound up in the identity of being a woman? And does that justify the backlash women endure when opting out of breeding? An example of the disturbed view on a woman’s choice to not have children is Senator Bill Heffernan’s questioning of Julia Gillard’s empathy and ability to foster family-based concerns in 2014, simply because she remains childless. “Deliberately barren” he labeled her, suggesting with much-applied criticism that something is wrong with her, that her choice to not have children was nothing less than selfish. A well-needed antidote to the myth of childless woman being self-centered is Meghan Daum’s ironically titled book, “Selfish, shallow, and self-absorbed” where she debunks the theory that those who are child-free by choice are shallow. Daum explains that those who pity or look down upon the woman without offspring are simply envious, especially parents “who felt it was something they had to do”.
If humans are having children simply because it is standard and obligated, then is it really a biological imperative or is it a cultural construction? Normalization of being child-free would be a gain for all of us, not only for those wrongfully labeled selfish but for those who feel pressure to have children in the future and most importantly for the earth.
