There’s been a lot of noise lately about child-free women—if you pay attention to American politics, you likely know what I’m talking about. If you’ve somehow missed it, however, I’m linking a nice little round-up of Trump’s VP pick JD Vance talking shit about people who don’t have children—including calling them “sociopathic” and arguing that they don’t have a stake in this country. Totally normal behavior!
Naturally, many have called this rhetoric out for being completely vile—which it is—and emphasizing the fact that it’s particularly cruel to those who want to be parents, but can’t be, due to infertility or other reasons.
And I’m not saying it’s not cruel to those people, but I’d argue it’s just as cruel to those who choose not to have children, as if there’s something inherently wrong with us. A crossed wire or a wEiRd genetic mutation or something.
The progressive, knee-jerk response to Vance’s words has largely focused on “Please! won’t you think of those of us who want to be parents, but can’t be?” as if the no-kids-by-choice crowd isn’t just as invested in our communities or the future of this country.
As Moira Donegan wrote in all of the hullabaloo:
Not having kids is a morally neutral and legitimate life choice on its own that does not need to be justified with recourse to tragic stories of fertility struggles. It’s fine just to not want children. Women do not need to justify their lives with motherhood.
About 1 in 5 young women—21 percent!—say they don’t want to have kids at all. And yet, it’s 2024, and we are still so far behind when it comes to reproductive autonomy. It’s absolutely maddening.
**
I must confess:
When I was growing up, I desperately wanted children someday. As a lonely teenager, I often imagined having a big family of my own, idealizing nuclear TV families I spent hours watching every week. I come from a large extended family, but had no siblings of my own in a very dysfunctional household. I thought that having 5 to 7 kids like the Camdens did in 7th Heaven, or a few daughters like Danny Tanner did in Full House, would cure all my loneliness.
When my best friend and I would wander around the mall and through various department stores, we’d often peruse the kids’ section and pick through the kind of baby clothes we wanted someday. In my head, I kept a running list of girls names (never boys), usually something at least a little unique and named after a favorite female celebrity at the time. Shania. Reba. Marishka (spelled with an H so people wouldn’t mispronounce it like they do with Mariska Hargitay).
As I got older, things changed. Dreams changed. Circumstances changed.
And other things that I hoped would change, didn’t. My mental illness has ebbed and flowed since I was a kid, and I still feel like I can barely take care of myself when I’m in the thick of it, let alone a child I’m supposed to be responsible for. And the problem isn’t that I don’t think I could care for one—but rather that I know it would take everything out of me to do so. I would give and give until there was nothing left but a shell, one that I don’t think I would ever come back from.
I’m also just simply not interested in the sacrifice. I missed out on the bulk of my formative childhood and teenage years because I had to manage the chaotic emotions of the adults around me, so much so that the time was never truly my own. I never got to wander around carefree or really learn who I was.
So how could I possibly do what amounts to the same thing now, to turn around and give up my young adulthood for another human being?
Unthinkable. Unfathomable.
There’s also the notion that bringing a child into this current world makes me feel deeply uneasy. And that’s not to say that I begrudge or judge anyone who chooses to become a parent now—I don’t, and I know it’s often not an easy decision to make, particularly because the United States makes it so difficult. Birthing costs are astronomical and so is child care. There is little to no community support or care.
Everyone has to make their own choices that best fit their morals and values. But I am so gravely uncomfortable with the state of the world as it stands that I personally can’t imagine bringing new life into it.
Maybe eventually, we’ll turn things around. History has shown that eventually things will come to a head; democracy will swing back the other way. Late stage capitalism will hopefully burst. I’m not quite sure there’s any hope as far as climate change goes, but I also know that hope and science has won out many times in the past, and maybe it can do so again.
If or when those things happen, I’ll be grateful to my peers for finding enough hope and optimism within themselves to create new life.
And I will still feel content in my decision to sit this one out because it’s my personal decision, and I would like to spend the rest of my life living it for me. I just want to watch my TV shows, hang out with my friends and family, travel with my partner, read book after book until I become cross-eyed, consume rock music until my Hard-of-Hearing status becomes Deaf, write silly little essays, and create silly little art.
All without kids.
As the wise and child-free Cristina Yang would say, I choose me.
‘Til next time,
Liv
Really enjoyed this, Liv.
It's so funny that we force people who don't want children to give an explanation but rarely ask "why" of the people who do! Particularly given all of the catastrophic things you mentioned. Maybe this will shift now that we're all talking about it.
As a woman who has just turned 30, I often feel the pressure to justify my life choices. Conversations with the women in my life have shown me that the fear of losing oneself in the process of becoming a mother is indeed very common and not discussed enough. The choices we make in our own lives deserve respect, full stop. Thank you for sharing this intimate piece.