I Don’t Want Kids. Am I Less Of A Woman?
by Starre Vartan
I’m childfree.
For me, that means that I don’t have kids because I don’t want them.
Sometimes, I hear women like me described as someone who "doesn't want a family." But I do want a family. And I have one.
I have a wonderful partner whose mom likes me (score!) and vice versa, and two best friends that I know I can call if I were suddenly homeless/found myself in jail/needed a shoulder to cry on for several hours. Indeed, I have called those friends—multiple times—to help me through my emotionally devastating bankruptcy. My friend Liz, who I’ve known since first grade, was crucial—she helped me realize that I was not defined by my financial missteps in a way that nobody else could.
So when I hear “family” conflated for “kids” in conversations, it makes me sad. And it happens all the time, especially when discussing women’s choices.
I’m proud to be childfree.
How many women throughout ALL of human history got to have loving, sexual relationships with a person of their choosing AND not have kids? Before reliable birth control, women either had sex and had kids regardless of their interest in them, or they didn’t because they were infertile—and were then subjected to all manner of cultural cruelty. Or women didn’t have kids because they didn’t have sex—women who made such a choice were perceived as a nun, hermit, spinster.
Or witch.
The last few decades since birth control has been widespread (at least in the western world) is the first time ever that large numbers of women could have partners, have sex, and truly choose to have children or not—and still be a part of the larger culture. And small but growing numbers of us are choosing that path.
“but a million tiny cuts prove that there is still cultural discomfort with women like me.”
But a million tiny cuts (including the insulting conflation of “she doesn’t want a family” with the idea that I’m happily childfree) prove that there is still cultural discomfort with women like me.
After all, my reasoning for not wanting kids has nothing to do with family, and everything to do with me—my body, my mind, my soul. I know I can value family and not want kids, so why is this such a challenging idea?
I don’t want kids for a huge variety of reasons.
The idea of having another human being inside my body is terrifying. I don’t know why I feel so differently than the majority of women about this, but I’m also far from alone.
It’s not that I’m afraid of pain—I’ve been kicked in the face by a mule and tend to be pretty pain-tolerant—it’s that I’m afraid of dying. I’m also terrified that I could be in a situation where a doctor doesn’t care or listen to what I want for my body because that’s what countless women have experienced when giving birth.
The concept of feeding a person from my body is—and I don’t use this word lightly—abhorrent. The mere idea of it elicits a visceral disgust reaction. I don’t even like to see other women doing it—which is my own problem, not theirs, and I fully support breastfeeding everywhere and anywhere for any parent.
I also know how hard caring for kids really is.
I was a babysitter in my town growing up. I hated it. I find childcare boring, laborious, annoying.
I have taken care of at least a dozen babies in my time (the most brain-numbing work of any I’ve ever done), as many toddlers and older kids (sometimes fun, but often just boring and repetitive as little kids like repeating everything so much, which is how they learn). I have taught pre-school age kids in a summer program, and junior high-school kids in another. I have taught teenagers, too. It’s all unbelievably hard work and it’s work I don’t enjoy. That would be OK if it were any other type of labor, but when you tell people you don’t want kids because it’s not the work you want to do in life, they look at you like you have 6 heads.
Because women are not only supposed to do this kind of work, they’re supposed to love it. And if they don’t love it, maybe they’re not even a woman at all! Yes. I’ve heard this. Many times.
With brutal honesty that's unflattering to me and not a little unkind, I know that if I had a kid who was at all challenged, or even just not that smart, I don’t think I would be a very good parent. If I had a kid who wanted to hunt animals, or drive gas-guzzlers, or who didn’t like reading, or thought art was dumb (all perfectly normal, everyday things people think and do), I would be horrified and I would love them less.
“i know that good parenting means helping your child to grow into the person they are—not the person you want them to be. i don’t think i could do that.”
I know that good parenting means helping your child to grow into the person they are—not the person you want them to be. I don’t think I could do that. I couldn’t support a kid whose interests were not my own. And that would make me a horrible mother.
Lastly, I think it’s at least ethically questionable to bring a person into the world (prominent philosophers also find the ethics debatable). And while this moment is particularly difficult, I’m not just reacting to the news of the last few years. Parents have told me the reason they have kids is because they want the experience of being parents, of seeing what their kids would look like, of creating something from the love between them and their partner. Those seem like lovely ideas, until you think about the fact that it relies on another person—the child—to fulfill those ideas.
And that person can’t really consent to the job.
Generally we can agree that people don’t exist to fulfill our ideas about life, but yet that is exactly what children are expected to do, without their wishes taken into consideration by even the most mindful of parents.
“bringing another person into the world to experience all this pain, disappointment, and sadness —because someone wants a certain life experience—feels cruel. ”
Bringing another person into the world to experience all this pain, disappointment, and sadness —because someone wants a certain life experience—feels cruel.
And “giving your child everything” isn’t a cure, either. There are enough people with lovely childhoods and torturous mental-health diagnoses—and the opposite, people who have had truly awful lives who are now happier than most—to know that we all experience life differently.
When the choice is between helping people and animals that already exist, and bringing more life onto a planet that already has billions of people overtly suffering, the answer is a no-brainer for me.
But I still live in a culture where some people think a family without kids isn’t considered a family at all.
We say we are accepting of all kinds of families, but as someone whose had numerous strangers, as well as a (now-fired) ob/gyn tell me that as a woman having kids is “what you’re here for,” I know first hand that acceptance of childfree women isn’t always genuine.
So, what are we to do? Eh, not much. Maybe you’ll notice it. Maybe you’ll challenge it next time you hear it, on behalf of me and other women.
Or maybe you’re one of those women, too.
Starre Vartan is an independent science journalist and creative writer who was once a geologist—and she still picks up rocks wherever she goes. You can find more of her articles here.
