Valentine’s Day brings to mind one of the many bennies of being in a childfree relationship: because the childfree don’t have kids, they have more time to devote to their relationships. So when Valentine’s Day rolls around, my partner and I often...
A recent “Ask Polly” on The Cut shocked me. A woman writes in with the question, “Should I have a baby?” and even though Polly assures readers the “column is not a parody,” I admit I read the response more than once to be sure her advice actually seemed serious. ...
At the beginning of January, some interesting ‘not having children’ numbers came out regarding women in their 40s. This Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) table gives a succinct summary: % of women in their 40s not having...
In my 2017 childfree trending piece, I discuss how in recent years we’ve been seeing more talk about pronatalism. Some articles use the word directly, some not. An excellent feature article that appeared on money.good.is magazine last fall by Mike Mariani gives us a...
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing New Delhi research scholar and activist, Amrita Nandy, about her new book, Motherhood and Choice: Uncommon Mothers, Childfree Women. Check it out: Your new book, Motherhood and Choice, is based on your Ph.D. dissertation....
Now for Part II of childfree trends we have seen this past year. In addition to muddied use of “Childfree,” “Child-free” “Child free “and “Childless” I wrote about in Part I, five more childfree trends are worth noting: Even more stories on being denied sterilization:...
At the beginning of 2016, I took stock of 40+ years of talking about the childfree choice. At the end of 2016, I looked back and discussed positive childfree trends that year. It’s time for childfree trending 2017…this year I’ll do childfree trending in...
I have been enjoying Lilli Blackmore’s posts on her site, the American Spinster. Her most recent post, “Why Having Kids Is Not a Retirement Plan” inspires me to riff on this important topic. Please indulge me. The Pronatalist Elderhood Assumption Much of what Lilli...
One particular phrase relating to a study that came out last spring continues to pop up online: moral outrage. The study, “Parenthood as a Moral Imperative? Moral Outrage and the Stigmatization of Voluntarily Childfree Women and Men” has a finding that not having...
