Pat Taub
In my Zoom class on Women’s Spirituality, we watched the film, “A Goddess Remembered,” which put us in touch with the legacy of our female ancestors. In one segment, Jungian psychiatrist, Jean Shinoa Bolen, commented, ‘When I had a child, I felt connected to all the women who came before me.’ The implication was that until she gave birth, Bolen’s life felt incomplete.
Jean Shinoa Bolen lecturing on the goddess
A thoughtful class member, childless by choice, took issue with Bolen, maintaining one can have a full life without children, noting she often feels left out among friends, who tend to talk at length about their children and grandchildren in her presence.
Until this conversation, I hadn’t given much thought to the lives of women who opted not to have children. While I respected their choice, I wasn’t aware of the isolation and prejudice they face. Seeking a deeper understanding, I did a Google search and asked women on the WOW Facebook page, childless by choice, to comment on their experience. Many of the women reported feeling shamed and misunderstood through disapproving comments.
A couple who chose not to have kids
Childless by choice women are frequently portrayed as selfish, shallow, and self-absorbed.
Girls absorb this message at an early age. When I was 10, a professional couple moved next door, both attorneys and without children. Their childless state provoked my mother to put them down, as “selfish.”
Childless women are often chided, “If you don’t have kids, who will take care of you in your old age?” ( I am amused by this notion. I would not want to live with either of my two adult sons. I cherish them, but one lives a haphazard Bohemian existence and the other loves his solo bachelor life.)
An unfair prejudice lodged against women without children is that they don’t have kids because they don’t like children. A friend, happily married for decades, never wanted children, yet she loves kids, telling me, “Just because I didn’t want children, doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy them.” This friend has been mentoring high school girls ever since I’ve known her.
Why does society make it so hard for childless women to feel accepted?
From time memorial, women’s bodies have been viewed as open to public discussion. Motherhood is revered. Growing up girls are indoctrinated with the message that their lives will not be fulfilled until they become mothers. A Facebook respondent, childless by choice, reported that she was told, “You will never know love, until you have a child.”
Meghan Daum’s book, Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed: 16 Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids, debunks the perception that childless women and couples reject kids because they’d rather own a Mercedes or fly to Paris at the drop of a hat. On the contrary, Daum’s findings reveal that women who opt not to have kids have carefully thought out this decision. Often it is based on their desire to put all their energies into their careers.
In 2022, there are young woman vowing not to have children because global warming portends an uncertain and unsafe future for the next generation. In Britain they have formed a movement called BirthStrikers.
Blythe Pepino, founder of BirthStrike (The Guardian)
Oprah Winfrey and Gloria Steinman have been open about rejecting motherhood. For Oprah, it comes down to “not having the ability to compartmentalize,” a trait demanded of working mothers. Gloria Steinman told interviewers that she has never felt unfulfilled as a child-free woman. Her Feminist contributions have influenced generations of women and girls. There are many ways to shape lives, not all dependent on mothering children.
Daum cautions: “We must get away from the idea that parents and non-parents are adversarial.” She recommends that we embrace all the different ways to be a responsible, caring adult. This is in line with the decades old Feminist objection to defining women by their children.
Let’s be women who respect differences, and not women who create barriers.
