(I’ve
had the following post drafted for months.
After my previous post, it seems the perfect time to finally put this
one up for scrutiny.)
I’ve
often been drawn to childfree* writers. After all, for about half of my adult
life I wasn’t ready for children (despite having married young), and knew for certain I didn’t want them
“yet.” I can therefore relate to the pressures and frustrations that childfree
women have had to endure, the pressures and unsubtle hints and comments and
judgements that many women have to endure at some stage, the pressures and
unsubtle hints and comments that those of us who don’t go on to parent may
never be free of.
But
I also have spent about half of my adult life trying to have children, or mourning
the fact I can’t, or coming to terms with my life without children. And so
during that time my interest in childfree writers and their thoughts has felt
traitorous, both to myself, and in ways to them.
But
I shouldn’t feel like that. After all, we both share a distaste at society’s
pressures to to be a parent, and its assumptions about parents, and about adults
who are not parents; assumptions about our motivations and our values, our
lifestyle, our maturity, our happiness, and much much more. We – those who voluntarily and involuntarily
find ourselves without children - both now share a lifestyle that might be
either pitied, or envied, or both, by those who are parents. We, the people who
are living life with no kids, have more in common now than what separates us.
Their
struggles to legitimise their lifestyles without children are the same as our
struggles to legitimise our lifestyles without children. To be seen as adults
with a legitimate, worthwhile, valuable, if different, lifestyle. No better, no
worse, just different. Yes, at times the childfree can seem scornful of our
(once) desires to have children. But I’m sure that equally there are those in
the “involuntarily not parents” group who are scornful and judgemental of the
voluntarily childfree too. That doesn’t make it right.
The
truth is that we have both been through very different battles, but have
arrived at the same place. We both get lumped together in the same stereotypes,
and we are both in a group that often feels marginalised by society. We should
support each other. We are more the same than we are different.
No
kidding.
* Here I'm using childfree as shorthand for childfree-by-choice.
* Here I'm using childfree as shorthand for childfree-by-choice.
LOVE this post. I had an unmarried uncle and he's probably the only childfree person that I've ever known firsthand in my life, though we were never that close, but he was a very independent person and I'd grown to appreciate him more during the last decade of his life.
ReplyDeleteI confess that my main feeling towards childfree-by-choice people is one of envy. I fully support their choice and I hate that they get a lot of flack for it (the "childree = selfish" thing always angers and confuses me). But I really envy them that they don't desire children and will never feel the lack of children as a loss.
ReplyDeleteI am also drawn to the child free: not to those who come across as really harsh to those who don't share their path, i.e., those who refer to parents as "breeders", but to those who are really so comfortable in their life choice that they are relaxed with parents and around kids, without judgment or envy. In a way, I see them as my sort of "mentors". I want to be where they are, without a feeling of sadness about never having procreated nor fear of what the future holds.
ReplyDeletexxoo. That is all.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. :)
ReplyDelete