Written by Rasa Kabaila
With the population bomb — that so obsessed demographers, futurists, and catastrophists from the 1960s onwards — now statistically bust, childless women now bear the blame for everything from collapsing societies, ageing populations, and the trauma of grandparent-less baby-boomers.
As a child-free by choice woman in her late thirties, it’s hard to pick what is the most offensive, intrusive, and downright rude comments you can engage with, in an everyday conversation. But here’s a start!
“When you have children” is the narrative I hear from many people around me. It’s not even a question of, like “do you want kids?”“ The statement of “when you have kids” is a gross assumption that places unnecessary expectations and pressure on women.
When you are single as a woman, you receive fear-filled questions and statements about your personal situation, without even asking you how you are feeling about your life at the time.
Some classics I’ve had thrown at me when I was happily-single are “it’s okay, you have time” or, “don’t worry, the right one will come along”.
The other phrase I’ve heard being said is referring to people who have children as being ‘blessed to have the gift of children’, as though people who choose to not have children or who cannot have children are therefore unlucky or unblessed. I realise it’s getting a little too hard to say the right thing these days. However, there is no doubt that there is power in the words we choose to use.
My favourite, in front of a group of people, was a parent of a friend saying “are you gay or something?”, because I said I was single when he asked. Horrific. And even if I was gay, what a way to be outed and it didn’t change the fact, that I was still single! Oh wait, I’ve got a better one: at a dinner party, I had a friend’s family member suggest out of the blue that I have my eggs frozen before going on a four-month overseas trip. Her son, a few years older than me, had tons of travel and had never once been put out in the open like how I was at that moment.
And then when you are in a relationship, the pressure continues “when will you move in together?” “ when are you getting married?” “when will you have kids”. No woman is immune to what will be thrown at her, regardless of her situation.
Without being a parent, I can appreciate how parenthood can be a wonderful thing in many ways. I also believe that parents, especially mothers, should be celebrated and validated, much, much more for what they do (instead of being criticised, as though women won’t do that enough themselves). I couldn’t think of a harder job around than being a mother and my hat goes off to every one of them.
The trends are changing with motherhood: The Australian Institute of Family Studies show that around 30 per cent of women aged 45–49 years in 2016 had one child or no children, compared to 16–17 per cent in 1981 and 1986. Regardless of these changes, I can’t help but still notice that women who do not have children tend to be stimagtised in their own unique way. As a mental health practitioner and a woman who does not have children (and might always stay that way) I wanted to take the opportunity to help reduce the stigma around women who are child free. Hell, I don’t want to just reduce the stigma, I want these women to be embraced — and I believe with some conscious efforts of our community, this is possible.
Growing-up as little girls, most of us are taught that when we are older, we’ll get married and have kids. Why? That’s never talked about, but it’s an expectation. Girls are often told that you have a biological clock and that even if you say you don’t desire kids, your body will tell you that you do. The projected fantasy of marriage and kids become slightly more obvious as a woman matures into the world to see that hey, marriage and kids can be beautiful but it’s not always a fairytale — there are a lot more complexities and hardships involved. That’s okay. I think that anything worthwhile usually involves a lot of work.
I’ve never had the pang of wanting children in any way shape or form. And you know what, my immediate feeling was with this. Shame. I felt ashamed because I thought there was something wrong with me and that I would be failing in my role as a woman by not having children. Because, as a little girl, you aren’t told that maybe you won’t want kids, and that’s a great thing too.
My mother completed a detailed family tree going seven generations back from me. It’s impressive and the trends are also obvious. Four generations back, my great, great grandmother had 15 children. My generation (Gen Y) have at most two kids, one or none. There are a lot of reasons for this. The obvious ones are that women are more educated and therefore empowered, so they are making conscious choices more freely about whether they choose to have offspring.
Other reasons can include factoring in the high cost of living; people seem to have worked out that babies are not income producing. Most people would be aware of the need of our environment ; I mean, we are not exactly in a deficit of human lives on this planet. The science side of me philosophises, is the current change in motherhood rates evolutionary? Are we changing as people to have less children right now, in order to help balance the equilibrium with planet earth, and for the child free people to adopt other roles in society?
Aside from the reasons discussed above, you’ll hear some women reporting and rightfully so, that they don’t want to have children so they can make the most of their career/hobbies/travel/recreational time and, importantly, their freedom.
A lot of women, also, very fairly, don’t want to put their body through pregnancy — because — news flash — women actually own their bodies and can make these choices. All these reasons are valid, but again they often are responded with a negative assumption, that these women are selfish. This response implies that women should not be given a choice, or that the choice to have children is right and the choice not to have children, is wrong.
That brings me to many general assumptions made about child-free women. The thing I often hear is “well I’m sure she wanted children but probably wasn’t able to” (without even knowing that information from the woman about her choice). Or “she was unlucky in love”. They are all assumptions that inspire not empathy, but pity, as they imply that all child-free women feel they are missing out. Some women, of course, desperately want to have children and they can’t, for many different reasons. My heart goes out to them and I can only appreciate that pain. Again, let’s not pity them, let’s try and empathise with them and celebrate them too. There are so many other reasons why women won’t have children, and every single one of those reasons is valid and should be respected.
Unfortunately, in the current state of play, while other people (including women) force their assumptions and personal feelings onto women (who are child-free), the latter cohort are encouraged to feel a sense of shame and loss that they may have never had felt beforehand. When I’ve asked countless child-free men, aging from 20 to 50, about whether they feel this sense of pressure from people about whether or not they will have kids, the straight-up answer I have always been given is “no”. I understand the biological underpinnings to why men are treated differently in this way, but it doesn’t mean we should perpetuate this pressured judgmental behaviour towards women.
Other misconceptions are that people who don’t have children would not be capable of being good mothers or that they must dislike children. When a woman is child-free, it doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t like children, it doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be great mothers and we must remember these women will most likely already have one or many special mothering/caring roles in other areas of their life. And hey, for those who dislike children and don’t want to have them- great choice!
I can’t help but think with all these societal pressures, that many women are having children because they think they should not because they want to, but because they think they are faulty beings or incomplete if they choose not to have kids, or that they have let other people down by making this decision. If women didn’t have a biological time limit set of having kids, I also wonder whether more women would just have children much later in life, or just not have them at all.
The narrative is always important. A slight change in the way we approach our communication with others can make all the difference. I know from my profession, but importantly as a fellow flawed human being, that it’s hard not to project your feelings and beliefs onto someone else, when you are asking them something about them, not you. If a woman hasn’t told you about whether or not she wants children, then work out how important it is for you to ask.
And if you do choose to ask, then ask, don’t assume. Open questions that incorporate curiosity and show genuine interest and kindness are what matters. Validate whatever response you receive. Don’t try and convince her that she should feel differently to what she is or that she will feel a certain way in time, as though you hold a crystal ball for her life.
Embrace her with whatever she tells you. If you want to approach your questioning and comments about the topic of children in a way that implies that a woman hasn’t thought of all of this before, then you need a reality check.
Do not suggest for her to get her eggs frozen when she says she is undecided about whether or not she wants children. Do not tell her that the clock is ticking. She is aware of everything you’ve suggested and has likely thought of it 1000 times before.
She has also likely thought about this path in every different light and has potentially mentally dragged herself through a pressured and painful journey in doing so. She doesn’t need you to convince her to hold a different view, or to hear your opinions she never asked for based on your own individual wants, belief system and set of experiences which is different to hers. What she needs is for you to be open minded, respectful and to show you care.
Every woman has an important role in this world, regardless of whether they have children or not. Women are starting to shift the narrative to recognise this. As a collective, we need to build on that change. Every woman should be celebrated.
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