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I’ve made no secret of the fact that I am childfree-not-by-choice. But that wasn’t always the case.

Until I was 35 I didn’t want children for no reason other than I didn’t want them.

This is not a comfortable answer to “why don’t you have kids?” I discovered that my current existence — someone who wants kids but can’t have them — is more palatable.

That’s not the way it should be. Women shouldn’t have to receive an infertility diagnosis before their childfree existence is accepted (sometimes). They shouldn’t have to justify their lack of wanting children.

I was recently reminded of this by an article in the New York Times documenting why people choose not to have kids.

The article suggests two binary theories.

The first is what I call the Vance Stance. Childfree women are selfish. They don't want to stop partying/sleeping in / *insert hedonistic activity here.*

The second is what I call the Modern Life Strife. Gun crime. The housing crisis. The cost of childcare. Kids in this economy? You’ve got to be kidding.

Back when I didn’t want kids I’d often say my reasons were along the Modern Life Strife line. In part, it was true. But what was more true was that I simply didn’t want children.

That was it. That was the whole reason.

We live in a world where women (at least in the culture I come from) have more choice and agency over their reproductive status than ever before.

Women are finally able not to have children just because they don’t want them. That doesn’t mean they don’t care about the world, it just means they don’t want kids of their own.

But why is this such a difficult concept for some to understand?

We underestimate women’s capacity to love their fellow humans

It’s incredibly offensive to assume that women who don’t want children are either selfish child-haters or are so despairing of the world they don’t want to contribute to it.

I hate that people assume empathy and a stake in the future only kicks in once you’ve birthed a child.

As the brilliant “a very short essay against ‘as a mother’” says:

If … you are a parent, and feel yourself wanting to say, “but I was altered by parenthood,” I believe you. But your individual experience does not get to limit or diminish my own humanity. That’s a failure of your imagination, not mine.

I adore humanity and kids. I did when I was childfree-by-choice just as much as I do now.

I want this world to function in the best way it possibly can. And that includes being inclusive of childfree women who want to do something else other than procreate.

As the Substacker Becca Rothfield says in her viral essay:

Perhaps people don’t want to have kids, not because they want to rave all night or sip fancy coffee unmolested, and not because they don’t have the resources to support the children they pine for, but because they genuinely and truly want to do other things.

Not hedonistic, trivial things like traveling to Dubai, but serious and meaningful things that are quite demanding and absorbing, like teaching children math or performing life-saving surgeries.

Whilst giving birth is admirable and important, it does not make for a better world in isolation.

The human race may want to survive but it also wants to thrive.

To do that, we need people who devote to pursuits that humans — including other people’s kids — directly benefit from.

Pursuits like art. Education. Industry. Politics. Community.

Pursuits that both parents and the childfree can contribute to.

Society doesn’t thrive just by keeping the headcount high (far from it). It thrives because of the way all members of society contribute.

To assume childfree women are somehow exempt from this damages the communities people claim to love because it excludes a growing number of women, many of whom have a lot to give.

Not wanting children doesn’t preclude you from wanting a stake in the world. It’s incredible that some people — I’m looking at you J.D. Vance — think it does. Or — as the New York Times quoted — that there are family demographers who think that choosing to have children is the “ultimate vote of confidence in the future.”

It’s not true. Some women aren’t making a stand against the world by not having children. Some of them are simply exercising their right to say no because they want to do contribute in another way.

That’s it.

No reason is a valid reason

I get why women using their agency to not have children must seem — to some — scary or out of the ordinary.

We love the idea of a nurturing, maternal woman.

Think of how women have been portrayed throughout history and in popular culture. You’ve got the Greek, Roman and Norse deities of love and fertility — all women.

You’ve got Mother Nature.

More recently, TV and film often peddle birth as a happy ever after. Think Bridgerton. Knocked Up. FRIENDS.

The reality is that for as long as there have been women on this earth, there will have been women who didn’t want children.

Until recently, we couldn’t always exercise our choice. The only guarantees to avoiding procreation were to become a nun or avoid marriage which would have led to societal ostracisation.

Yes, that still happens. But many women in many parts of the world can now act on their desire to not have children for whatever reason, including no reason.

Even if it leads to uncomfortable conversations.

This is where the Vance Stance vs. Modern Life Strife argument falls down. Both of these give reasons for a woman’s lack of children but neither of them addresses the fact that some women may simply be acting on their newfound freedom to say no.

Sometimes, it’s as simple as that.

Whilst I don’t doubt for a minute that there are women out there who aren’t having children because of both the Vance Stance and the Modern Life Strife, to assume these are the only reasons is reductive.

Get childfree women in a safe space and you might hear something different. The quiet admission that they don’t want kids because they don’t want them.

These are my friends. This was once me.

When it comes to reproduction, female agency is a wonderful thing. Not every woman in the world has the freedom to express hers so I will never take mine for granted.

Because that female agency lets women live how they want for whatever reasons they want. As the amazing journalist Lyz Lenz of Men Yell At Me says:

Women should not have to justify their existence, whether they are childless, or with children and unpartnered. Women get to just exist however they want to.

We get to exist however we want, including not wanting children just because.

That might not be comfortable for everyone, but in the case of some childfree women, it is the truth.

The sooner we accept that, the sooner we can get on with creating a world that works for everyone within it.

Parent, child or otherwise.

By Charlie Brown

Thanks for reading this piece, which was originally published on Medium. If you enjoyed it, I’d love to hear your thoughts; please leave a comment or share it with a friend.

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