Childfree and Loving It! by Nicki Defago

Despite this, comments such as ‘you’re not doing your duty by carrying on the species’ still feature in the lives of those who choose to remain childfree.Ĭarroll goes onto alert the reader to an array of assumptions we make regarding children, including the following:

There are still enough people who want to have children, so extinction through a lack of procreation is unlikely. Of course, this was of its time, before the likes of medicine and clean water came along to increase our chances of survival. She tackles the discussion on how parenthood is often glorified by celebrities and the media in current times, but also that it originated long ago, as far back as 50 BC, when the Fathers of the Christian Church urged people to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ in order keep the species going and maybe (just maybe) to ensure they get more people coming to their church. Laura Carroll covers the concept of Pronatalism in her book The baby matrix, defining it as ‘an attitude or policy that is pro-birth, that encourages reproduction’ (p. All the books discussed in this article are available to purchase on Amazon. Most of the books on the subject are American, where there appears to be a higher level of pressure from society to have children than there is in the UK.

In some cultures, the subject is still taboo. Current literature on the childfree movement is limited and this could well be because, until recent times, choosing not to have children was considered to be a failure. Harsh, but thought-provoking, especially when the common viewpoint of today leans towards those who don’t want children being the irrational ones. ‘If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood.’ As far back as the 19th century, the German Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer saw human existence as a burden and therefore it was irrational to procreate: In a society where living the way you want without prejudice and judgement is increasingly encouraged, why should this choice be a problem? It’s becoming less of an issue as time goes on, but as with anything slightly different to the status quo, continuous raising of awareness works to reduce blinkered assumptions.Īs with any controversial topic, some viewpoints can come as a shock to those with differing worldviews. Is choosing to be childfree by choice really as selfish as people make it out to be, or is this just another lifestyle to be accepted and embraced like any other way of living? This article introduces literature on the lifestyle choice which is becoming more commonplace: actively choosing not to have children.Ī growing number of people are making a conscious, informed choice not to have children.

Childfree and Loving It! by Nicki Defago