Childfree
Women have been tied to childbearing and child rearing as part of their identities across almost every culture and time period. The idea that motherhood is fixed, unchanging, natural, fulfilling and central to feminine identity has become ingrained in western culture (224). Most women become mothers at some times in their lives, and for many, the urge to have a child is a powerful force (Gillespie 122). However, recent years have seen a growing trend among women to remain childfree. Social changes and progressive science have brought about new possibilities for women which never existed in previous generations. The choice to remain child-free is a radical one; challenging traditional social ideals and values, as well as bringing about a new kind of feminine identity, one separate and uncoupled from the hegemonic ideal of motherhood.
Ideologies of motherhood have come into popular discourse and the everyday understanding of women. The nurturance of children is regarded as what women “do” and mothers are seen to be what women “are.” This perception has become the central core of a normal, healthy, feminine identity as well as a woman’s social role and ultimately the meaning of the term ‘woman’ (Gillespie 225).
Traditionally, not having children has been associated with involuntary childlessness or infertility. Women who fall into this category have been seen to be worthy of sympathy, resources and support (Gillespie 225). On the other hand, choosing to be childfree is often seen as deviant, unfeminine, and such women have been understood in ways that emphasize their selfishness and their deviance (Gillespie 124). Motherhood continues to be seen as a woman’s highest achievement. Society praises the ideal of motherhood based on self-sacrifice and unconditional love, and yet mothers are still undervalued, unpaid, and seen as unskilled and boring (Bartlett 5).
Aspects of ideal motherhood can be found in every social institution, from religion, to politics, to modern science. Judaeo-Christian religious constructions of womanhood as heterosexual, fertile, and life-giving emphasize how bearing children and the pain associated with childbirth were seen to be God’s curse on Eve for her sins. (Gittins, 1985) 224. Political perspectives such as supporting “traditional family values” associated with kinship “natural” social roles and the containment of sexual behavior within the nuclear family (224). As a generalization, married heterosexual women appear to conform to the notion of the ideal mother, while others who may be single, divorced, black, poor, lesbian or disabled are perceived as less suitable (224). Finally, modern reproductive medicine, drawn from knowledge of control of women’s bodies, is accessible only to doctors, a small, male-dominated group. Medical culture provides a powerful ideology and a system of socialization which affects every day discourse and practices (Gillespie 225).
Recent accounts of childfree lifestyles can be understood by looking at the way our society has been changing. Motherhood has been a subject for debate since the 1970’s when the feminist movement tried to make connections between motherhood and a woman’s social and political position (Bartlett 1996:1). Reliable and safe contraception as well as paid employment have been the two major factors which have broadened the possibilities for women, and have created new choices for them. Nowadays, more and more women are choosing to either delay having children until a later age, or choosing not to have them at all (Bartlett 1996:2).
The reasons for remaining childfree vary between women. Jane Bartlett interviewed fifty women who have each made the choice to remain child-free about what led them to their decision. Rosemary Gillespie also conducted interviews on twenty-five childfree women. After conducting these interviews, a better understanding of why some women choose against having children was produced. Many participants described the attraction of being childfree in terms of having more freedom of lifestyle, wider choices, and greater opportunities, in addition to increased autonomy, improved financial position, and closer intimate relationships (Gillespie 129). Many stated that having a partner very supportive of their decision was extremely helpful. Other family members, such as parents, in-laws, and siblings (especially those with children) were less understanding of their decision. Furthermore, many of the women who were interviewed in both Bartlett’s and Gillespie’s studies viewed motherhood and mothering activities as unfulfilling. To them, motherhood represented a sacrifice, a duty, and a burden, involving demands that they were simply not ready to take on. They perceived motherhood as a loss of free time, energy, and personal identity (Gillespie 130).
And just as motherhood as been constructed as central to understandings of “normal” adult femininity, women who are not mothers have frequently been seen as “unnatural” and become the object of pity or are vilified for their decision (225). The failure to become a mother is interpreted within a western biomedical framework as a physical or phsyycholgical illness. (225)
There is a whole array of books which look at motherhood and give advice to mothers and yet there is relatively little information about women who choose not to have children. In fact, our language does not even have the correct vocabulary for a woman without children. There is no opposite word to “mother” except for maybe non-mother, which sounds very strange. Similarily, Bartlett points out that the term “child-free” cannot be found in any dictionary. In her book she uses the term child-free in the place of “childless” because to be childless implicitly suggests lack and deficiency, rather than a state reached through positive choice (Bartlett, 6). In our society, there seems to be an assumption that parenthood is inevitable. The question “When will you have children” is common place, but the question “Why did you have children” is rarely asked. A woman who decides not to become a mother throws all these presuppositions into uncertainty. People become suspicious and anxious about her; and stereotypes begin to form. Is she selfish and materialistic? The hard-bitten career woman or the lonely spinster stereotypes are popular stereotypes for women without children (Bartlett 6). Bartleet says that the child-free women she interviewed for her book, whose ages ranged from 22 to 75, were all so completely different, and yet none of the fit into either of the aforementioned stereotypes. They all described themselves as not having children through choice. They came from all kinds of different backgrounds, different careers, many were married, living with partners, others are single, divorced widowed or gay (6). She noted that the only shared characteristic perceived was the fact that they all possessed a lot of strength and courage to swim against the tide of convention (6). A good point made by Child psychologist Dorothy Stein as quoted in Bartlett’s book is that “the child-free are people who wish to make something interesting of their own lives and not do it vicariously through their children “(7).
To begin with, constructions of femininity and women’s social role have always been contextualized around the idea of motherhood. Historically and traditionally, motherhood has been considered as natural for women, and that the desire for women to become mothers is inevitable and unquestionable. Motherhood is perceived as central to the contruction of “normal” femininity (Gillespie 223). Much of the literature that deals with the phenomenon of voluntary childlessness identifies it as deviant (Houseknecht 285)
As feminism comes into the picture, women are provided with new opportunities, freedoms, and choices are available to women that were denied to previous generations of women.(225) Safe abortion, contraception, and reproductive technologies have enabled women to exert greater control over thir fertility, including when, whether, and in what conrect they will have children.. Increased reproductive choice has brought forth the possibility of staying child-free. Women in many parts of the world are unable to access the reproductive freedoms and technologies that facilitate being childfree (Gillespie 122).Diverse family configurations and independence and sexual freedom and women’s wider participation in paid work have meant that options for women other than motherhood have bcome increasingly available. The effect of social change has given rise to a type of ‘new”fmaminiity” As women increasingly engages in new roles, new contemporary discourses associated with a wider diversity of feminine experisnce and identity. (225)
As women’s lives have become transformed, it would be reasonable to anticipate that traditional pronatalist ideas would be be transformed as well (226)
(Central Statistics Office 1997, as cited in XXX 2004:56)
There is a transformation occurring among women starting at the beginning of 20th century.: In the United Kingdom, Western Europe, Canada and the United States, Women are starting to having few children and having them later in life (122). And even more notable trend is the increasing number of women who remain childless altogether. In 1991, twice as many women stated that they expected to remain childless compaired to 1986. “Studies have shown that increasing numbers of women in Wetern Europe and north Americ are rejecting motherhood and choosing childlessness” (224)
The social pressures that women experience telling them whether to have children, such as pursuing a career, religion, the institution of marriage, the media, and the stereotypical images and attitudes we impose on women who do not have any children. Women without children are often seen as either the career-driven, materialistic person, or as a sad and lonely spinster, living alone with her cats. As we will see, neither of these images ring true to the majority of women who choose not to have children.
According to a study done by Houseknecht, having group support is an important aspect of the decision to remain childless because social support helps to alleviate the effects of pressures from dissenting individuals or groups (291)
Although the majority of women in industrialized societies continue to become mothers at some point in their lives, both reproductive choice and greater independence and autnomy has created the possibility for women to choose not to have children. An increasing number of women are rejecting the traditional views of women and femininity being constructed around motherhood, highlighting the emergence of a positive feminine identity separate from motherhood. The ground is shifting, however, and although hit is still tremendously important, motherhood is increasingly viewed as one aspect of a woman’s lie, not its entirety. With new-found choices and opportunities, women can now extend their lives and identities beyond the boundaries of maternity and seek new possibilities for themselves.