Because I’m childfree, there is a good chance I’ll die alone. I know this because when childfree people talk about being childfree, one of the popular responses of the childed (or want-to-be-childed) is, “Aren’t you afraid you’ll die alone?”
It’s used so frequently as a way to make childfree women think just a little bit more about, or (honestly) scare them into, having kids that I have to assume
1) not having a child will leave me a lonely old person (assuming my husband dies before I do, or that we divorce before I die and I don’t find a new boyfriend, which would be unlikely because I flirt a lot when I’m single), and
2) many people would actually have children simply because they don’t want to die alone.
“Make no mistake. We all die alone.” — Up in the Air
As I learned when visiting a relative in ICU some years ago, having kids doesn’t guarantee someone will be by your side when you die. The nurses said most of the patients in ICU rarely had visitors. And the nursing home I once worked in wasn’t too crowded with old people’s concerned or caring children, either.
There are many places any one of us could die that aren’t in a bed surrounded by children:
In a car wreck, on a hike, in the shower, on a bike.
On an airplane, in a school, on the staircase, in a pool.
Choked on fishbone, stabbed in park, smooshed by bus wheels, death by shark.
House explosion, plastic bag, falling space junk, kicked by stag.
“Oopsie, poison!”, death by cop, too much laughing, fallen prop.
Struck by lighting, crashing train, fall from ladder, much cocaine.
While out jogging, roll off bed, burst blood vessel in your head.
Liquor poisoning, slip on ice, defective birth control device!
And so on.
There are many unappealing ways to die, and having children can only potentially minimize, but by no means eliminate, one of them.
In fact, it could be pregnancy or childbirth that kills you.
*Note: this addresses the literal event of “dying alone,” but I understand there’s another way to look at it.
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy my novel The Age of the Child.
“Something interesting and endlessly thought-provoking that The Age of the Child captures are the multiple sides of pregnancy — wanting to be pregnant, not wanting to be pregnant, and what right the government has in controlling pregnancy. This isn’t the first piece of dystopian fiction to consider these questions. The Handmaid’s Tale and The Farm, to name a couple, have opened the dystopian genre to questions about reproduction; however, The Age of the Child is one of the first I’ve read to really consider the issue of reproductive rights and attitudes so deeply.” — Goodreads Review
“Scathing social commentary.” — Goodreads Review
“Hilarious and twisted jabs at society.” — Goodreads Review
"...too much laughing..." I hope for this one.