For an episode of Childfree Girls, we invited a guest who’d emailed us with a request to talk about her path to being childfree. She told us during our recording that she’d grown up assuming she would have kids, but that she later realized she didn’t want to be a parent.
She then she shared one of the unique circumstances of her life that she said had helped shape her decision to not have kids.
“So,” I said, “if that circumstance hadn’t happened, if everything could be guaranteed to be perfect in that area, would you then want kids?”
This turned into a conversation about bingos, because I had apparently (unwittingly ) bingoed our guest.
But, in my defense, she’d unwittingly asked for it — the same way many of us do.
What Goes Wrong
I’ll use the almost-universally loved chocolate as an example.
If someone says, “I don’t like chocolate,” the response will be, “What? Why don’t you like chocolate?”
Responding to the “Why?” with a solvable problem—“It’s too sweet” or “It’s too hard” or “It’s a little gritty” or “It melts on my fingers”—IS the problem if no solution is desired.
Too sweet? “Try the darker kind. It’s less sweet.”
Too hard? “Try chocolate syrup.”
Too gritty? “You must have eaten Hershey’s. I’ll get you Swiss chocolate.”
Too melty? “Have you tried refrigerating it?”
It’s hard to fathom someone not liking chocolate. Everyone likes it. Everyone eats it (well, 80 percent of everyone, anyway). When someone says they don’t eat or enjoy something most people eat and enjoy, it’s natural to be confused and, apparently, to then try to convince them that the only reason they’re not enjoying this thing everyone else enjoys is that they’re not experiencing it in the right way.
What if the chocolate-hater had said instead, “I just hate the flavor”? There’s no solution for that. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it.
Unintentional though it may be, childfree people often do the same thing as the reason-supplying chocolate hater when asked why they don’t want children. They come up with drawbacks of having kids without considering that for almost every drawback, there is a possible solution.
Kids are too expensive. “Oh, that only depends on how much you spend! You can make being a parent affordable.”
I like my marriage as it is. “A child can bring you even closer.”
The world is too dangerous. “There are many safe places to live that are wonderful for raising children.”
I really value my free time. “You can hire a sitter, or swap free time with your partner!”
I didn’t mean to bingo our guest, and I felt bad about it afterward, but I couldn’t help it when her reason for not wanting kids made me reflexively compelled to find a solution. After all, people who want children are usually the ones who won’t have them because of X or Y. If X or Y weren’t a factor, they would have them. Because they want them.
And people who care about people want other people to have what they want. “Won’t have kids you want because X? I have a solution for X! You can totally have the kid!”
If you simply don’t want kids, shut it down
For those who hate being asked follow-ups about their decision to not have children — or any decision, for that matter — the best answer is the honest one. The simple, short, honest truth.
When I asked our guest if she’d want kids if conditions were perfect, she said no. She really just didn’t want to be a parent.
I don’t know why so many of us make justifications that don’t have any relevance in the end. I’m not referring to the guest, but to any one of us who wouldn’t want kids for any reason—the planet could get a brand new ozone layer, our relationships with our partners could improve tenfold, money could fall into our laps, and no new soul on Earth would ever have to be even a little bit sad for a single second—but who would still try to justify it. “I mean, look at the state of the world...”
I think it’s a reflex. Some kind of unconscious deflecti-shield.
Whatever it is, it invites questions—innocent, logical questions—and solutions.
If you don’t want the questions or the solutions, if you don’t want kids no matter what, it’s actually easy to explain, because everyone doesn’t want something.
No reason except “Don’t wanna”? Just say so.
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this post or the subject matter I cover, you might also enjoy my novel The Age of the Child.
“This book manages to avoid the sanctimonious or pedantic lecturing that a lot of fiction dealing with sensitive social topics can fall into, achieved by Tsetsi's deft balancing of sincerity and humor. Definitely worth a second, if not third, read.”—Amazon Review
“Scathing social commentary.” — Goodreads Review
“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.” — Rebecca Maye Holiday, author of The Beaches