One of my goals in life is to remain childfree. This page will explain what it means to be childfree, and why I feel this way.
People who call themselves "childfree" mean that they have no children and don't intend to have any, through their own choice. The term "childfree" is used instead of the more common word "childless" because the "-less" implies that something is missing, that the absence of children is something that's regretted. I'm not sure who actually first invented the word, though it's a fairly obvious coinage.
Childfree people can have many different motivations for not wanting children.
- Some childfree people actually like children and care deeply for their well-being, but simply feel no need to have any of their own. Childfree people of this type may sometimes become teachers, preferring to spread their attention over many children rather than just one or two of their own, and they're often much beloved by their nieces and nephews.
- On the other hand, some of the childfree find children actively irritating or annoying. The mere sight of a drooling, runny-nosed child is like fingernails on a blackboard, inspiring disgust or daydreams of Edward Gorey-style mayhem. Of course, everyone hates truly ill-mannered or obnoxious children, such as the toddler shrieking for 5 hours from the airplane seat next to you, but childfree people of this type seem equally enraged by well-mannered children.
- Some childfree people may want children, but are infertile, don't want to submit themselves to the agony of modern fertility treatments, and have simply decided to forego children.
- Others may avoid having children for environmental reasons. The current world population is 6 billion and increasing, predicted to hit a peak of 9 billion around 2070, and some people would like to avoid contributing to the problem. Indeed, I've often thought that life would be more pleasant if there were fewer people around: roads would be less crowded, cities would be more compact, and human society would have proportionately less environmental impact.
My attitude toward children isn't at any extreme of like or dislike. The average child doesn't repulse or annoy me, but neither do I find children cute or charming. Having spent a few social gatherings unable to hold a conversation due to attention-craving sprogs, I've learned that I simply find children boring most of the time. Watching them toddle about, proudly exhibit their toys, or recite an incoherent summary of a Pokemon episode, is dull; even well-mannered and bright children are interesting for only 5 minutes or so.
When confronted with a baby, I'll make the socially expected noises of "Oh, how cute. Oh, look at its little fingers. ootski kootski koo?", but in reality I don't feel any significant twinges of paternal affection, and my attention wanders away in about five minutes. (Put a small kitten in front of me, all mewing and tiny and fuzzy, if you want to get some fierce protectiveness out of me.)
Neither do I like how parents often let their world dwindle to their children. In a conversation a parent once bemoaned how little reading he got done, saying "It's hard to find a half hour of free time". He's certainly happy enough with his family, and has made decisions reflecting his priorities, so I'm happy for him. My priorities are different. I like having free time for reading, concerts, or new activities such as taking up the cello; none of this would be possible if my free time was consumed by taking care of a child.
I'm hardly alone in this. Barb, my SO, is also childfree and her tolerance level for children may be lower than mine. Current statistics show that the number of childless couples are on the rise, and birth rates in the First World are almost uniformly dropping. Having children may still be a near-compulsory part of the conventional script for a life, but there are hopeful signs that this is changing.
Childfree Resources
childfree.net has some general introductory material and some links, but is fairly superficial. The alt.support.childfree FAQ is better, presenting good summaries of the various childfree positions written by various posters to the newsgroup, and lists the arguments commonly thrown at the childfree ("Who'll take care of you when you're old?", "It'll be different when it's your own," and "But you'd be a good parent!" being among the most common ones).
There's a Usenet newsgroup for childfree discussion, alt.support.childfree. (There's also a moderated group, but it seems to be moribund.)
Both are primarily social newsgroups with a lot of off-topic chatter about pets, jobs, food, or whatever. A significant fraction of postings in the unmoderated group demonstrate a train-wreck fascination with particularly bad encounters with children or especially nasty cases of domestic violence. Perhaps this is because people are insecure about their decision and require constant negative reinforcement, but I find this habit distasteful and petty, adding a stridently whining tone and making the newsgroups more annoying and less interesting than they could be.
A common complaint among childfree people in the US is the pervasive Disneyfication of society, as people attempt to make all the world safe for children, or convenient for the childed. Examples of this include making car trunks safe for children who lock themselves inside them while playing, requiring all Internet content</a> be appropriate for children of any age, requesting that insurance companies pay for heroic infertility measures when many of them still won't pay for contraception, and other foolish entitlements. There doesn't seem to be any organized childfree activism, which is a pity. Appeals to "It's for the children" are fairly common in public policy, and it's unfortunate that there isn't a group arguing for the opposite position.