Childfree by Choice
They can bring home the bacon and nuke it up in a microwave, but shuttling kids to karate class and basketball practice is where this breed of women draw the line. They have nothing against parenthood if that 's your choice. It 's just not theirs. Some strong, confident, professional women are now ignoring the script embraced by their mothers and grandmothers and choosing not to have children.
Our culture values children and sees them as essential to the good life as a big screen TV or a ski vacation. Society bombards us with the idea that children are a given. The message is everywhere—almost every commercial is targeted to families with children. It 's so ingrained in our psyches that it 's difficult to imagine other equally fulfilling alternatives. The notion of remaining childless makes people uneasy. In part, that 's because our sense of community is based on our sense of family.
In our society it is accepted and celebrated when a woman decides to have a child. It is considered normal and obvious, even expected, that women want to marry and raise children. But what if a woman decides that motherhood is not a role she wants to pursue? It often then becomes an issue of social concern when a woman makes public her decision to remain childfree. Women who are voluntarily childless are often faced with disbelief and disapproval from friends, family, and society in general. The terms "woman" and "mother" have become much related in our society, so that it would seem to most people that you couldn 't be the former without being the latter.
There is a big difference between being "childless" and being "childfree." To be called "childless" would imply that something is missing from their life, that something is wrong. Women who are infertile are pitied and receive sympathy. They are then medically treated, as if diseased, to try to bring about a pregnancy and birth. Women, who are voluntarily childless, often prefer the more positive term
Our culture values children and sees them as essential to the good life as a big screen TV or a ski vacation. Society bombards us with the idea that children are a given. The message is everywhere—almost every commercial is targeted to families with children. It 's so ingrained in our psyches that it 's difficult to imagine other equally fulfilling alternatives. The notion of remaining childless makes people uneasy. In part, that 's because our sense of community is based on our sense of family.
In our society it is accepted and celebrated when a woman decides to have a child. It is considered normal and obvious, even expected, that women want to marry and raise children. But what if a woman decides that motherhood is not a role she wants to pursue? It often then becomes an issue of social concern when a woman makes public her decision to remain childfree. Women who are voluntarily childless are often faced with disbelief and disapproval from friends, family, and society in general. The terms "woman" and "mother" have become much related in our society, so that it would seem to most people that you couldn 't be the former without being the latter.
There is a big difference between being "childless" and being "childfree." To be called "childless" would imply that something is missing from their life, that something is wrong. Women who are infertile are pitied and receive sympathy. They are then medically treated, as if diseased, to try to bring about a pregnancy and birth. Women, who are voluntarily childless, often prefer the more positive term
Bibliography: Bachu, Amara. 1999. Is childlessness among American women on the rise? U.S. Gillespie, Rosemary. 2000. When no means no: Disbelief, disregard, and deviance as discourses of voluntary childlessness Hird, Myra J., and Kimberly Abshoff. 2000. Women without children: A contradiction in terms? Journal of Comparative Family Studies Knight, Les U. 2001. Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, Leatherby, Gayle, and Catherine Williams Morell, Carolyn M. 1994. Unwomanly conduct: The challenges of intentional childlessness