Women who are childless or childfree

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Excerpt from Childfree Women Are Still Subjected to Stigma

Kristen Tsetsi, an author and activist who has chosen to be childfree, shares her experiences of being met with both stigma and acceptance. She notes a memorable experience of feeling supported:

“I was a grocery bagger at a military post commissary, and one day a woman whose bags I carted to her car asked if I had kids. When I said I didn’t, she asked if I wanted any. Still shy about saying it out loud, I quietly told her I didn’t. ‘Good for you,’ she said. ‘Stay strong. Don’t let them make you change your mind.’ Until that point, I’d thought I was somehow wrong for not wanting to be a mother. In that short interaction, one she couldn’t possibly have known would be so important, she gave me the boost I needed.”

Copyright Robert T. Muller, Ph.D.

Dental Hygenist years ago ,asked me the same question, when I replied " no" she replied when do you think you will...
That pretty much eliminate much commonality to continue her converstation with her.
Have had a very very full life inspite, without children.. No disrespect for those whom choose to bear children. Even my admiration, For I would not exist, if Mum did not have children.. Inspite of personal family history .

I’m a childless woman in her mid-fifties. Only now do I begin to realize the full extent of society stigma to this minority. It explains why I felt excluded most of my adult life from other adult women my age. Women who became mothers live in an entirely different world than me, even before any admission of autism spectrum. Theirs is just another silent club for me to decipher. It’s no wonder why many of us are so good at pattern recognition and coding. And also no wonder why I misinterpret social cues from time to time.

A woman’s worth should not be determined by her ability to have sex and procreate.

When you’re a mom on the spectrum, you won’t necessarily fit in with other mothers or even relate to them because your needs, priorities, interests, values, and approach to parenting may be very different from those in your milieu. That was my experience anyway, so motherhood has never felt like a club to me. Well, I’m an introvert and have trouble engaging with people anyway.

There can be a lot of judgment and stigma placed on parents and for a variety of different reasons. It’s tough, especially when you try your damnedest to give your kid what they deserve. It’s like it’s never good enough. That’s definitely not everyone’s experience, but I don’t think it’s that uncommon, perhaps especially when one is a parent on the spectrum who has her own struggles to manage somehow. I certainly don’t regret having him, though. Not even for a second.

I think when people don’t fit into established norms - the in-group - as defined by their society/community judgment and some level of ostracism is often the result.

There definitely can be a lot of judgment and stigma on women related to sex and motherhood. If an actress has a nude scene in a movie, people and the media often talk way more about her body than her work even if she was utterly brilliant.

Well, for those women who need to know that they aren’t alone, there are some books on this topic. I’ve read the first but not the second yet.


Women Without Kids: The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood by Ruby Warren

And

Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother by Peggy O'Donnell Heffington

I remember one time I told a man I didn't want to have kids and he asked me if I thought I wasn't attractive. Kind of silly. A lot of people can't process someone not wanting to raise kids. I don't even dislike kids; I just don't want to interact with them as a parent.

I feel like stigma isn't too bad in the US. People think you're very weird, maybe even that you're selfish depending on how you spend your time, but usually not that you're dangerous or anything like that. I realize I am fairly strange by mainstream cultural norms, so I can't argue with this one at least as it applies to me.

I do agree that it doesn't necessarily mean people are more selfish, but stereotypical the mother is sacrificing everything for her kids etc. For someone who spends most of their nonwork time time on kids and the household, there's naturally a question of how we are spending our time.

In my case, I spend a lot of time on medical issues and the like, so a lot of it is to benefit myself. Having kids I couldn't take care of to make myself look better would be more selfish than what I'm doing, of course. Having kids to feel less selfish is also selfish in a more roundabout way - I'm sure many of have experienced angry parents when we didn't fulfill those expectations of making them feel loving and selfless.

I do also try to do things to benefit other people when I can, but I'm not going to win any awards here. No one said Mother Theresa was selfish, so after a certain point people would stop questioning it. What's going on in my case is understandably less obvious to people. I'm not going to debate someone's judgement of my level of selfishness unless it's very extreme (totally selfish or totally not selfish) since there's some ambiguity here.

I'm not meaning to comment on anyone else's situation, of course, but being seen as "the same" as others or being welcomed in the same social circles isn't something I think about much anymore. People mostly won't understand what's outside their life experience, so I don't expect that. I feel like I'm doing well if they aren't trying to jail me, publicly harass me, commit acts of violence, etc. I'm happy if I have the space to do what's important to me, a generally-not-actively-hostile social environment, and maybe a couple people who understand me on a deeper level.

I'm very happy--even proud--to be a "childless cat woman."

From the time I was old enough to seriously contemplate becoming a parent, I knew myself well enough to know that I probably wouldn't want any, and was wise enough to know that bringing kids into the world "just because" is a terrible thing for so many reasons. My husband shared a similar mindset, so we've created a simple but meaningful life for ourselves. No, we won't have young ones to lean on as we age, but what kind of nasty trick is that in a modern age? You can wax poetic about societies and eras where the multi-generational family provides/d the most natural safety net for all involved, but what is the point of making more babies when the planet has been overpopulated for decades?

Besides, as my mother copes with increasing problems in her nineties, I think a long walk off a short pier--instead of a slow, unaffordable slide in a nursing home--might be the way for me to go. Maybe I'm being a bit grim, but life these days...