Why Some Women Don't Want Children

My daughter and her husband have chosen not to have children. As I began to research the issue, I immediately came across pushback to the more typical term, “childlessness,” which has historically covered both the intended and unintended states of not having a child.¹ The rise of the “childfree” movement has been in some ways a counter to that, as more people are talking openly about deliberately choosing not to have a child.

And some people, who call themselves “anti-natalists,” hold the view that life is neither a gift nor a miracle, but instead a bad idea because of its inevitable suffering.² Some climate activists are sympathetic to this perspective because of potential climate catastrophes.

Who Is Choosing to Be Childfree?

At 32, Zoe Noble, a British photographer, was told by her doctor that “the clock is ticking.”³ She needed a hysterectomy because of painful fibroids but could not get one until she was 37 despite not wanting children. Zoe began photographing women who have opted out of parenthood for a portrait series, "We Are Childfree."⁴ Here are the stories of 3 of these women.

Gwen always knew she didn’t want kids. After a breakup when she was 32, she reexamined her choice but realized that nothing had changed. She had sought a tubal ligation at an earlier age but was told no by her physician because “you’ll change your mind.”

Lisa is 38 and works as a nanny. She was diagnosed with endometriosis and had a large fibroid tumor. While she had known for years that she did not want children, when she wanted a hysterectomy, her doctor told her to think about it for a month. She has been thinking about it for over 10 years.

Marcy is a 47-year-old photojournalist who has shot a warrior initiation ceremony in northern Kenya and trekked 17 miles to find a collared cheetah for National Geographic. She believes she would not have had this job and these experiences if she had children waiting at home.

These women’s stories highlight some of the difficulties facing women who do not want to have children, including:

• Some meet resistance in the medical field if they choose to end their capacity to have children through tubal ligation or hysterectomy.
• They may have to justify their wish to not have children—in the eyes of some, it cannot be their choice.

Why Are Women Choosing Not to Have Children?

1. Social changes. Young women of today can think of life without a husband; women out-earn male partners in a quarter of households these days.⁵ Many young women do not want to rely on their partner’s income.
2. The myth of the biological clock. Despite the old trope of a so-called “biological clock,” many young women are not feeling “the urge” to have kids. Many women no longer buy into the idea that being childfree indicates some dysfunction (being selfish, shallow, and self-absorbed). We can think about a childfree life.
3. Finances and other logistical reasons.⁶ The burden of motherhood still falls primarily on women. While the wage gap between men and women has decreased, motherhood is one cause of depressed wages for women. Women with children are more likely to be unemployed or to work part-time. Taking a single year of parental leave can cut a woman’s salary by 20 percent. And the cost of raising a child has almost doubled in the last 20 years.
4. Choice. The childfree movement wants us to embrace the idea that it is OK to not want children.⁷

How to Decide

Ann Davidman is a therapist who has dedicated her 30-year career to helping people figure out if they want to have children.⁸ Some things she's heard from her clients over the years include:

• "I’m afraid of losing my partner because he wants kids, and I don’t know what I want. I think I don’t want them."
• "I’m afraid of losing my identity, freedom, and comfort if I have children, and afraid of regretting it if I don’t."
• "I’ve always wanted to have a baby—but is it even ethical, knowing the threat to the environment and the current political turmoil?"

Davidman says the decision is difficult because of the unspoken message that everyone should want to have children. She says many people assume they will “just know,” which doesn’t always happen. Many people struggle with the decision for years, driven in part by fear. Making a conscious decision only after knowing what you want is real freedom of choice.

Davidman advises taking some time out (one to 3 months) from thinking about it. It’s not always a good idea to do a pros and cons list—often, this just gets you more stuck. You can create lists—one with all your fears about having/not having kids, the other the things you are obsessing about (age health, career, relationship status, etc.). Then put these lists aside so you can pay attention to what you want and why you want what you want.

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Figuring out what you want takes some thought. Davidman suggests writing about what you want your life to look like and what messages you have gotten about having a child from your parents, your religion, if relevant, and society. Try to imagine, for just a few days, what it would be like to be childfree; then, imagine life with a child. Finally, ask yourself what would have to happen for you to say “yes” or “no” to having a child—and feel good about either answer.

This process gives you the time to explore the choice, without pressure, to help you discover what you honestly want. This will free you to make a conscious decision about what you are going to do.

Can We Build a Life Without Kids?

Many women have carved out their own spaces via blogs, meet-up groups, and online communities dedicated to navigating life without kids.⁹

The first NotMom Summit was held in 2017,¹⁰ billed as the world’s only conference for and about women without children. The conference was described as more like a group therapy session in overdrive—part beacon of hope, part instruction manual. For some, it was the first time women have been told that they can build a valuable life without children and that there are tools to do this.

Recent birth data for 2020 show that births have been falling almost continuously for more than a decade in the U.S.¹¹ Women are both delaying childbearing and having fewer total births. Data collected in 2021 from the start of the pandemic indicate that there has been a significant drop in fertility in the U.S. and worldwide,¹² and it looks like births will not rebound anytime soon.

Dr. Amy Blackstone, sociologist and author of Childfree by Choice, notes that many opponents of reproductive freedom have latched on to these declining birth rates as a justification for banning abortions, doing away with sex education classes, making birth control difficult to access, and arguing that we need higher birth rates in the U.S.

The motherhood imperative, pronatalism, argues that every woman is supposed to be a mother.¹³Pronatalism is a political ideology that sees women’s primary role as giving birth to boost the population. Motherhood is more than a choice to many pronatalists; it’s a higher calling.

Yet open support for choosing not to have a baby has blossomed in the last 20 or so years because of the increasing focus on women’s rights. Reproductive choice can be both about not having children and about having them—whatever makes the most sense for you.