Childless Revolution - Review

The Childless Revolution – by Madelyn Cain

I finished this book inside of 3 days. Easy read and not very thick at 173 pages.

Basically, Ms Cain divides the childfree into 3 categories: Choice, Chance and Happenstance. In those categories, she also looks at various issues within each one.

Under the heading of CHOICE, she talks about the positively, religiously and environmentally childfree. These are women who, for whatever reason, have chosen to remain childfree and not breed. Some did it for personal reasons, others because they devoted their life to a religion and others for protection of the environment.

I found this chapter to be too short, really. Only 43 pages about women who have made the conscious choice to not breed. Surely, there has to be more women like that out there, I would think. Not only that, there has to be more reasons and better ones than only those 3 mentioned. The author seems to focus a bit too much on the idea that many childfree women are selfish in their lives and their choices. Are parents not selfish in wanting to have a little them? How is protecting the environment selfish? If we don’t have kids for environmental reasons (or at least TELL people that is our reason) does that make us better CF people than someone who says “I just don’t want kids”?

In the second part, the author looks at women who are childfree/childless by chance, often due to medical reasons. She touches briefly on gay couples who wish to have kids but can’t/don’t due to red tape and the obvious conception problems.

Many of the women in the chapter, in my opinion, are not childfree. Childfree, to me, indicates a choice, a lifestyle that you not only want but embrace and welcome. Many of the women who are childless by chance WANTED to have babies and have resigned themselves to a life without them due to failed fertility treatments. She even labels one of these categories “Tragically Childless”. Tragically? I find this to be a bit of an over inflation of being childless, but then I am one of the ones who chose this lifestyle. The tragically CL women had memorial services and buried their hope and dreams (literally) for their unborn children.

In my opinion, anyone wanting to be a parent in this day and age can be if they are willing to forego the idea that children are only your children if they come from you and adopt a child. True, adopting a lily-white newborn in a western country is tough. So why not look abroad? Why not look into fostering children? The adoption/foster-care system in most places needs a major overhaul and if someone won’t start it, it will never change. Maybe that’s a bit simplistic in my thinking, but there are ways to be a parent without giving birth.

One good thing to come out of this chapter was one women’s comment about how her fertility treatments made her sit back and REALLY look at what was driving her to have a baby. She said, “I think many people do not think about having children, they just do it… In fact in the last 15 months, I have stepped back and looked at why I wanted children. I wanted children for selfish reasons and that is not right. I wanted a child to complete my life and make it perfect. That would not have happened. So, am I selfish? The answer is, not anymore.”

FINALLY!!! Someone who gets it. We, the childfree, are not the selfish ones usually. More often than not, parents are the selfish ones.

The final chapter deals with those childfree by happenstance, which in many cases, seemed to be by choice as well…or neglect. It’s like some of these women woke up one day and said “Oh SHIT! I forgot to have a baby! Ah well….”

We find women in this chapter who did not have babies because of their moral beliefs, their horrific and scaring childhoods, due to their careers or due to their marriage. Many of these women expressed no regret at their childfree status as much as the women who had medical problems. Many of the women in this chapter are older, in their 60’s and expressed little to no regret about not having a child. One women said, “Being childless is not an aberration; being a mother who hates her child, now THAT’S an aberration.”

Women who felt that they had to be married in order to have a child and then never married fall in to this chapter as well. Due to their strong convictions, they have chosen to live without children rather than have one out of wedlock. More power to them in this day and age of women having babies to ‘complete them’, without a husband or partner in the picture.

As women get married at later and later ages, we find ourselves marrying men who have been married before or who already have a family and don’t wish to do it again. Some women find themselves with partners who are more CF than they are and refuse to be fathers. I’m in that boat, in a way. I know that if it came down to it, I’d have to choose between my husband and a baby. I’ve made my choice. I’m quite happy with it as well. Many of these women report happier, more fulfilling marriages and more intimacy with their partners. They can focus on their adult relationships and this makes them happier than changing diapers. One woman said, “But I just met him and, you know, everybody comes with their beliefs, their package, and that was him and that’s what I was choosing. It was easy for me. I didn’t have to decide. I chose. I chose my husband.” Sounds fair to me and that is the situation I find myself in, a situation that I am more than happy to be in as well.

In this chapter, the author briefly addresses the idea that if you do not have kids, you are not a ‘real woman’. This is one argument that shits me more than anything. How does crapping something out of you make you a real woman? By proving that the interior works work? So if you are in fertile, you’re not real either? Such bullshit!! Being a real woman means making real choices that work for you. Why do we think that the path to someone else’s house will lead us to our home? Everyone on this planet is wonderfully different. What makes the general public think that just because I am female I have to want what most other females want and if I do not, well, then I am clearly not female...despite all the signs to the contrary. Sheesh!!

In a way, I did not feel that this book put enough of a positive spin on being CF. Lots of the negative points were dragged out and left floundering in the wind and not really disputed. Why is it ok for retired couples to travel and enjoy life but not so much for a young, CF couple to do the same? Should we not enjoy life when we are young? Life’s short and very unpredictable. If you wait for your retirement, it might be too late.

The other thing that this book should focus on more, in my opinion, the sense of entitlement that mothers seem to have. Why should I be expected to do more work because someone in my school choose to do too much? Mothers work less hours, get out of extra work due their children and still make the same as I do. How fair is that? Also, what gives childed women the right to harass us for the decisions we have made? Why can’t we start asking them why they felt the need to reproduce in an already over-crowded world.

This book, while good, was lacking in depth. More insight is needed into many things and given that some CF people are afraid to speak out about it, it might take awhile before a book is incredible comprehensive in it’s dealings with CFness.