Episode Four, “Mothers and the Others, ” now available on iTunes and on this site.
What does a happily married woman with no kids have in common with a happily married mother of three–who’s now expecting her fourth child? More than you might think. Drop your stereotypes and listen as Jo chats with Lindsey Frandsen, founder of Thinking Moms in Riverside, California.
The word for people who have chosen to never have kids is childfree. Childfree doesn’t imply a “party.” It’s simply a word to refer to not having kids as a positive thing.
As someone who is childfree (23 and sterile by choice,) I consider myself to free of a great burden that other people carry. I don’t want kids. So I don’t have kids. And my life is better than it would be otherwise for it.
I still have my own burdens. My own responsibilities. My own life. My own work to do. I am just happily without this one thing in my life. The only kids I deal with are other peoples’. It’s just better for me this way.
I see no need for another word to describe that. The word “childfree” has been in use to describe this lifestyle since at least 1972, and is starting to become better known.
The word for this needs to be known so that people know exactly what we’re talking about and that it’s OK to live this way. Making a new word would send us back to square one and it would be that much harder to gain acceptance. (It just so happens that I recently wrote an article on the subject.)
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. Please send us the link to your essay–or let us know where we can find the article.
Oh, well I wasn’t going to post this as it’s only somewhat related as it’s about the use of the word “childfree,” and I didn’t want to use your comments section to advertise, but sure: http://hikinghumanist.com/2011/11/26/defending-the-word-childfree/
Maybe article isn’t quite the right word. Post, maybe, since it’s on a blog. In any case, I write a number of articles about being childfree. I’ll also add this post:
http://hikinghumanist.com/2011/07/14/looking-forward/
This second link is a post that I wrote shortly after I had my tubal ligation earlier this year (it’s not easy to get a tubal at 22.) In it, I think I explain a lot better what I mean when I talk about the “free” part of being childfree.
It’s not just being without kids, itself. Being without kids means an entirely different lifestyle than parents live, with different limitations.