Happy and child-free

By Mandy Rhodes
September 13, 2003

Picture this: little girls, dollies, prams and dressing-up clothes. It's a cosy nursery scene, the playing out of a biological destiny. But what would be the reaction if, when asked by a doting mummy what she wants to be when she grows up, one independently minded little miss answered, "Happy and childless."

Shock and horror might be followed by much soul-searching and fears of precocious instability. Motherhood, after all, is seen as the natural order of things. People without children may have nice, tidy homes and intact ornaments, but they can't possibly be fulfilled. A woman who doesn't want to be a mother must be selfish, masculine and a work-obsessed spinster. Or must she?

Ann Barclay, a beautician from Fife, grew up in a stable, loving family. She is a happy, intelligent and grounded woman and an unlikely radical. She played with dolls and dreamt of growing up and getting married. What never really factored in her thinking was motherhood. "I don't think I ever thought, 'I'll definitely not have children.' I just didn't ever think that I would. Babies were not something that I pictured when I imagined the future."

She married in her early 20s, and her husband was equally unenthusiastic about starting a family. But it wasn't until her marriage broke down and she entered her 30s once again a single woman that she realised that, in her ambivalence to motherhood, she had simply forgotten to have children.

And Barclay is not alone. A growing aversion to motherhood is confirmed by government statistics that reveal an increasing trend towards childlessness, with educated women especially likely to take the decision. One in four women of child-bearing age are estimated to remain childless. According to research by the government's Office of National Statistics, 22.5 per cent of women with a degree or professional qualification remain childless, compared with 15 per cent of women who do not continue their education.

Of course, it is difficult to separate those that can't have children from those that don't want children, but the plethora of social and support groups set up to accommodate the childless-by-choice brigade is testament to a growing trend. A new generation of educated, articulate and independent women is emerging with childlessness being the thinking woman's prerogative. These women not only make their career choices, but parenthood choices too; they haven't even heard their biological clock ticking, never mind the alarm bell ringing. As one American car bumper sticker proclaims, 'If I want to hear the pitter-patter of little feet, I'll put shoes on the cat!'

But even though this decision may be made by both men and women, it is the woman who tends to face society's flak. Motherhood is a role expectation, and to be without children is taken as some sort of an oddity. "I suppose people do see having children as a natural progression of growing up and getting married, but the feelings just didn't happen for me," explains Barclay.

"As I reached my 30s, all around me friends were weighing up their lives and many were making the decision to have children. I was doing the same kind of analysis of my life, but realised that my biggest dilemma at the time was whether or not to get a tattoo."

It was at this time that Barclay, in tune with countless other women, joined a growing number who choose to go through life without ever giving birth. She got sterilised. "During a visit to my GP about something else, I casually asked when he would consider me for sterilisation. He surprised me by saying that as long as he was convinced that I was sure then he would start the process."

Weeks later, Barclay found herself with four other women in the gynaecological ward of an Edinburgh hospital, waiting for the life-changing op. Two of the women were shocked to discover that she was relatively young, single and in to be sterilised. "They thought I was being immature and would regret the decision. But they were wrong. Ten years later, I still feel relieved that the responsibility has been lifted from me. When I get into a relationship I'm up-front from the start, so it's just one of those things that isn't up for discussion."

In fact, according to Professor Robin Templeton, honorary secretary of the Royal College of Obstetricians, it is women like Barclay who rarely regret their decision to be sterilised. "The kind of women who regret the decision to be sterilised are the ones who had their babies before they were 30, and then their marriage breaks down and they meet someone else who they want to have children with," he says.

"Women in their 30s who may have been married for some time and not wanted children have probably thought about it quite a lot and will be confident with their decision."

Surprisingly, given the strong, articulate profile of the type of women making the decision to remain childless, it is a fairly silent group. Perhaps, conscious of the sensitivity surrounding infertility, this is a group that doesn't advertise its lifestyle choice.

One Glasgow lawyer, a senior partner with one of the largest practices in Scotland and normally not known for her public reticence, says she is happy with her choice not to have children but would not want to expose herself publicly to the scrutiny of others. "I suppose it is odd that, given the easy way we can discuss why people can't have children, I am not willing to be open about not wanting children, but I don't want to be judged.

"In a way, the higher profile given to infertility issues has helped my situation, because people are not so keen to ask why you haven't had children any more. In some ways, I would rather people felt secretly sorry for me for not having children rather than questioned my motives. In my case, I just wanted my career more than I wanted a family, and it's as simple as that. If that makes me a bad woman, so be it - but it makes me a bloody good lawyer."

One reason for the resounding silence may be that childless women, by their very existence, raise uncomfortable questions about womanhood. "There's an implicit threat that these women pose to traditional ideas about what women and men are supposed to be," says Mardy Ireland, a psychologist in Berkeley, California, and author of Reconceiving Womanhood: Separating Motherhood From Female Identity. "Women who don't have children," says Ireland, "are assumed to be either career-crazed imitation men or sad, barren, spinster types."

But, like all stereotypes, they fail to tell the whole picture that acknowledges that women - even those who have longed to be mothers - can have rich and balanced lives without children of their own.

Carol McGiffen, Chris Evans's ex-wife, is a case in point. Her life could not be fuller. She has a packed social diary, a wide circle of friends and, as a popular television broadcaster, radio DJ and newspaper commentator, she is always on the go. She can't imagine having to make the compromises that go along with motherhood. "People's first reaction to my decision is that I am selfish, but that's nonsense - how selfish is it to just simply have children because you can, and then do nothing to change your life to accommodate them?" she asks. "If I was a mother, I would be a 100 per cent mother, like mine was. But I'm not prepared to give that kind of commitment, so I will remain childless."

Her decision is one ingrained in her very being; now aged 43, she says she can't remember a time when she didn't feel the same way. "My mother did a fantastic job bringing all four of us up, but it was a continual daily struggle," she says. "I suppose, subconsciously, I did think that that was what having children was about - a daily grind."

Despite the strength of her conviction, Carol does not dislike children; she has two nieces and a nephew, all of whom she adores, but she thinks it is no coincidence that her brother shares her childless-by-choice view. She has also terminated one pregnancy after becoming pregnant by accident when she was 19. "I have never regretted having an abortion. Having a baby under those circumstances just wouldn't have been the right thing to do.

"I know many of my friends think I am in some kind of denial about wanting children, but what can I say - 40 years of saying no is a long time. I have people constantly telling me that I'm filling the void where children should be with a constant whirl of going out, holidays, dinners and enjoying myself. I suspect, secretly, that they are slightly envious of my situation. How many people do you know with children who will say if they could turn back the clock they might not have had them?"

Dr Nada Stotland, a Chicago psychiatrist specialising in the mental health issues of women, said that personal experience, observations of family and friends with children, fears of an inability to mother, fears of being tied down, career aspirations and realities are all factors that go into the decision to remain childless. For some women in this increasingly child-centred society, deciding whether or not to have a child is a defining moment. The choice, although it's inconceivable to some, is often made long before marriage and sometimes even before reaching adulthood.

Lee Ferguson from Glasgow was in her early teens when she became so convinced that not everyone should be allowed to have children that she tried to devise an exam for parenthood. "I knew I would never have a child," she says. "My mother had made such a bad job of being a mother to us, as had her mother with her, that there was no way I ever wanted to repeat the experience."

Now 45, a successful hairdresser and flamboyant lead singer in a rock band, Ferguson has remained steadfast in her belief that having children would not have been the right thing for her to do. Indeed, in her 20s she did become pregnant by accident, and had no hesitation in arranging to have a termination. "I was horribly ill from the minute I found out I was pregnant, as if even my own body knew this was wrong for me and was rejecting the whole notion of being pregnant. There was not a minute where I thought I should continue with the pregnancy," she says.

"I drove myself to the hospital, being sick all the way, and I can remember after the operation having a cup of tea and a piece of toast and feeling that things had been restored to normality. I have never, ever regretted the decision.

"I never saw my mother as a happy parent, and my father never felt that he benefited in any way from having children. I suppose they didn't really offer the encouragement or role model for me to want to go and procreate."

Such vehement views attract criticism from other women, but Ferguson believes that that is because other people make judgments based on the projection of their own lives and achievements. "If I say I don't want children, people often see that as criticism of the fact that they do have children. But that's not what I'm saying at all. I actually think I have made a very sensible and well-thought-out life decision for me."

But it is this notion of implied criticism that raises the hackles of mothers everywhere. "Rejecting motherhood makes people feel their own mothers might have rejected them. People are always nervous when someone chooses a different path from nearly everybody else; it makes everybody else's choice suspect," says Dr Stotland.

According to Dr Stotland, women who decide to remain childless are made to feel uneasy about their decision. "People keep asking childless women why they are childless, whether they plan to remain childless, how they feel about being childless, and they warn them that they are going to be lonely in their old age." She says they are also accused of being selfish and are made to feel out of place at some social events.

Feeling excluded from that alien world of parenthood is something that Paula (not her real name) completely identifies with. Paula, a graduate who, ironically, works for the Royal College of Obstetricians, in London, never wants to have children. She is comfortable with her decision but mourns the loss of her friendship with people who have had them. "Just before my closest friend gave birth, she took me aside and said that things would never change between us - but, of course, they have. She now has a different routine and has new friends who all have children in common. I feel like an outsider and I miss my friend."

Paula has never wanted children, and is actually repulsed by the very thought of having to care for and clean up after them. "I would be forever washing their hands," she says. "I do quite like children, but can't see the attraction in having one of your own. I know that some people find that a very unnatural thought for a woman to have, but I have lots of friends who feel the same."

At a recent dinner party, Paula and her other child-free friends toasted the "loss" of yet two more friends, who had just announced their imminent parenthood. The only difference between this and many other soirées around the country was that no conversation was prefixed with the words "my children" or "when the children", and the revellers could party well into the night without worrying about the mix of hangovers and demanding infants in the morning.

Finding a group of adults older than 30 who don't talk about their children is not easy, which is why Canadian Jerry Steinberg started No Kidding, in 1984. The 30 to 50 members meet for regular dinners, outdoor trips and movie nights. Members pay 48 a year, but non-members are welcome at most events for a marginal fee. The only stipulation is that you don't have kids.

Steinberg hit the everyone-is-talking-about-their-kids wall in his 30s. Bit by bit, his friends had children and faded from his social circle as their lives became focused on their offspring. "I literally felt that my friends were taking a different road in life," says Steinberg. "I felt I was running out of friends."

Deciding not to ever have children was a gradual and thoughtful process for Steinberg that, following the experience of relationships with several single-parent mothers, culminated in a philosophical decision to have a vasectomy at the age of 34. Now 56, Steinberg didn't set out to be sterilised at a relatively young age. Like anyone else growing up and maturing into an adult, he expected to marry and have kids. He initially bought in to the common wisdom that children bring joy, happiness and love, and provide for one's future security. But gradually he questioned those 'givens' and concluded that being a parent wasn't necessarily natural, responsible or sacred.

As a teacher and language education consultant who has published two books in his field, he concluded that after helping to raise his younger siblings, volunteering as a camp counsellor and later working as a teacher, there was no way he could be a parent and pursue the kind of career and life goals he aimed for. "I felt that I needed some new child-free friends, who could chat on the phone for half an hour without 30 interruptions, could talk about things other than kids, could be spontaneous, had the money, time and energy to do the things we enjoy doing, and whose lives didn't revolve around children," he says.

He set up No Kidding in response to his own needs, and it remained a local but successful phenomenon through most of the 1980s and 1990s - with only occasional media interest. But its profile increased when it launched a website a few years ago. No Kidding has now grown into an international network encompassing 71 clubs in four countries. Clubs in the larger American cities have membership in the hundreds, and Steinberg estimates 10,000 people around the world have joined No Kidding clubs, with many non-members attending social functions.

Neil and Helen Humphries have just started the UK's first branch in London. They already have 26 members who have made a conscious decision not to have children. The Humphries say that all 26 seem to lead full and interesting lives and that theircareers range from medicine to opera singing. Steinberg and the Humphries represent the articulate edge of an increasing lifestyle pattern. But while some are wary of being scorned for going public with their choice, child-free people such as Steinberg say they couldn't be happier "I am occasionally alone, but rarely lonely. I have never regretted my decision not to have children. I am often asked whether I have any regrets about getting a vasectomy - my only regret is that I didn't get it sooner," he says.

"It is believed by some that God once said, 'Be fruitful and multiply.' If that's true, I believe that She is now shouting, 'Enough already!'"

Steinberg's advice to anyone considering becoming a parents is to continually ask yourself: 'How would having a child change what I am doing right now?' "Ask that question when you wake up," he says. "Ask it when you eat, when you talk on the phone, when you exercise, when you read the newspaper, when you go to the bathroom, when you relax, when you go to bed, etc. Then determine whether most of the changes would be welcomed or resented."