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(This is cross-posted at BlogHer.)

There are quite a few places where mothers, and potential mothers, can find information and support. Less talked about are members of the childfree movement, or women who are childless by choice. It’s not as easy being a member of this group as you might think. There are endless questions to dodge, societal expectations to ignore — especially if you’re married, in a committed relationship, or past a certain age. You might have to deal with guilt heaped on you by family members, constantly asking about the possibility of a grandchild. You might find that longtime friends drift away because they have children and no longer feel like they can relate to you. People might even go so far as to accuse you of being selfish.

Proponents of the childfree movement are quick to separate it from the term “childless.” Childfree denotes a conscious choice, not simply an inability to get pregnant. This is not a temporary state of mind for a woman who thinks she might want children at a future point in time, but a lifestyle decision. From Spotted Elephant:

I describe myself as childfree, not childless [emphasis hers]. I chose not to have children. I am not suffering from the lack of children in my life. As this is my chosen state, I am quite happy about things. Pity is neither needed nor desired.

Elisa Gonzalez Clark wrote this article in an open-letter format for the San Francisco Chronicle, calling it “Off the Mommy Track.”

When you showed me your freezer filled with a three months’ supply of stockpiled breast milk, I had to turn and confirm you were the same girl who would jump into the mosh pit and hold her own with misogynist skinheads. And when you were ecstatic over the 10th pink baby outfit, I had to squint to see the same girl who would gyrate until 3 a.m. and then make out with bad boys on the sides of cars in the gritty twilight. [...]

I chose to take my road without children. It doesn’t make me shallow or immature, it makes me realistic. If I had children it would be to satisfy other people, not me. I am a lover, daughter, sister, writer and friend. I don’t need the label of mother to make me more. I am enough.

Another one from the San Francisco Chronicle, Kids R Not Us.

[Christine] Fisher knew as early as third grade that she did not want children. She had no interest in games that involved playing house or cooing over babies. In the world of childfree men and women, she is what’s known as an “early articulator.”

In the 1950s, there was an assumption that everyone would get married, then have children. [...] As many as 80 percent of people thought that staying single and childless was “deviant or abnormal,” [professor Stephanie Coontz] said. But in the 1970s, amid turbulent social change…those assumptions were challenged. These days, the “vast majority” of people think it is acceptable not to have kids or marry.

Some statistics suggest more women now are childless by choice, but it’s hard to come up with a firm estimate because women, on average, are having children older, and demographers don’t usually ask why they don’t have them. The National Center for Health Statistics confirms that 6.6 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 44 called themselves voluntarily childless in 1995, up from 2.4 percent in 1982. And according to 1998 U.S. Census Bureau statistics, 19 percent of women 40 to 44 were childless, compared with 10 percent in that age group in 1976.

Soon after the launch of the parenting website Babble.com, they included an essay by Lisa Gabriele. (Seemingly at odds with their dominant theme, it’s the first in a series called “Notes From a Non-breeder.”)

Now way back, my friends and I all vowed that we weren’t going to allow being parents to change us, to turn us into conservative, frazzled neurotics. I hope it doesn’t sound smug to say that I seem to be the only one who took those vows seriously. You may think it’s inappropriate to speak to children the way I do, but I’ve always been of the firm belief that we talk down to them way too much. Also, I like to remain unalloyed in their presence because children have the best bullshit detectors around.

Laura reprinted an article about the childfree movement, called “The New Breed,” found in the Summer 2006 edition of Bitch Magazine.

They live in cities and the country; they’re coupled and single. Some have known their entire lives that parenting wasn’t in their cards. Others make the choice in the interests of independence and financial freedom. Some are politically motivated and proud to play their part in curbing population growth and environmental impact; some just aren’t sure they’re cut out to be parents. Some understand that, despite the emphasis on children and families in our culture, the corporate world has an antifamily infrastructure that makes balancing work and childrearing nearly impossible — particularly for women.

Unscripted is an online magazine for people living the childfree life. June Hatfield wrote about her decision to get sterilized, and how she had to fight to make it happen.

I was sure my doctor would question me, and refuse to take me seriously. [...] [T]his response from members of the medical community infringes on our very human rights, undermining our ability to be taken seriously, and even to make autonomous decisions as adults and women. Breast implants? OK! Tubal Ligation? Not so fast, missy! Doctors can exert power over our decisions against our wishes, and some choose to exercise that power to the detriment of childfree women everywhere. When that happens, childfree women and their families lose.

Tubal ligations are not a rare procedure: 26 percent of U.S. women aged 15-44 have had the procedure. Between 1965 and 1988 (the most recent year of available data), the prevalence of all forms of surgical sterilization rose dramatically among this group, from 16 to 42 percent. In 1965, 16% of women had been sterilized, while in 1988, that number climbed to 42%.

Also in Unscripted, A. Anderson tackles the issue of how childfree women are sometimes accused of being “selfish.”

The word ‘selfish’ is thrown around a bit too loosely these days. The definition of selfishness, according to Merriam-Webster is: “concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself: seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others.” How does this apply to not bearing or raising children? It doesn’t.

Deciding whether or not to have children is a purely personal choice. If someone didn’t have time or the desire for a dog, and so didn’t have a dog, that person would be seen as responsible. Someone who has no desire for a child, or time for a child, though, is selfish and irresponsible and immature because a child is the one thing that adds value to some people’s lives. Therefore, people with a lack of imagination consider children the only thing that can add value to anyone’s life.

At age 49, Chery has had to answer questions all her life about why she doesn’t want kids. She says she would never apologize for her decision, and lists six of the most infuriating things she’s been told throughout her childfree years. One of them is this:

The most common (and infuriating) response I’ve had to deal with when I told people I didn’t want kids was “you’ll change your mind when you meet the right man”. There are no words to express the frustration I felt when told that. As if my mind, my decisions, my personal desires were nothing more than a whim, requiring the strength and influence of a man to bring me to my senses. My decision not to have children was well thought out, seriously considered, and adamant! I never wavered in the belief that it was my decision and nobody else’s.

Plain(s)feminist, a mother, supports a woman’s right to be childfree but believes some people carry it too far. Instead of the childfree movement simply making it acceptable for a woman not have children, she thinks some of them use it as an excuse to make derogatory comments about kids, as well as “making it acceptable to not want to be around kids. Ever.”

Not wanting to have a child is a choice that is all too often not validated, and that is a real problem: the childfree movement is right to be pissed off, and I fully support people who choose not to be parents (hell, I do more than support them – I encourage them!). But not wanting to associate with children is, first, a disturbingly entitled position: “I am so special that I should be allowed to construct my life in such a way that I do not come into contact with those I find undesireable.” But it is also a prejudice. It is determining that there is a whole class of people that one does not want to be around, by virtue of their age.

I can understand where these women are coming from, and if I don’t ever have children, I’ll be fine with that. But I’m not going to say I never will, at least not right now. I don’t like to make ultimatums, especially knowing how much I’ve changed just since I’ve been in my 20s. There’s no telling what my mindset will be in another five or ten years.

(Note: Suzanne wrote a great response to this post at BlogHer.)