by Kevin Burton
When Mrs. Groves went around the room asking us fifth graders how many children we wanted to have when we grew up, my answer was two, three or at the most four. This was part of sex education class.
Well, you really shouldn’t hold a person to anything they say in fifth grade. I wasn’t equipped to provide a meaningful answer to that question.
Sure enough, given the classroom and other lessons I learned thereafter, I changed my mind and decided not to have any children. It was a decision made much easier by the fact that I did not get married until I was in my 40s.
Today is International Childfree By Choice Day, an observance held on the first day of August since 1972, according to the National Today calendar. Am I surprised by what I found out by researching it? Yes and no.
I am not surprised that people have so much trouble with family castigating them for deciding to remain childfree. Honestly, Childfree Day should be held in conjunction with International Mind Your Own Business Or Get Five Across Your Lips Day.
Let me know the next time you hear of a childfree family ridiculing people with children for the choices they have made.
I told my father I didn’t want children and he suddenly got religion. He quoted “be fruitful and multiply” as being “in the Bible.”
To be more specific, it’s in the book of Genesis, where God tells Adam and Eve and then Noah and family to produce children.
Well to be fair, Dad wasn’t as familiar with the Bible as he was with other forms of literature, such as Playboy Magazine. So I can see how he might apply the “multiply” quote out of context.
Also, I once had a step-daughter-by-marriage-for-the-moment, exclaim in horror and disbelief, “You never had any children at all,” when I told her I was childfree.
She acted as if having children was some sort of race: first one to ten wins. It was like, no kids, and you’re a rotten egg.
The best depiction of this brainless child pushiness that I know of in literature is in the Movie Educating Rita.
“Susan (who initially calls herself Rita), a 26-year-old working-class hairdresser, is dissatisfied with the routine of her work and social life; she is reluctant to have a child, fearing it will tie her to the same monotonous routine for life, and she yearns to escape to something more profound, without exactly knowing what that is. She seeks to better herself by signing up for and attending an Open university course in literature,” is a synopsis on the movie’s Wikipedia page.
Susan/Rita is played by Julie Walters. Michael Caine plays Frank Bryant a jaded university professor who ends up teaching her.
In a scene at her sister’s wedding, Susan’s father confronts her about being childfree:
“Well, that’s the last of you lot off mi hands. Mind you I don’t know why some of you bother getting bloody married,” the father spits.
“What’s that supposed to mean,” Susan says.
“You’re still not pregnant are you? How old are you now, Susan?
“Seventy-four Dad.”
“No you’re not. You’re 27, been married six years and you still haven’t got a baby to show for it. Here’s your sister only two minutes married and she’s already four months pregnant.”
Later as the family is leaving a photo session, the pushy dad says to Susan’s husband “Hey Denny. Denny I’m sorry for you lad. If she was a wife of mine I’d drown her.”
“If I was a wife of yours I’d drown mi-self,” Susan says.
That isn’t the worst of it. Susan’s refusal to have a baby breaks up the marriage.
So maybe this fictional couple should have had the kids discussion before tying the knot? Certainly. My point is, this is a discussion, a joint decision. It’s not some automatic societal or familial obligation.
Here is what I am surprised by from my research: I never knew childfree was a tribe!
Tesla co-founder Elon Musk recently said he favors taking voting rights away from people who don’t have any children. This is according to the This Week In Childfree podcast on Childfree Media. The post is sponsored in part by Childfree Wealth, a company that supports “the childfree lifestyle.”
Childfree is a whole thing! I had no idea.
At childfreebychoice.com I see they have resources for childfree people.
Resources? What resources? I don’t need resources; I just need people to get out of my face!
But I guess I better wake up though, and defend my voting rights from billionaire buffoons.
One of the things that happened to me before fifth grade was first grade. I lived in Bermuda then and used to pick up rocks to check out the centipedes underneath.
I outgrew that. But in checking into Childfree Day, I feel like I just picked up a social media rock I should have left alone.
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