We're Child-Free, Not Childless
More American women are choosing not to have children, according to a new report from the Census Bureau.
But the Census Bureau and the mainstream media continue to refer to women without children as "childless" instead of "child-free." Child-free implies women made an affirmative decision not to have children. Childless implies women are infertile and could not have children. As one who made that affirmative decision (I had no children on purpose), I am hereby launching my own personal media campaign to make "child-free" the term of choice, not "childless."
I'm glad many women want to have children. It's a biological imperative, or the species might perish. But the more educated we get, and the more choices we have, more of us are likely to decide that we want to devote ourselves to other tasks (like writing a blog) than raising a child. I understand it's the minority choice. I just want it to be as respected as the majority choice.
Now back to the facts: The report shows an overall decline in U.S. fertility. But don't worry about depletion of the species, because while U.S. fertility is dropping, the U.S. population is ballooning upward, mainly because of increased immigration and the large families immigrant women tend to have.
Census data reveal 20 percent of American women between the ages of 40 and 44 have no children, twice the number of 30 years ago. Women in that age range who do have children have just fewer than two (1.9) on average, down from just more than three (3.1) in 1976.
Women's decisions to pursue higher education and lofty careers before having children may also be driving other changes in fertility. While women with advanced or professional degrees are more likely to be child-free, they also have the current highest birthrate (67 births for every 1,000 women) of all educational levels. But current fertility refers to the rate at which women had children in the year before the survey was taken. Women with advanced degrees also have the lowest lifetime fertility rate. One Census Bureau official told me that means highly educated women that year were more likely to get out of school and have a baby right away. They still have the lowest lifetime fertility rate of any group of women.
Tags: Census Bureau | children
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Reader Comments
Well, childless does mean without children. The way you are stating it, you're making it sound as though children are a burden and people wish to be free of them. Childless is the correct way to say you have no children.
" But don't worry about depletion of the species, because while U.S. fertility is dropping, the U.S. population is ballooning upward, mainly because of increased immigration and the large families immigrant women tend to have."
Wow. It almost sounds as though you have a contempt for humanity. Also, you better hope we start accepting more immigrants and they in turn have more children. Favorite programs that you support, such as Medicare and Social Security, depend upon having more people paying in than people taking out.
We are childfree not childless
Bonnie - totally agree. People don't like to think that anyone could possibly not want children and for some reason become very aggressive and accusatory. Even though most don't really give that much thought about having them (except when they are trying to convince a childfree woman or man they are wrong, of course). The number of times I've been told "well, it's just what you do isn't it?" are breathtaking. Anyway, childless means lack of children - and wanting them. Childfree, to me denotes a choice not to have them. When people try to give me the label of childless I always tell them I prefer to be called Childfree - if they need to talk about me not having children. Sometimes it's quite an education for them.
Maybe society (and the Census) will catch up one day. They've been very slow to recognise that more women are choosing not to have children.
In case you're interested I've a blog devoted to being childfree. It's at http://thebritgirl.com and it's called Like It Is. I wish you well on your quest :) I'll also link to your post on my blog for a future post.
I wish we could come up with a truely neutral term. Calling the women in the census data "childfree" is not fair, either. Many of those women will go on to have children, did suffer from infertility, or made a choice too colored by life circumstances (i.e. career, not finding a mate) to be comfortable with the more affirmative term.
But since the term "childless" implies something lacking, it does still ring a bit harsh for those who have chosen not to have children. At this point, I am beginning to see it more as a traditional term that has taken on an umbrella meaning (such as defaulting to a male pronoun).
We are starting to see groups entitled "Childless not by choice" That does strongly imply that people are starting to associate the word childlessness with the voluntary decision not to parent, or at least to stop assuming it is due to infertility.
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