Am I ‘childless’ or ‘childfree’?

It’s complicated

I typed ‘curious’ into the image search and this is what I got. So here you are. Photo by Luana Giusto on Unsplash

Hello! And thank you for reading The Honesty Box. How are you? I hope some good happenings unfold for you today.

I’ve been thinking about the terms ‘childless’ and ‘childfree,’ because World Childless Week finishes today. It’s an initiative that aims to support people who don’t have kids but wanted them, and seeing posts about it on social media reminded me of a comment I heard a while ago.

The first (and so far, only) time I ever heard someone say: ‘I’m lucky because I don’t have kids,’ I was taken aback. I liked the honesty of the statement, and I’d never thought about not having children as being ‘lucky.’

I was listening to an author talk about his latest book, and he described how he was able to find time and money to go abroad alone for several weeks to write. (He and his wife had tried to have children but eventually found contentment when they didn’t get pregnant.)

At the time, I was coming to the end of what I describe as the ‘fertility headfuck’ stage of my life, a period when the possibility of having children biologically was fading.

I was starting to accept that it might not happen, but I hadn’t really considered what life might be like if I didn’t procreate. That I might feel ‘lucky’ about not having kids never occurred to me.

There are a few phrases that I’ve seen used to describe not becoming a parent (when you wanted to be one), including ‘childless not by choice’ or ‘involuntarily childless,’ and I accept that anyone can choose to describe themselves in a way that feels right for them.

A few years ago, I definitely felt like I was ‘childless,’ in that I defined myself by what I lacked.

Some of my 30s were pretty tough: I lost my dad at the start of that decade and spent years grieving, while at the same time trying to find the man that felt like the right one to have a relationship and start a family with.

During that time, some of my friends got married, had children and continued along a more conventional path, and while I was happy for them, I also railed against what hadn’t happened for me.

Now I am really seeing the positive sides of life without kids of my own - as I’ve said before, it can be pretty bloody good sometimes – but I don’t really view myself as ‘childfree’ either.

Like ‘childless’, the ‘childfree’ label is also about some kind of lack, as Rhiannon Lucy Coslett wrote in the Guardian last year, because it suggests that people who have kids aren’t ‘free’.

And, as she also said, she sometimes feels ‘desperately’ childless when cuddling a baby, but ‘hedonistically’ childfree hours later, when she’s a few drinks down on the dancefloor. (Since that article was published, Rhiannon has had a baby, and now writes brilliantly about parenthood.)

Yesterday, as I stood in the queue for coffee at my local park, I was surrounded by little children delighted by ice creams and dads talking about their hangovers while ordering sausage sandwiches, or discussing their weekend plans.

I fully expect to be feeling hedonistically childfree in a few hours…

The kids darted about, made faces and were generally very excited about being outside in a sunny park, and seeing these scenes made me happy for them.

A few years ago, I might have felt envious of what was around me. But time and experience have helped me simply observe and let it be. In the park, I noticed that I didn’t feel lucky or unlucky, childless or childfree.

On the way home, I thought about what I was going to wear on Saturday night.

As I write this, I’m freshly showered, the sparkly varnish on my fingernails is drying and last night’s pizza is waiting in the kitchen.

I’m going to see the house/dance/disco and generally massively brilliant DJ Honey Dijon perform at London’s Southbank, and I decided to wear a 15-year-old halter neck top and high-waist jeans.

I fully expect to be feeling hedonistically childfree in a few hours…

Next week …

… I will be in New Orleans because I’m GOING TO SEE BEYONCE!!!! It’s the second to last date on her world Renaissance tour and I have been following the whole thing in detail.

The costumes! The dancing! Her VOICE! The fact that she is (more or less) middle-aged like me and absolutely at the top of her game (not sure where I am in my game, but whatever)!

I plan to send you the usual ‘things I like’ and of course, I will report back on my Nola adventures.

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The journalist Ann Friedman also wrote about the ‘parent vs childfree binary’ in her newsletter this week:

"Parent or childfree" used to be my framework for understanding a dividing difference of adult life. But aging and, yes, friendship, have taught me that there are so many experiences that binary doesn't capture: To want kids but not be able to have them, for physical or financial or logistical reasons.

“To not want kids but accidentally get pregnant or later realize maybe you kinda do. To want kids and fully intend to have them someday, just not yet. To not have kids, but to have a carseat installed because you do the daycare pickup once a week. To have kids but feel deeply ambivalent about the choice, even as you love the children themselves. And on and on and on.”’