Empowerment is the fuel of the childfree movement
by Jade Green
Photo by Jonas Mohamadi for Pexels
Being a childfree woman means honing your defences.
If you don’t, the judgements will catch you off-guard. They come in a variety of shapes, formats and volumes, and can be wielded by family members, friends, medical professionals, angry strangers on the internet, even mainstream media outlets.
You’ll be informed that your life is incomplete. That when you reach a certain age, you’ll change your mind. That you are selfish. That you won’t have anyone to look after you when you’re old. That your parents need grandchildren. That you are abnormal, unloving, broken.
You’ll be expected to justify yourself to complete strangers at social events, when they ask you the dreaded question and leave a space for follow-up comments.
So, you learn to shield. You equip yourself with facts about the carbon footprint of procreating and the skyrocketing cost of childcare and how ‘biological clock’ was just a term invented in the 1970s to sell newspapers. You protect yourself by becoming an expert.
But when the people around you are so reticent in their beliefs about what is best for you, what will make you ‘happy’, it can be hard to stay strong. From about the age you receive your first baby doll to play with, you’ve been pointed in the direction of parenthood. But what if society’s plan doesn’t align with how you feel? When you’ve grown up without childfree role models, where do you look to feel validated, less alone in the world?
We Are Childfree is a movement of childfree people sharing their stories and empowering each other to follow the life path they choose, rather than the one society has chosen for them. “I launched We are Childfree after years of feeling alone and weird because I didn’t want kids”, says Zoë Noble, Berlin-based photographer and founder of the movement. “Growing up, I didn't see anyone like me in my life or the media, so I kept that part of me hidden until I was 30. I just knew there had to be others like me out there.”
At first, Zoë used her professional skills to find her way into the world of childfree people hiding in plain sight. “I did what came naturally and picked up my camera. I started taking portraits of people living their best childfree lives, began a podcast to reach folk all over the world, and created the community we all need.”
Scrolling through WAC’s Instagram page, and reading some of the DMs Zoë receives (there are categories for ‘judgements’ and ‘comebacks’ in the highlights section, with pages and pages of messages), it’s easy to see why such a community needs to exist, and why the project has been so successful. Initially, though, Zoë was “surprised by the project's popularity and growth. Ever since we were featured in the New York Times, I've received messages every day from people who finally feel seen, heard and connected to the community.”
Even as more people are opting for a childfree lifestyle, and the reasons for eschewing parenthood are becoming more commonplace, there is still a taboo that exists around being proudly childfree – especially if you are a woman. “I've been shocked by what childfree people have gone through, especially in the past and in other parts of the world – and by how much the stigma has followed us through time and across the planet,” says Zoë. “Marcia Drut-Davis was publicly ‘outed’ as childfree in 1974, lost her job as a teacher, was subject to threats on her and her dog's life, and has been hounded her whole life since. Like she said [on the podcast], nearly 50 years later, we're still being demonised!
“I've had my mind changed about so-called progressive countries like Germany, which are actually quite conservative and regressive when it comes to women's rights and autonomy, and I've realised that we all face similar challenges to different degrees, just because we aren't following society's script.”
Realising your autonomy – and that parenthood is a choice, not an obligation – is powerful, and empowerment is the fuel of We are Childfree. Zoë believes that “representation matters, and if you can see it, you can be it! Childfree people are still largely absent from society, culture and the media. So, even if we account for half of millennial women, the world treats us like we don't exist, and still pretends that having children is something that everyone does. That's why it's so important to have other childfree people, women especially, to look up to. I think, and hope, that we'll continue to see more women making conscious choices that are best for ourselves and for the planet. As we move past pro-natal conditioning and rigid gender norms, more of us will choose to have fewer kids or none at all, to stay single or explore the kinds of relationships that lift us up, and to find fulfilment in lives of our own creation.”
When asked what the biggest benefit to being childfree is for her, Zoë says: “Freedom. Being childfree has enabled me to pursue a life path that's fulfilling for me, and the flexibility to change direction when it suits me. It's given me the freedom to move to another country, to change careers, to travel as much as I could. It's absolutely still possible for parents to do those things, but it is harder. I love the fact that I don't know what my life is going to end up looking like, and not having children has allowed me to pursue that sense of adventure.”
Visit We Are Childfree for podcast episodes, stories, community news and local events and meetups.
Interview by Jade Green (she/her). Follow her work here.