Radio 4 Woman's Hour on childfree women

[bagfish]

Woman's Hour on Radio 4 yesterday and today had two programmes about childfree women. One was the usual format with interviews of "experts" and people who have opinions and the one today was a 45 minute phone in

Comments

[kissmeforlonger]

I think that would really annoy me.

I'm not childfree by choice, but I know people who are, and at least one person with a child who would have chosen differently if that had been possible.

Why the hell people have to get so judgemental about the whole issue is beyond me.

The weird thing is, that nobody talks about being childfree against your will, ie infertile, and all the pain it causes. Infertile people are overlooked and their pain belittled and ignored, constantly. Yet those who've made a trauma-free choice to live life a different way are also criticised. It just doesn't make sense! It seems to me this is an awful lot less about the joy that children bring if you want them, and a hell of a lot more about conforming.

[bagfish]

Which bit would annoy you, or the whole thing

[kissmeforlonger]

I think I'd get very exasperated by the incredulity, because honestly, someone doing the interviewing ought to have enough sensitivity and life experience to know that people have different reasons for making the choices they do (or living with their lack of choice). It is one thing to ask probing questions, and quite another to sound genuinely surprised at the choice before they've even found out why

[bagfish]

Oh, your poor colleague.

I get a little irritated by people bringing babies in if they expect me to coo over them as I don't do cooing, because I'm not a baby person! But it must be agony for someone who is in your colleague's situation. New parents are too quick to think that everyone wants to see their new baby and will be happy for them and there's no thought people might be feeling pain for themselves because of infertility or relationship incompatibility.

I suppose this might be taken as an intrusive question after everything we've discussed above, but have you made peace with yourself about not having children? Please don't answer if you don't want to, I know this is a difficult subject....

[tyopsqueene]

I don't mind the 'did you regret it' question, I mind the asymmetry of the questioning. E.g. if we felt comfortable and happy about asking - and routinely asked people 'do you regret having your kids/having two/having them so early/post-pregnancy incontinence?' it would be fine to ask 'do you regret not doing this?'.
Likewise, if we totally 100% accepted people saying 'no, not at all, best decision I ever made' regardless of whether it was to do with having or not having kids, that would be fair.

But we don't. There's only one way to live your life, and if you don't do it that way you must be bad, mad or sad (and if you do the right thing and don't enjoy it - ditto).

[bagfish]

I mind the asymmetry of the questioning. E.g. if we felt comfortable and happy about asking - and routinely asked people 'do you regret having your kids/having two/having them so early/post-pregnancy incontinence?' it would be fine to ask 'do you regret not doing this?'.
Likewise, if we totally 100% accepted people saying 'no, not at all, best decision I ever made' regardless of whether it was to do with having or not having kids, that would be fair.

Yes, this exactly. I have been known to ask close friends WHY they had children or want them as it's the sort of thing we have always discussed, but this question coming from acquaintances or random strangers would just never happen, or be treated as the height of rudeness if it did.

But when childfree people get the same thing the other way round, its treated as legitimate that people can mock their choice or tell them they will regret it or that they will have no-one to look after them when they grow old (and that's the biggest bullshit story of the lot....!)

[tyopsqueene]

That one really gets me too: I just loathe the implication that you have kids - not to make the world a better place or to give someone a great start in life or to contribute in anyway, but so you'll have people who feel a duty to look after you! It seems so horrible (but then, I've watched my mum care for an obnoxious and ungrateful old bat of a grandmother, so I guess I don't see what's so noble about breeding your nursemaids!)

That seems like a totally disgusting, selfish reason to have kids.

[bagfish]

I agree completely that the "who will look after you when you're old" question is the most disgusting of all. Why on earth people say that childfree-by-choice are selfish when you get this sort of attitude of "I'll have kids so that someone will look after me in my old age".

There are plenty of lonely old people who have children, and plenty with good support networks and friends who don't. In fact one of the things raised in the programme by a caller was that many elderly people without children had better networks of friends because they had spent their lives nurturing friendship circles.