Why?
What made me feel the need to create a website for the childfree woman? Well, two things, both related to a Women's Studies class I am taking. The first was when I mentioned my childless-by-choice status (I have since learned of and adopted the more correct childfree) in my self-introduction, the professor mentioned that we would be looking into that topic in a later unit. That subject never materialized. While we studied "choice", of course, it only related to the choice to access birth control, obtain an abortion, and delay and reduce the number of pregnancies. The choice to forgo motherhood altogether was never even hinted at, even though other, less-popular life-choices were discussed in the class. I felt let down; after all, this class wasn't exactly based on the barefoot-pregnant-in-the-kitchen view of women. The textbook wasn't written by Pat Robertson. Why wasn't my choice recognized?
The second instigator was a book I was assigned for the class, The Price of Motherhood by Ann Crittenden. This book was 275 pages of elitist whining about how the feminist movement has ignored mothers, alternating with demands for mothers to receive extra benefits at work and from the government. A few of the ideas in this book were actually dangerous, in that they were so ridiculous they made me laugh so hard I fell out of my chair and hit my head on the coffee table. One of Crittenden's main points was that feminism has ignored the needs of mothers. Excuse me, but who's been ignored by the feminists? For the last fifteen years, everywhere I look I see Pat Schroeder and the NOW gang pushing for mother's rights. The same feminists who previously said "All we want is equal pay for equal work" are now saying that mothers should get flex-time, extra sick days, and a host of other benefits not afforded to the childfree or the childless. So I decided to read a few books looking at the other side of the issue. Elinor Burkett's Baby Boon: How Family-Friendly America Cheats the Childless blew me away with its personal stories and statistics. It ate The Price of Motherhood for lunch (and needed a Rolaids afterwards). Then I read Reconceiving Women: Separating Motherhood from Female Identity by Mardy S. Ireland. I had previously been aware of an underlying, unspoken societal opinion that you weren't a true woman until you had a baby, but this book laid it out in hard, cold, academic terms. The Childless Revolution by Madelyn Cain broke it down further with real-life examples of non-parents carrying the burden for the childed at work and in society. And I highly recommend Baby NOT On Board by Jennifer L. Shawne for its scathing humor. Thanks to these women, I have been able to identify with others who share my life-choice, take on those who would presume to criticize it, and defend my position with facts. |
