Exploring the Choice: Reflections from 16 Writers on Deciding Not to Have Children

roxie: As a 66-year-old childless woman, I'm breathing a big sigh of relief. I chose to not have children, and am so tired of the sympathies and judgments. (I love being around kids and am a retired primary teacher who received Teacher of the Year award.) The authors in this book bring forth a myriad of sound reasons for not having children. While acknowledging the validity of the choice to have children, they collectively make a strong case against the propaganda about the sacredness of parenthood, especially motherhood. I am so glad I didn't get sucked into that propaganda, and this book strongly validates my choice.

United Kingdom on May 19, 2023

Carmenjones: First things first, I really liked this book! I don’t want children and never have and it’s good to read some stories similar to mine. The one drawback is that most of the female writers ended up trying for kids at one point, or wanting children. The only truly, unapologetic story in my opinion was the male author towards the end of the book and his was my favorite piece by far, I connected most with it and it had a lot of humor which I loved! Some stories had really good statistics and personal anecdotes that made reading it easy and interesting. Overall, it was a good book, I just wish it represented what I thought it was going to represent and that’s people who have never wanted kids.

United States on Sep 11, 2022

Kia Wing: I've always grappled with the societal view on people who live childless. I have never had an ounce of paternal instinct in my life; but as someone still young with their whole life ahead of them I am constantly told I will change my mind, because having children is the default.
This book tells an extremely well-rounded bunch of stories of different people, with different backgrounds. As well as feeling represented and extremely validated, I also felt like this opened my mind, too. It's such a nuanced subject but somehow this book touches many corners of what feels like an unspoken topic.

United Kingdom on Jun 29, 2022

Gem6219: This book would have been much better if it excluded one essay, “Be Here Now Means Be Gone Later.” Not only does the essay’s author not address the main prompt (the decision to not have children), but the author spends most of her time worrying about falling birth rates among well-off, educated whites women and excoriating such women who chose not to have children as moral failures. The essay’s preoccupation with birth rates and “western culture” skirt dangerously close to racist conspiracy theories about immigration, with som light eugenics-ish concerns about the connection between genes, intelligence and achievement, and culture. All with enough veiling of just wanting to talk about moral duties around having children and preserving identity in the face of change. Perhaps unfairly to the other essays, this one tainted the book for me with its unsettling rhetoric. Skip this essay or even skip this book.

Sweden on Jun 26, 2022

Pia Lironi: I enjoyed the different aspects of the writers and how they considered themselves in the world while happily childless and still judged

Canada on Jul 25, 2021

Xena Torres: I would have liked a book that looked more at how things are changing in society rather than a bunch of anecdotal stories. This was really more a collection of some writers telling short life stories and how that may have, a little, influenced their choice not to have children. Considering the title of the book, I expected it to spend more time exploring how people with children react to those who choose not to have them, but it barely came up; worse, the book actually had the same sort of attitude as the title, suggesting it's not okay to not like kids, or to prefer to have money to spend. The book was rather judgmental actually.

This is a very interesting topic, and something I was interested to read about, especially because of how people continue to act towards people who choose not to have kids, especially women, and it was really just writers telling stories about their childhood, which is not what I wanted to read. Maybe writers were not the best choice for people to write these chapters?

Canada on Aug 19, 2016

Donna Hill: I didn't find all of the stories in this book equally satisfying but then neither did Meghan Daum. In fact, in her introduction she states that she found them to be captivating, exasperating, entertaining, and enlightening and that sometimes she was enraged. I'd love to compare notes with her and see whether we were exasperated and enraged by the same things. I found that, for me, the stories seemed to get better as the book progressed. There seemed to be more personal stories in the second half of the book. Some of the writers got personal but they also got political and their stories read too much like a college term paper might read which is fine if this is what you enjoy. But I found that reading many of these in one sitting brought on a state of ennui. But some of the other stories were riveting because they centered on the authors' lives and the factors in their lives that made parenthood wrong for them. These are the stories that I will remember, the ones that really made me feel great empathy. I wanted to tell them that they were showing both intelligence and compassion by not becoming parents when they knew that this wasn't right for them (compassion for the children that...

United States on Jul 01, 2016

SassyPants: Wow! I just finished Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed and my head is swimming with thoughts and insights. As the title describes, this is a collection of essays by 16 writers about their decisions not to have children. This is not a quick read. In fact, I would recommend reading it slowly, an essay or two at a time, to give yourself time to absorb and savor the ideas presented.

The writing is sad, funny, joyful, and poignant. All of the pieces are beautifully written. These authors are true wordsmiths! An added bonus of the book was that it introduced me to writers who were not on my radar. I have some new books on my TBR (to be read) pile.

Full disclosure: I am "child-free" by choice. However, I think this book has something to offer the "child-full" people as well. The writers explore the myriad reasons they chose not to procreate. But many go beyond that to discuss the stigma and suspicion that is directed at people who are childless by choice. They also talk about social, political, religious, philosophical, and evolutionary reasons to reproduce. And to not reproduce.

I wish this book was available 20 years ago when I began to realize that I did not...

United States on Mar 13, 2016