Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids

by Meghan Daum

Some might call my trepidation at the idea of motherhood “selfishness”—I would call it “agency”—but those people are probably either (1) dudes or (2) self-satisfied professional parents, and I’m not sure I care enough about their opinions that I wouldn’t just agree with them and shrug my shoulders in shared chagrin. (Those who inquire after my plans for parenthood often interpret my childlessness as a function of my dislike for kids, when, again, nothing could be further from the truth: the barrenness of my womb has nothing to do with a distaste for kids, who, along with animals, I like and identify with more than I do with most adults.) But the fact is, it is never far from my mind that the means of reproduction—and its costs—are beasts of burden borne, historically, by the fairer sex.