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Depending on when they were born, one of every five or six women over age forty-five will never have children. That’s double the ratio just one generation ago.
In 2016 overall childlessness, according to the Pew Research Center, has fallen to around 14 percent.
A woman without kids is also more likely to be single, employed in a professional or managerial
Study after study confirms that women with higher levels of education are more likely to remain childless or delay childbearing. According to one, with each academic level a woman completes (bachelor’s, master’s, doctorate) her odds of remaining childless go up 14 percent.
In fact, as of 2014, the majority of never-married women are mothers.
A baby girl is born with a lifetime supply of one to two million eggs. By the time of her first period, however, she’s down to 300,000-400,000 eggs; at age thirty, 39,000-52,000; by age forty she has about 9,000-12,000 eggs left, up to 90 percent of them with genetic abnormalities.
Do we really need friends? Myriad studies confirm that we do if we want to be physically and emotionally healthy. Confiding in a friend can reduce stress and release oxytocin, the feel-good hormone.
Certain attitudes raise Una’s hackles. Like when people say she can’t understand something simply because she’s not a parent.
I went into that relationship as a person who didn’t have strong enough boundaries or a strong enough sense of self to say what I want, what I don’t want. Looking back on it, I think the whole marriage was an opportunity to set boundaries.
Less than twenty percent of young adult stepchildren feel close to their stepmothers, found Dr. Mavis T. Hethrington, professor emeritus of psychology from University of Virginia.
Those of us without kids form lasting relationships, nurture ourselves, our mates, our parents, and our pets, explains Blackstone, adding that research confirms non-parents’ marital satisfaction and emotional wellbeing are on par or greater than that of parents.
Of women who used an “authoritative parenting” style to raise well-behaved, socialized animals, says Volsche, “nearly 80 percent did not have children, and 65 percent considered themselves their dog’s parent or guardian.”
It behooves us all to consider how we define family, whether we’re talking blood, choice, or pets.
As humans who form alliances and societies, we can choose how porous and healthy are the borders of our family membrane, just like we can decide whom to welcome into our homes.
Numerous controlled studies of childless women have subsequently confirmed a non-mom’s risk of these cancers is two-to threefold higher than a mother’s.
Additional factors that may increase a woman’s risk of cancer are a history of ovarian cysts, prior use of an intrauterine device, dense breast tissue, smoking, low levels of physical activity, obesity, and diabetes.
Survival rates aside, women who haven’t given birth are at 40 percent increased risk of the most common type of breast cancer—called estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer—than women who have delivered.
mothers are at significantly higher risk for what’s called triple-negative breast cancer, a less common, but more aggressive form
“The Silent Killer,” as ovarian cancer has long been called, is the fifth-leading cause of cancer deaths in women, with over 140,000 dying worldwide each year.
Postmenopausal women are at the highest risk of uterine cancer, with 75 percent of cases diagnosed after age fifty-five. “Any irregular bleeding after menopause always needs evaluation,” stresses Dr. Greenfield.
By way of prevention for all reproductive cancers, Dr. Greenfield tells us every woman needs a Pap smear from age thirty to sixty-five, an annual mammogram after age forty,
and an annual breast exam by a physician. Especially women without kids.
Nearly one-in-five US adults (18 percent) were raised in a religious faith and now identify with no religion.”
“It sounds selfish, but I really didn’t want to give up my career, because I knew if we had children, I would stop working, at least until they went to school. I know so many women who complained about how having children interfered with their careers. I thought, then why did you bother?”
During the more-than-twenty-year time span they studied, the childfree by choice showed a steady increase in not identifying with any religion, while the involuntarily childless remained about the same over time. However, as adults 30 percent of both subsets never attended religious services, compared to 18 percent of mothers.
More than half of Americans age fifty-five to sixty-four don’t have wills. Two-thirds of women age forty-five to fifty-four don’t. Neither did Amy Winehouse nor Billie Holiday. Only 26 percent of Americans have a health care directive. We’re in denial of our mortality.
For couples, the average income gap was about $4,000 per year, for singles over $10,000. When it came to wealth, the gap grew. Couples without children had about 15 percent more wealth than those with children, singles about 17 percent.
“I look at parents who are going to leave their estate to their kids,” she says, “and I wonder if there’s something else in the world that could be done that would benefit a lot more people than one kid.”
Once I say I don’t have kids, I know they’re going to ask a weird follow-up question.
“You know women earn on average eighty-one cents to a man’s dollar, right? But a married mom with a child at home makes only seventy-six cents, and a woman without kids earns ninety-six cents.”
By keeping quiet about our life experiences, we play a major role in perpetuating the stigma. By talking, we can help dispel it and take our proper place in the diverse world of normalcy, even when our reasons for not having kids differ vastly.
