Without Children Quotes

“In light of our failure to account for the pressures, anxieties, and dangers of modern life, it's possible to argue that the decision to opt out of parenthood is perfectly rational. The decision to have children might be the one more in need of explanation.”
― Peggy O'Donnell Heffington, Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother

“The divide we understand to be so real between mothers and non-mothers is one that was built for us long ago, and it was built for a purpose: to limit women's socially acceptable options to motherhood and the domestic sphere, and to mark as deviant those who dared to do other things. Mothers' options and identities are constrained by this framework, no less than they are for women without children. In a society that wants to divide us, maybe the most radical thing we can do is turn to each other, invite each other into our homes and our lives and our families.”
― Peggy O'Donnell Heffington, Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother

“Some of us want to live lives that don’t allow space for children, lives that demand we spend our reserves of time, energy, and love in other ways.”
― Peggy O'Donnell Heffington, Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother

“Parenthood is demanded of us, but we are asked to parent in isolated bubbles, supported--to put it crudely--by our bank accounts and little else.”
― Peggy O'Donnell Heffington, Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother

“COVID-19 exposed what women with children and without both already knew: that despite the expectation we all become mothers, we receive little support once we do.”
― Peggy O'Donnell Heffington, Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother

“the government to require women to bear against their will—no longer exist.19 The Amy Coney Barretts of the world, this movement reasons, prove we already do have it all, or at least we could, if we just got up earlier to do push-ups and stopped being so lazy.”
― Peggy O'Donnell Heffington, Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother

“supporting mothers and restoring societal value to women without children are two sides of the same coin.”
― Peggy O'Donnell Heffington, Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother

“We've ended up in this bizarre political impasse, where the case that provided an opportunity for the US Supreme Court to overturn Roe - ostensibly in defense of babies and children - originated in Mississippi, a state that has proven itself to be very bad at caring for the babies and children who have already been born. Mississippi's infant mortality rate is the worst in the nation. According to the nonprofit Save the Children, nearly one in four minors in the state experience hunger.”
― Peggy O'Donnell Heffington, Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother

“If there is one thing this history teaches us, it is that women who do not want or cannot care for a child will seek out ways to not have one - even at great legal risk, or at great risk to their lives.”
― Peggy O'Donnell Heffington, Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother

“The breadwinner-homemaker model is a blip, remember. In the context of a history that features mothers making economic contributions to their families far more often than it does not, the problem isn't that motherhood is incompatible with work. The problem is that the way we work today is increasingly incompatible with motherhood.”
― Peggy O'Donnell Heffington, Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother

“Even after becoming a mother, fulfilling the role society demands of you, you still can't win.”
― Peggy O'Donnell Heffington, Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother