by Lisa Hymas
In 1969, graduating college senior Stephanie Mills made
national headlines with a commencement address exclaiming that, in the face of
impending ecological devastation, she was choosing to forgo parenthood. “I am terribly saddened by the fact that the most humane thing for me to do is to have
no children at all,” she told her classmates.
I come here before you today to make the same proclamation—with a twist. I am thoroughly delighted by the fact that the most humane thing for me to do is to have no children at
all.
Making the green choice too often feels like a sacrifice or
a hassle or an expense. In this
case, it feels like a luxurious indulgence that just so happens to cost a lot less for me and weigh
a lot less on the carbon-bloated atmosphere.
I call myself a GINK: green inclinations, no kids.
First, a word for you parents
Let me get this out of the way up front: I like kids—many
of them, anyway. Some of my best
friends, as they say, are parents.
I bear no ill will to procreators, past, present, and prospective. I claim no moral or ethical high
ground.
If being a parent is something you’ve longed and planned
for, or already embarked upon, I respect your choice and I wish you luck. Go forth and raise happy, healthy
kids. May they bring you joy and
fulfillment, and may they become productive members of society who faithfully
pay their Social Security taxes.
Of course, you parents and parent wannabes don’t need my
encouragement—our society supports your decision overwhelmingly. OK, yes, the U.S. lacks paid family
leave and universal childcare, not to mention many basic rights for same-sex
couples with children—and we should remedy these shortcomings. But from the tax breaks to the
discounted airline seats, from the eager grandparents urging you on to the friends,
cousins, and complete strangers who ask when the first or next kid is coming, from
the “What to Expect …” empire to the proliferating mommy and daddy
blogs, our culture constantly affirms your choice—in many ways, almost
demands it. And, no small matter,
our biology does too.
So this post isn’t for you. It’s for the childfree and childfree-curious, who don’t get a lot of encouragement in our society. Parents, keep reading if you like, but
you have to promise not to tell the rest of us that we’d feel differently if we
just had our own!
OK, down to business
Here’s the dirty little secret that we’re never supposed to
say in mixed company: There are a lot of perks to childfree living, not to
mention a lot of green good that comes from bringing fewer beings onto a
polluted and crowded planet.
Yes, as a childfree person, I’ll miss out on a lot: The
miracle of childbirth (though, truth be told, I don’t feel so bad about
skipping that one). The
hilariously perceptive things that only kids say. A respectable excuse for rereading the Harry Potter
series. The hope that my kid will
be smarter and cooler and better looking than I ever was. More boisterous holiday
celebrations. Someone to carry on
the family name (assuming I won the arm-wrestling match with my partner over
whose name the kid would actually get). Maybe even the satisfaction of helping a child grow into a
well-educated, well-adjusted adult, and the peace of mind of knowing there’s
someone to take care of me in my old age.
But parents miss out on a lot too (as some will be the first
to tell you): Time and emotional energy to invest in friendships and a romantic
partnership. Space to focus on a
career or education or avocation.
Uninterrupted “grown-up” conversations. Travel that’s truly impulsive or
leisurely or adventurous (and never involves zoos). Unpremeditated Saturday nights on the town and Sunday
brunches out. Opportunities for
political or community engagement.
Stretches of quiet for reading or writing or relaxing. A non-child-proofed, non-toy-strewn,
non-goldfish-cracker-crumb-riddled home.
Eight peaceful, uninterrupted hours of sleep a night. All without any guilt that one should
be spending more quality time with the kid.
A childfree life also means a lot more financial
freedom. How expensive are
kids? Try $291,570 for a child
born in 2008 to parents bringing home between
$57,000 and $98,000 a year, according to figures from the USDA.
That’s for the first 18 years, so it doesn’t include college. If you make more, you’re likely to spend more. Couples bringing in upwards of $98,000
a year can expect to spend an average of $483,750 on a child’s first 18
years. (Dig into the
numbers yourself [PDF] for all the caveats and conditions.)
Opting out of childrearing might leave you richer in
happiness too, as Harvard psychology professor and happiness expert Daniel
Gilbert recently told NPR:
[I]t probably is true that without
children, your marriage might be happier in the sense that you would report
more daily satisfaction. People
are surprised to find this, because they value and love their children above
all things. How can my children
not be a source of great happiness?
Well, one reason is that although
children are a source of happiness, they tend to crowd out other sources of
happiness. So people who have a
first child often find in the first year or two that they’re not doing many of
the other things that used to make them happy. They don’t go to the movies or the theater. They don’t go out with their
friends. They don’t make love with
their spouse.
In his 2006 book Stumbling
on Happiness, Gilbert offers more on
this topic:
Careful studies of how women feel
as they go about their daily activities show that they are less happy when
taking care of their children than when eating, exercising, shopping, napping,
or watching television. Indeed
looking after the kids appears to be only slightly more pleasant than doing
housework.
None of this should surprise
us. Every parent knows that
children are a lot of work—a lot of really hard work—and although parenting has many rewarding
moments, the vast majority of its moments involve dull and selfless service to
people who will take decades to become even begrudgingly grateful for what we
are doing.
Even firebrand valedictorian Stephanie Mills, who initially
considered her decision not to have children a sacrifice, now writes:
… it proved to be a good personal
choice. I am cussedly independent and I love my solitude and freedom. … Other
women, I know, have been able to combine demanding vocations with
motherhood. Given my particular
nature, the responsibility and distraction of childrearing most likely would
have prevented me from pursuing my work as a writer, which has been immensely
rewarding …
Which isn’t to say she never wonders about her
decision:
Now that I’m old enough to be a
grandmother, I sometimes wish that I had a granddaughter to commune with, but I
am friends with some spectacular young people and can learn from them as well
as pass along whatever wisdom I’ve developed. That will have to do.
Ultimately, as Mills suggests, life is a series of
tradeoffs. By choosing not to have
kids, some doors are closed to you, but others are open—and they don’t have
sticky doorknobs.
The green angle
Beyond the undisturbed sleep and the gleaming doorknobs, consider the environmental benefits to the childfree life.
We’re on track to hit a global population of 7 billion
people next
year or the year
after—3 billion more than when Mills got all riled up four decades
ago. We’ve spewed enough
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to push it past the safe point, which many
climate scientists agree is 350
parts carbon dioxide per million; we’re already at about 390 and rising
fast. And Americans are among the
most carbon-intensive people on earth.
The average American generates about 66 times more CO2 each year than
the average Bangladeshi—20
tons versus 0.3 tons.
If you consider not just the carbon impact of your own kids
but of your kids’ kids and so on, the numbers get even starker. According to a 2009 study
in Global Environmental Change [PDF] that took into account the
long-term impact of Americans’ descendants, each child adds an estimated 9,441
metric tons of CO2 to a parent’s carbon legacy—that’s about 5.7 times his or her direct lifetime emissions.
“Many people are unaware of the power of exponential
population growth,” said
study coauthor Paul Murtaugh, a professor of statistics at Oregon State
University. “Future growth
amplifies the consequences of people’s reproductive choices today, the same way
that compound interest amplifies a bank balance.” (To take an extreme example,
compare childfree me with Yitta Schwartz of Monroe, N.Y., who died this year at
the age of 93, leaving
behind an estimated 2,000 descendants.)
A person who cares about preserving a livable environment
has lots of options for doing her bit, and you’ve heard all about them: live in
an energy-efficient home in a walkable neighborhood; bike or walk or take
public transit when possible; drive an efficient car if you drive one at all;
fly less; go veg; buy organic and local; limit purchases of consumer goods;
switch to CFLs or LEDs; slay your vampires;
offset carbon emissions; vote for climate-concerned candidates, and hold them
accountable for their campaign promises.
But even in aggregate, all of these moves don’t
come close to the impact of not bringing new human beings—particularly
new Americans—into the world.
Here’s a simple truth:
For an average person like me—someone who doesn’t have the ability of
an Al Gore to reach millions, or of a Nancy Pelosi to advance (if not actually
enact) landmark environmental legislation, or of a Van
Jones to inspire (and piss off) whole new audiences—the single most
meaningful contribution I can make to a cleaner, greener world is to not have children.
Just say it
Why does it
feel almost audacious to articulate all of this?
Those of us who are childfree by choice are in the minority,
but if you judged by the public discourse about our lifestyle, you’d think we
were practically nonexistent.
Parents talk all the time about the delights and challenges
of raising kids, to other parents and to all the rest of us, and I don’t begrudge
them that.
We childfree people rarely discuss in public the upsides and
downsides of life without kids—and that’s what needs to change.
If you’re intentionally childfree, how many times have you
been asked, “So, when are you going to have children?” and mumbled a
less-than-candid reply: “Oh, I’m not sure,” or “Well, it just
might not happen for us,” or “Maybe someday …” when what you
really mean is “Never.”
Childfree people tread too gingerly around parents, as
though we might wound their feelings if we told the truth about why we’ve made
different decisions than they have. But we insult them by thinking they’re so
fragile or insecure about their family choices—and we shortchange ourselves
and society at large by not speaking openly about the legitimate choice to not
have a child.
What would happen if you answered the kid question
honestly? “No, I’m happy with
my life as is,” or “A child doesn’t fit into our life plans,” or
“Kids aren’t really my thing,” or “I think there are plenty of
people on the planet already.”
If we said what we really think, I suspect we would actually
find a lot of kindred or at least sympathetic spirits out there, GINKs and
otherwise. We might have some
refreshingly frank and gratifying conversations with the parents in our
lives. And we could give those who
are undecided about parenthood the understanding that the choice to be
childfree is completely valid, and not completely lonely.
Little bundles of (j)oy aren’t for everyone—and it’s time
we said so out loud.
Related Links:
Population growth should be curbed, argues Jane Goodall
New York City gets big reaction to new sex symbol
Data highlights on the global food supply