'I'm child-free and loving it!'

Jun 7 2005 By Jane Hall, The Journal

Are those who choose not to have children `selfish' or is it the parents who are really kidding themselves? Author Nicki Defago tells The Journal why children are a choice, not a `given'.

In theory, the answer to the question `Why are we here?' is a simple one.

It's nothing deep, nothing philosophical. It isn't `42', as Douglas Adams would have us believe.

It's kids. When it really gets down to it, the reason we're here is so we can keep on being here. We're here to reproduce, to propagate the human race.

But simple theories never stand up in practice, life throws too many balls out of left field to disrupt that perfect, cookie cutter family we are all supposed to desire. Maybe you are gay (although, thanks to the miracles of science and increasingly flexible adoption and fostering policies, this doesn't necessarily mean you can't have kids).

Maybe you can't have children. Or maybe you just don't want them.

Nicki Defago doesn't. Now Nicki, in the world's eyes, would be perfect mother material. A nice middle-class woman. Married to a nice husband, Jim. Good jobs. Perfect. So why doesn't she want to follow that nice middle-class pattern? Well, she just ... doesn't. And it's not a problem. At least, not for her.

"When we first got married, we weren't sure whether we wanted to have children or not," she says, "so I thought I'd do some research. I went into lots of book shops and asked if they had any books about women who decide they don't want children."

Her research turned up very few books, many quizzical looks from shop assistants and the revelation that in an age when we can pretty much pick and choose what kind of life we lead, children are still something many people believe they have no choice about.

Nicki thought differently and decided to write a book. The result, Childfree and Loving It, isn't an anti-child tirade. Nor does it bang on ceaselessly about how life with no children is the best thing since sliced bread. Instead, it presents the decision to have children as a choice, rather than a fait accompli to which we all must submit, sooner or later. "People of my age are the first generation who have done things differently," says Nicki, 39. "They've had choices and alternatives that their parents just didn't have. I think that having children is so accepted as the norm that people just do it."

And part of it, as with everything in this life, is about keeping up with the Joneses. "It's human nature not to want to be left behind. And if all your friends are having children and your parents want to be grandparents then it starts to seem as if the whole world is filled with babies and buggies.

"And for some people it is just easier to conform. It's almost as if it happens by default, as if parenting is something that happens to you rather than being a choice. That's extraordinary when having a child is such a big thing.

"After all, all the other big things that happen to us in our lives we take a lot of time to think over, like buying a car or a house. Yes, lots of people do think carefully about having a child but I don't think people think about it hard enough to realise that they do actually have a choice.

"It's a huge responsibility to bring another life into the world, which is why it's unfair to criticise people for not having children. It's wrong to generalise but most people just see it as a part of life and for some it works out well and children are the best thing that's happened to them. But for others it impacts upon their lives in ways they'd never have imagined."

Nicki, a journalist who has worked as a senior producer on BBC Newsnight and was deputy editor of The Jeremy Vine Show, collected many case studies for her book, some of them garnered simply through putting notes on internet messaging boards.

She explains: "With people who are child-free it was almost like an outpouring of feelings and thoughts. They wanted their stories to be told because other people have been telling them there's something wrong with them for so long. But most of them still didn't want their names to be used."

Parents were a little more reluctant to come forward. "It took a lot longer to get responses from those who were parents but when I re-posted, saying that contributors could be anonymous, I got more responses. It's not something people really want to talk about, if they regret having kids. It's almost as if it's something you're not supposed to admit.

"I spoke to one lady who had been desperate for children and had IVF treatment which ended in her having twins. She was really struggling to cope with two babies but she said all people wanted to hear was how wonderful it was that she had finally had kids."

Nicki says although she was left in no doubt that all the parents she had contact with loved their kids, many of them found bringing up children difficult yet were reluctant to admit it: "I think people are quite image-conscious and feel they have to keep up this image of having the perfect family because in any walk of life, be it your job or your partner, other people can make you feel small if you are candid and honest about things.

"That's particularly the case with personal lives and especially children. People love their children and don't want to be disloyal."

She adds she wasn't surprised by the outcome of a US survey in 1975 that asked parents if they would have had children if they had known what it would be like. Of those asked, 70% said `No.' In a 2000 poll of 600 UK parents, just 4% said having kids lived up to their expectations, with one in five admitting they were unprepared for the exhaustion and the strain on their relationship.

Nicki says: "It didn't surprise me as I've always known there are a lot of people who think that, but never say it.

"People are remarkably dishonest about what having kids is like. Where they are honest, brutally so, is in their reactions to people who choose not to have kids. Saying you don't want children is like the last taboo - not long ago if you said you were gay or a single mum, you'd get the reaction I do now when I say I don't want children. It's an issue that polarises people.

"People who know me know that while I like being around their children, I want something different - my best friend has four children but she'd never criticise my choice.

"But people outside my social circle tend to have a real knee-jerk reaction, especially women my age, as there's this polarisation of people like me who don't want children and people going through the whole IVF thing."

For this reason, Nicki was conscious of the need to distinguish between the child-free and the childless. "There's a crucial difference between someone who wants a baby and can't have one and someone who doesn't want one. If someone wants a child and can't have one, that's a shame and I would hate to suggest that they were in the same category as those who don't want kids. It's not the same thing at all.

"Yet although it's becoming more acceptable to be child-free, there are still people who let others think there was a reason they couldn't have children, because it's a lot easier. I mean, you wouldn't tell someone who couldn't have children they were being selfish, would you?"

Nicki believes reactions to the child-free are part due to a fear in society of `the other', of anything foreign to that with which we are familiar and comfortable: "As you get into your 30s, `have you got children?' tends to be the first thing people ask. People want us to be like them. It shouldn't be seen as unusual or unnatural if someone doesn't want children.

"What gets my back up is this idea that my decision is selfish. Am I selfish because I'm not getting up at 7am and doing the school run, or because I'm not helping at Brownies?

"Doing things like that is just enlightened self-interest, because, ultimately it's your child, your family you are helping. They might think they are generous as they pour everything into their children but you can do things like get involved in environmental concerns or sponsor an orphan which are just as selfless."

She says many parents question her decision by asking `but who will look after you when you're older'? which some may see as a selfish reason for having children in the first place.

"The number of people who look after their parents in this country is very low. I would hate to be in the situation where I was old and knew it was a drag for my children to look after me. It's not a good reason to have children - there's no guarantee they'll be there to look after you. It's a platitude that people trot out to those who don't want children and it's a bit meaningless because no-one knows what's in the future."

Certainly, with people living longer and more cases of both parents working, there are many of today's grandparents who never envisaged spending their retirement looking after their own elderly parents and their grandchildren.

And she adds that society's current `kid is king' philosophy, where parents give children everything they want on a plate, could possibly breed a generation of selfish adults: "A lot of people said to me that while they didn't believe in children being seen and not heard, they objected to this largely middle-class phenomenon that kids should be able to do whatever they like and be totally indulged.

"We have a high level of child poverty in this country; there's a huge divide between those that have little and those almost competitively indulged. That upbringing could easily create a group of adults who are very demanding."

As it stands, though, it is still people like Nicki who are seen as demanding and selfish, just for choosing a different way of life. "I would like to hope that one day making a choice not to have kids will be acceptable. I'm all for a broader society that judges people for what they are rather than on their social situation.

"And if you want kids, that's great, but if you don't, that's fine too."

* Childfree and Loving It by Nicki Defago is published by Vision Paperbacks at £8.99.