Time to Celebrate our ‘Unsung’ Child-free Heroes
You don’t have to be a parent to make an everyday difference.
“People who do nothing must make people, and the rest of us must fill their lives with happiness and enlightenment.”
I read that quote years ago, in a Tolstoy novel (I can’t remember which one).
It made me happy, because while I don’t believe that people-makers “do nothing”, those words offered a refreshing perspective on the way I’ve chosen to live my life.
Because usually, it’s the child-free who are depicted as doing nothing — or at least, doing nothing to help society.
(We’re the selfish ones who take long holidays, stay in bed until noon on the weekend, go on expensive shopping sprees, and live only for today, aren’t we?)
We also only tend to hear about inspirational child-free people when they’ve done something remarkable. Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron are child-free world leaders, while Jane Austen, Hilary Mantel, and the Brontë sisters are all celebrated authors who didn’t have any kids.
But what about all those unsung child-free heroes? The ones who commit caring and selfless acts all the time, without ever really talking about them.
I spent a year collecting child-free stories, as research for a light-hearted book I’ve written about celebrating women who’ve decided not to procreate. In doing this, I met child-free women who care deeply about the future, by not wanting to overpopulate a crowded world.
I also met child-free women who care for other people’s children, without (gasp!) any biological attachment to them whatsoever.
Some taught in schools, while others had stepped in to care for children who, for different reasons, were lacking in parental guidance and support.
One was a police officer who had dedicated her working life to protecting abused children, and one was the unpaid, voluntary daily carer for her 99-year-old next-door neighbour.
Not to mention the fact that, according to ‘In Defence of the Childless’, a 2017 leader article published in The Economist, “the mere fact of not having children raises the amount a person leaves to charity by a little over $10,000”. Non-parents are also more likely to set up charitable foundations than people with children.
Stories like these shine light on the fact that not having children can be as useful for the future and our environment as having them. There are many other ways to leave a lasting, caring legacy than by simply starting a family.
I’m not criticising parents — far from it — and neither am I trying to promote my lifestyle as the ‘best’ choice (though for me, it is).
I just believe that there’s a place in the world for all of us, parents and non-parents alike, and that we should celebrate the everyday achievements of the child-free as much as we do parents’.
(Oh, and if you need any more proof that the child-free are capable of committing selfless acts of compassion, consider Anna Jarvis, a social activist who founded Mother’s Day back in 1908…
…without having had any children of her own).
