Without Children
About This Book
Many people assume that choosing a life without children is a product of the present day, something tied to the current generation's politics and anxieties. Historian Peggy O'Donnell Heffington looks back across the centuries and finds women who never had children for every kind of reason. Some made that choice deliberately, some wanted children and never had them, and most landed somewhere between those two paths, both then and now. Heffington, who is herself a woman without children, brings together extensive research and personal perspective to explore why women have gone without children throughout history. Her account examples recurring factors that still shape decisions today: a lack of practical support, the demands of work and money, concern about the environment, infertility, and the wish to build a life along unconventional lines. A central argument of the book is that living without children has always been common, and that societies have worked hard to make it look aberrant. Understanding that gap, she suggests, is necessary for mothers and non-mothers to understand one another better and for imagining a fairer future for everyone.
ISBN: 9781541675568
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