Childfree Quotes

“It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place.”
― David Benatar , Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence

“Some of us were brought into this troubled world primarily or only to increase our fathers’ chances of not being left by our mothers, or vice versa.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, The Use and Misuse of Children

“The most upsetting thing about Society’s attitude towards disabled people is that many millions of disabled people became disabled while trying to please Society, the very same bitch that secretly regards them as subhuman.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, The Use and Misuse of Children

“The most out-there thing I’m saying is, ‘Don’t have babies. Don’t get married and have kids. Have a larger life than that.”
― Roseanne Barr

“I knew from a young age that motherhood was a cage I never wanted to inhabit.”
― Chelsea G. Summers, A Certain Hunger

“You’re not really mad that I’m not having children.

In fact, I would probably love to one day.

You’re mad that I’m expressing autonomy of choice.

You’re mad that I’m considering other options.

You’re mad that I don’t view that as my ultimate potential.

You’re mad that I dare be selfish enough to make choices based on my best interest, something women are not supposed to do.

You’re mad that I consider it a choice, and that I, a woman, am exercising choice.

You’re not mad that I’m not having babies.

You’re mad because I’m acting like a man.”
― Alice Minium

“Is having a child actually fundamentally bettering the world as a whole in any way? There is no shortage of children. Wouldn’t it be better to let people who want children have them, and leave everyone else alone?”
― Alice Minium

“Overpopulation is by far the worst kind of pollution.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Refusing to have a child is the highest degree of rebellion, after suicide; one of the best uses of the mind; and the best gift to the planet.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Many millions of people secretly feel caged by employment, marriage, and/or parenthood.”
― @Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Some people really shouldn’t become parents. There’s no absolute guarantee when it comes to the love between a parent and their child.”
― Hiro Arikawa, The Travelling Cat Chronicles

“Everyone insists [motherhood] is her purpose, and it drives her mad, the idea that the shape of her body determines the shape her life must take.
That her beauty is something she is expected to pass on instead of keep.
That anything she makes will thrive while she is left to wither.”
― Victoria Schwab, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

“Most people celebrate the continuity of their existence so passionately that you would swear they chose to exist.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“What possessed us? We were so happy! Why, then, did we take the stake of all we had and place it all on this outrageous gamble of having a child? Of course you consider the very putting of that question profane. Although the infertile are entitled to sour grapes, it's against the rules, isn't it, to actually have a baby and spend any time at all on that banished parallel life in which you didn't.”
― Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin

“Not everything is for everybody”
― Dane A. Reid, Forget Having Kids. I'm Having Fun: 1000 Random Reasons I Chose to Be #ChildFree

“A number of children kept coming over to the tennis courts, rattling on the gate, and trying to get in. The watching middle-class mums did nothing to restrain them. Eventually my friend yelled, “Go AWAY!” Whereupon the watching mums did do something. A mob of them descended on us as though my friend had exposed himself. Suddenly we were in the midst of a maternal zombie film. It was the nearest I’ve ever come to getting lynched—they were after my friend rather than me and though, strictly speaking, I was his opponent, I was a tacit accomplice—and a clear demonstration that the rights of parents and their children to do whatever they please have priority over everyone else’s. “A child is the very devil,” wrote Virginia Woolf in a letter, “calling out, as I believe, all the worst and least explicable passions of the parents.”
― Geoff Dyer, Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids

“Only in my mid-twenties and already married did I realize I had always thought of childlessness as a destination. I knew I wanted to go there, but I had never asked myself what would happen once I arrived. Now that the future of someone I loved would also be shaped by my intent not to have a child, it suddenly felt urgent to understand what it would be like not just to pass through but to live in that childfree place for the rest of my life.”
― Nicole Louie

“Extinction, while sad and scary, doesn't bother me as much as does the suffering of the individuals prior to being wiped out.”
― Henriette Mantel, No Kidding: Women Writers on Bypassing Parenthood

“Some children are each loved by their stepparent, but not by their biological parent … or parents.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“The fact is, I don't want children. Ever. And when I'm thirty, I'm gettin' fixed." Zach frowned and leaned back. Could he have heard her correctly? She didn't want children? Ever? She didn't pine to be a mother? To know the joy of childbirth? Blah, blah, blah? He grabbed her tight by the shoulders and stared straight at her. "My God, woman, I've been waiting for you all my life!" Startled by his shout, Sara reared back and fell off the couch. “Shit, are you okay?" Zach looked down at her as she raised herself on her elbows. "What the fuck was that?" "That,” he quickly slipped the condom on and was off the couch and between her legs, “was utter fucking joy. That's what that was.”
― Shelly Laurenston, Pack Challenge

“Mi chiamo Aurora, ho trentanove anni e non voglio avere figli. Non ho alibi o traumi alle spalle per giustificare la mia decisione, è così e basta.
Quando lo dico mi guardano come se fossi quella strana, anticonformista per copione, egoista per convenienza. Nel migliore dei casi, sono una che reprime il suo istinto materno perchè ha avuto un rapporto conflittuale con la sua, di madre. La verità è che ho avuto due genitori amorevoli e presenti, che mi sono stati accanto nei momenti di gioia e in quelli bui.
(...) come se fossi una povera scema immatura, che aspira una vita a metà. Non madre, dunque incompleta. Non puoi completarti come preferisci, o, magari, desiderare di rimanere come sei. No, l'incompletezza è un diritto maschile. A volte ho l'impressione che la mia scelta susciti una forma di gelosia, come se qualcuno fosse riuscito ad avvisarmi in tempo del pericolo. Childfree, ci chiamano, free come se fossimo del tutto libere, e invece siamo costantemente prigionieredei pregiudizi, delle aspettative sociali, delle speranze mal riposte.”
― Matteo Bussola, Il rosmarino non capisce l'inverno

“It's almost as if - in being childfree yourself - you become everybody else's child: someone who needs taking care of, who needs guiding in the right direction, who doesn't quite understand, but bless her she's trying”
― Elizabeth Day, How to Fail

“One’s life choices are nobody else’s problem, they only become a problem when one tries to force them on others.”
― Shon Mehta

“I had really given it thought, but still, whenever I tried
to envision what it would be like to bring another human
being into this world and become half of the duo meant to
raise, protect, and love it unconditionally until death did
us part, I felt no inkling of interest or excitement to move
in that direction. Not once.
How was that possible? Motherhood as the epicentre of
women’s lives was all I’d ever witnessed, so how was it that
the centre was not there when it came to my own life?
Was I hollow, or was my centre elsewhere?”
― Nicole Louie

“Looking back on my early life helped me understand that not becoming a mother had presented itself as the magic shield that would protect me from the bad experiences my mother and grandmother had gone through. So I held tight to it.”
― Nicole Louie

“It is possible I might regret being Childfree, but it is also possible that I might regret not being an astronaut (and neither is a choice for me).”
― Jay Zigmont, The Childfree Guide to Life and Money: Make Your Finances Simple So Your Life Without Kids Can Be Amazing

“The choice (or not by choice) to not have children is complex for most.”
― Jay Zigmont, The Childfree Guide to Life and Money: Make Your Finances Simple So Your Life Without Kids Can Be Amazing

“Buying a house is a choice for Childfree and Childless people, not a requirement.”
― Jay Zigmont, The Childfree Guide to Life and Money: Make Your Finances Simple So Your Life Without Kids Can Be Amazing

“Without a child I could dance across the sexism of my era, whereas becoming a mother shoved my face right down into it. A latent bias, internalized by both of us, suddenly leapt forth in parenthood. It was now obvious that Harris was openly rewarded for each thing he did while I was quietly shamed for the same things. There was no way to fight back against this, no one to point a finger at, because it came from everywhere. Even walking around my own house I felt haunted, fluish with guilt about every single thing I did or didn’t do. Harris couldn’t see the haunting and this was the worst part: to be living with someone who fundamentally didn’t believe me and was really, really sick of having to pretend to empathize—or else be the bad guy! In his own home! How infuriating for him. And how infuriating to be the wife and not other women who could enjoy how terrific he was. How painful for both of us, especially given that we were modern, creative types used to living in our dreams of the future. But a baby exists only in the present, the historical, geographic, economic present. With a baby one could no longer be cute and coy about capitalism—money was time, time was everything. We could have skipped lightly across all this by not becoming parents; it never really had to come to a head. On the other hand, sometimes it’s good when things come to a head. And then eventually, one day: pop.”
― Miranda July, All Fours

“In choosing not to create life, you overcome the powerful biological imperative embedded in every cell of your being.”
― Danny Shine, Thank You for Not Breeding