On Wednesday’s Daily Show, (Feb. 8, 2023) Chelsea Handler gave a “Long Story Short” piece on choosing not to have children. She made excellent points about how no one should shame or criticize a woman for not having kids and how ridiculous it is to believe it’s worse to not have children than to have them. But her piece included a sketch that illustrated ways not having children is better than having them. It included the physical problems you avoid, the free time you have, and how much muscle tone you can have when you have time to work out.
I chose not to have children, but this sketch rubbed me the wrong way. From the outside, motherhood looks like it gives women large amounts of respect and social caché. It’s unfair that if the answer to the question “Do you have kids?” is yes, a woman gets an approving nod and polite follow-up questions, but if it’s “no,” a woman either gets awkward silence or criticism. From the outside, motherhood seems to give status, visibility, worth.
All of that is true, but from the inside motherhood feels like WORK, and not just physical work, but emotional work and mental work. Worse, it’s all that work with a minimum of support from one’s partner (if you have one) or society or anyone at all. Maybe some mothers are lucky enough to have all the support they need, but most don’t. This makes mothers a hideously exploited labor pool.
Each Mother’s Day reminds me of how the whole world reveres people who raise kids, but the ritual of this respect is small compensation for how little respect and attention mothers get on a daily level, partly because they’re mothers (because how can a mother be good for anything besides having kids?).
I’ve had mothers tell me they wished they hadn’t had their children, or they wished they hadn’t had them yet. I’ve had a father tell me why he thought I made the right choice not to have kids. Many women wonder if motherhood was the right choice for them and they know what the benefits feel like when you don’t have children (yet).
So watching Chelsea come down hard on those benefits, I winced. It’s not like a mother exists who doesn’t know how much more free time you have when you’re childfree (as I understand the terms, childfree means you chose not to have kids; childless means you didn’t choose it, but that’s how things worked out). The assertions made by Chelsea’s sketch felt obvious, unnecessary and even mean.
When a minority has been shamed and ignored and made to feel like we’re invisible, it’s a common response to proclaim how great it is to be in this minority (hence Black Power, Chicano Power, and Gay Pride.). I understand the impulse to say, “Choosing not to have children is smart! Mothers are dumb!” It’s a human response to the judgment and invisibility we childfree and childless face regularly.
What makes me uncomfortable is that arguments like Handler’s feel like hog-piling onto the struggles mothers already manage with workload, identity, and the countless areas of life that are burdened when you have children. Many (all?) mothers feel blindsided by motherhood. No one ever tells us how completely and for how long children affect everything you do and everything you are. Mothers don’t need anyone, not even Chelsea Handler, to point it out how nice life is before you have kids.
I want there to be a way for us childfree and childless to say we’re just as worthy as mothers without making mothers feel bad about their choice. Instead of acting like people need to be told how much more sleep you get when you don’t have a baby, why not address points like how it should be just as acceptable for a woman to not have kids as it is for a man?
Let’s point out what motherhood was originally for: to populate a mostly empty planet, to create labor for the family business, and to satisfy the male-driven goal of increasing the population of a nation or religion or culture so it could dominate others. Women used to face extreme pressure from men to be pregnant every second they possibly could so economies and armies would be strong.
But today few need child labor to help them work the farm. The planet is populated, the boundaries drawn. The math is that each generation needs to replace itself, but since plenty of American couples have more than two children, some of us don’t need to procreate at all.
I realize those reasons won’t get as many laughs as Handler did in her sketch. But they’re better reasons and they avoid setting women at odds with each other. Let’s stop saying being a mother is better or living childfree is better. How about we acknowledge that the man-made societal pressures that used to demand endless pregnancies no longer apply? Let’s claim our freedom from the male-dominated worldview that women must churn out as many children as possible and support each other in whatever choice we make.
Is that not as compelling a dynamic as continuing the culture war? Is it more satisfying to make the choice you made look like the only sane one? Shall women keep judging each other because that’s easier than criticizing the patriarchy underneath it all? All right then. I guess that means more Chelsea Handler videos.
12 Feb 2023
I appreciate your insightful critique. I have had my own heartbreak with motherhood when my child was young, and am currently seeing two close friends in agony over their adult children’s terrible decision-making skills.
We need to be more honest about what motherhood is really like AND more supportive to those who choose it and those who don’t.
Wow, Regina, you really make some amazing points. I’m a mom with 2 grown sons, and it was (and can still be) so effing hard. I agree; all women should support each other, kids or not. We all need each other. Great article, my friend!
I don’t usually criticize a woman who supports my childfree decision, but we have to be careful. Women have a history of turning on each other because it’s easier than doing the hard work of examining and speaking against the patriarchy.
Insightful once again.
Thank you. I’m usually enthusiastic when someone publicly supports a woman choosing not to be a mother, but Handler’s sketch felt like a big rhetorical failure.