Childfree by choice
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OBITUARY: MOTHERHOOD
May 13, 1972
Died, as a symbol, a life role, a sacred institution, sometime in the early nineteen-seventies. Causes of death: concern for overpopulation; and the desire of many to live as free individuals, not nurturers of young.
—Ellen Peck, New York Times
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When I was seventeen, my mother suddenly passed away. I was deeply upset when she died so early. And I realized there was no guarantee that I wouldn't give my children the same kind of pain one day. I vowed to never pass down that pain.
—Jeong Kwan
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If motherhood doesn't interest you, don't do it. It didn't interest me, so I didn't do it.
—Katharine Hepburn
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People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children.
—Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes
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Having a first child is like throwing a hand grenade into a marriage.
—Nora Ephron
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Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist.
—Michael Levine
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I love children, especially when they cry, because then somebody comes and takes them away.
—Nancy Milfors
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If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either.
—Dick Cavett
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Two roads diverged in a wood,
and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
—Robert Frost
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Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids
Confessions of a childfree woman
National Alliance for Optional Parenthood
For the record, I am not pregnant. What I am is fed up.
Not a mother, and no less a woman
Why women choose not to have children
Not wanting kids is entirely normal
The two reasons parents regret having kids
People who don't have kids: We want work-life balance too
One legacy of the pandemic may be less judgment of the child-free
We’ve been doing the same thing to the earth that we do to women
Man to sue parents for giving birth to him
Were you born without your consent?
Men fear me, society shames me, and I love my life