1.
A Preliminary Study on Childlessness/Childfree
in the US. contemporary society
University of Minnesota – Twin Cities,
Chippewa Valley Technical College
by Crystal Li-chin Huang . Fall, 2004
Outline
1. Is childlessness and the childfree in the U.S. on the rise?
2. A brief chronicle of procreation vs. childlessness
3. Research Method- Hermeneutic Phenomenology
4. Research Rationale
6. Interpretation and Findings
7. Result and implication

2.
1. Childlessness by choice (childfree)-
is referred to those who never want children by their own
choice and will never have any. Since the term of
childlessness has connotations of “something missing”
for various reasons, the first group of population tend to
use childfree instead of childless by choice. This group
can be differentiated into three categories: those who are
positive childfree, those who are religiously childfree,
and those who are environmentally childfree. (Cain,2002)
2. Childlessness by chance-
can be examined from major three factors: medically
childless- diseases make mothering impossible; gay and
childless; and tragically childless.
3. The happenstance childlessness-
is observed from childless by childhood; childless by
standard; and childless by marriage (p. 85).
A Definition of childfree,
childlessness by chance, and
childlessness by happenstance.

3.
- Due to the time constraints, this project
focuses on the trend in childlessness
among women 40 - 44 years old from
1980-1998
Data - Survey of U.S. Bureau of Census –
from 1980 to 1998 by Amara Bachu
Questions: How many live births, if any (if
(have/has)… ever had?

4.
A Brief Chronicle of
procreation vs. childlessness
1. Before the 20th Century-
Fertility and Survival
2. The Early 20th Century-
The Race (White) Suicide Panic: Eugenics
Movement and the Pressure to Procreate
3. The Mid-20th Century-
Class, Race, and the Rise of Compulsory
Parenthood; issues regarding infertility
4. After 70s-
Childfree- the Revolt against the Baby Boom
Playing the God?- The Baby Quest and the
Reproductive technology
Refer to Elaine Taylor May’s Barren in the Promised land

5.
1.Before the 20th Century-
Bibliclal stories-
(1) Abraham and Sarah stand out as probably the first and first
fascinating infertile and childless worked hard to become
parents (Love, 1984, p. 23).
(2) In Bible, Timothy warned that women, who are still lugging
around Eve’s original sin, could be saved from it only
childbearing.
(3) And Madonna and holy child is the most important religious
and cultural icon in the Western world. Also,
(4) Proverbs 30:15 describes four terrible realities, and
childlessness is one of them: grave, barren womb, drought,
and fire. In relating to religious belief, there are many
scriptures carrying the messages of having offspring, for
example,
(5) According to The Talmud, the central book of Jewish Law,
“He who brings no children into the world is like a
murderer. A childless person is like the dead.” Historically,
childless women were openly suspect-strangely
pathological creatures violating the biblical command to
be fruitful and multiply.

6.
1642- In colonial America, married women without children
were assumed to be suffering God’s punishment
(Burkett, 2000, p. 183).
Poet Ann Bradstreet –asked to be forgiven for
her “pride and vanity” that had caused God
to punish her to be barren.
1711- Reverend Benjamin Coleman, “ Never may we
write her Barren who is fruitful in good works,
The orphans are her children, and their loins
bless her n These-Sing O Barren! Thou that
didst never bear! God’s Grace and Spirit in
thee is better than ten sons… Fruitlessness
can be but a Happiness, Compassion is a Virtue.
1830- President Andrew Jackson, “ What good man
would prefer a country covered forests and
ranged by a few thousand savages to our
extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns,
and prosperous farms, embellished with all the
improvements which art can devise or industry
execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000
happy people, and filled with al the blessings
of liberty, civilization, and religion?

7.
Shifting from religious aspect to society- traditionally,
women, who did not reproduce were virtually invisible,
ashamed of their “barrenness” or too timid to call attention
to their unwomanliness (p. 183).
In Germany, Hitler lionized the most fertile Aryan women
with the Mutterkreuz- Mother’s Cross, was an obvious case
of politically and ideologically constructed motherhood.
Another event came from woman per se - Lidia Kingsvill
Commander called upon intelligent American women to
have six children to keep the nation from being
overpopulated with “loosely united, crude savages, content
to hunt and fish, war with neighboring tribes” (Burkett, 183).

8.
2. The Early 20th Century-
1903- President Theodore Roosevelt
“There are regions in our own land, and
classes of our population, where the birth rate
has sunk below the death rate…From the
standpoint of the human race, the one sin for
which the penalty is national death, race death;
a sin for which there is no atonement… No
man, no woman, can shirk the primary duties of
life, whether for love of ease and pleasure, or
for any other cause, and retain his or her self-
respect.
1907- Anonymous childless working-class woman
“ Now, gentlemen, You who rule us, we are
your “wage slaves,” my husband and I. …You
can refuse us any certainty of work, wages or
provision for old age. We can not help
ourselves. But there is one thing you cannot
do. You cannot use me to breed food for your
factories.

9.
3. The Mid-20th Century-
(1) Class, Race, and Compulsory Sterilization
1927-Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
“It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to
execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them
starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those
who are manifestly unfit form continuing their kind.
The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is
broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes….
Three generations of imbeciles is enough.”
1961-Fanny Lou Hamer (Civil rights leader who was
sterilized without her knowledge or consent)
“If he was going to give that sort of operation, then
he should have told me. I would have loved to have
children. I went to the doctor who did that to me
and I asked him, why? Why had he done that to
me? He didn’t have to say nothing-and he didn’t.”

10.
(2) The Baby Craze:The Rise of
Compulsory Parenthood
Post War World II -Pamela Moore
“ I was brought up by progressive parents who
expected me to have a career as my mother and
aunts had, even in the 1920s and 30s. Ironically,
what I myself wanted was a home and several
children.
1948-Lillian Ross
Why, I suddenly find myself beating my breast
and proclaiming my patriotism and exclaiming
that I love my wife and kids, of which I have four
with a fifth on the way. I’m all loused up. I’m
scared to death, and nobody can tell me it isn’t
because I’m afraid of being investigated.

11.
In interpreting the biological bond, there are different
perspectives existing in different time, for example,
Psychologist Erik Erikson once said, “ The woman who
does not fulfill her innate need to fill her ‘inner space’, or
uterus, with embryonic tissue is likely to be frustrated or
neurotic.”
From Sigmund Freud’s psychodynamic perspective,
though much of it has been rejected today, “ the
groundwork by teaching that women need children to
overcome childhood penis envy.” Even the world wide
renowned neurologist Dr. Max G. Schlapp, lectured, “ Any
woman who does not desire offspring is abnormal.”
These concepts has been prevailing and accepted for a
while in society as a whole.

12.
(3) The Mid-20th Century-
Issues on Infertility
1942 - Albert Horlings “Can they have children?”
“ Medical writers have sometimes observed
that sterility groups contain a larger than
average number of persons who are self-
centered and show a lack of warmth in their
social and personal relations. People of this
kind frequently are the victims of frigidity and
an abnormal reaction to the family relationship.
1950 - Advice to the Childless.
“One of the great difficulties in treating childless
couples is not medical but just stubborn male pride.
Many men refuse to believe that they may be to blame
and will not submit to examination or treatment.

13.
4. After 70s-
Childfree: the Revolt against
the Baby Boom
1971- Ellen Peck (The Baby Trap)
“ A Minnesota lawyer I know, married for
ten years with no children, “dates” his wife;
they live together in a fun-fun lifestyle that is
close to that typified in Playboy magazine.
1972- Zero Population Growth Bumper Sticker
“ MAKE LOVE, NOT BABIES”

14.
4. After 70s-
The Baby Quest and the Reproductive Fix
1989- Advisement for sperm donors, University of Minnesota
“Extra money for Top students… Must have placed at or
above the 98th percentile on IQ test or college entrance
exam. We will pay extra for extremely high IQ, out
standing achievements or evidence of creativity or
giftedness.
1993- Margaret Lewis
“There is a tremendous amount of medical help available
and I have felt guilty not doing everything in my power
to achieve pregnancy even though I have a nice life
without children…. Still, there is tremendous social
pressure to pursue this objective simply because we
can…. In the seventies when I was “coming of age,” it
was smart for a woman to seek the best way to bring out
her best self… Now, the same fervor that went into that
fight is going into the importance of having children. This
is the age of “family values.” This is the thing to do now,
the most important thing, the only important thing…. This
is definitely the age of power motherhood.

15.
2000- Ilene Bileky, an interviewee of Burkett
“Compulsory motherhood, that’s what the relentless
social pressure to reproduce....People are never asked
to justified their decision to have kids, so why should I
be expected to justify my decision not have them…The
relentless social pressure to reproduce, and most of
parents aren’t aware of what they’re doing. They just
assume that having kids is “natural”. If having children
is natural, what does that make those of us who don’t
have kids, or don’t want them? Unnatural? (p. 186)

16.
Nevertheless, recent research and interpretation
shed new light on the issues relating to genetic need.
For example, Dr. Richard Rabkin, a New York
psychiatrist, put it this way, Women don’t need to be
mothers any more than they need spaghetti. But if
you’re in a world where everyone is eating spaghetti,
thinking they need it and want it. You will think so
too. Romance has really contaminated science
(Burkett, p. 186).

17.
1998- Another court case related to this issue described
as follows: In recent years, California, Florida, Utah, and
Oregon have passed laws increasing penalties for
spousal abuse if witnessed by a child. An Oregonian
said shortly after her state passed that law in June 1998:
If my husband beats me, it’s not that big a deal, just
a misdemeanor. But if I have a kid who might be
traumatized, then it becomes a serious crime, a felony,
that will put him away for five years. Certainly tells me
how much my well-being counts. (p. 188)

18.
About the issue of biological urge of having offspring, or
the myth of reproductive instinct, Burkett says, “ It is to
provoke the same reaction in who lack it as any another
assumption of majoritarian normalcy” (p. 186). Some
other critics argue that biological urge or instinct whether
it is sprung from sex desire or reproductive instinct has
not been clearly distinguished by research. And culturally-
induced desires can be stronger that they seem to be
biological.[i] Commenting on maternal instinct, sociologist
Jessie Bernard proclaims, “Biological destiny? Forget
biology! If we were biology, people would die from not
doing it” (Burkett, 2001, p. 186).

19.
Such experience can be found in an
interview of Crittenden’s The Price of
Motherhood. The interviewee says, “ I love
my work, and I’ve always derived a large part
of my identity through my work. I am truly
tortured. Men get a standing ovation if they
miss a meeting because of parenting; women
miss whole careers.” (Crittenden, 2001, p.
16).

20.
Another interviewee says, “ Most women can be mothers,
but only you can do what you can do for the world.” (p. 16).
And Anne Crittenden adds it, “ How do we bring up
children without putting women down?” These feelings
expressed by the career-oriented women as mothers or
mother-want-to-be, elucidate S’ experience regarding such
dilemma.
Ilene says, Childlessness is still socially suspect unless
you have a pregnancy penned on you calendar for the
following year, or are desperately seeking little Susan with
the help of a fertility specialist…No matter what attitude I
adopt, I know I will receive one of the five stock responses.
All of which I can recite by heart: Oh, it’s different when
they’re your own; Oh, I’m so sorry. What’s the problem;
Aren’t you lonely? I know a wonderful doctor; Don’t you
worry you’ll grow old have no one to take care of you?
(Burkett, p. 182).

21.
She adds, “ We need to get rid of the image that it’s
only okay to be childless if you’re miserable about it,
but you’re a monster if you are childless and happy
about it “ (p. 187).
Another story came from Amy Goldwasser, a magazine
editor expressed ambivalence about having kids. She
says, “Progeny, after all, is destiny… They try to sell me
on children, like you’d try to sell someone on getting a
puppy” (p. 185).

22.
In relating to religious belief, there are many scriptures
carrying the messages of having offspring, for example,
Abraham and Sarah stand out as probably the first and
first fascinating infertile and childless worked hard to
become parents (Love, 1984, p. 23). In Bible, Timothy
warned that women, who are still lugging around Eve’s
original sin, could be saved from it only childbearing.
And Madonna and holy child is the most important
religious and cultural icon in the Western world. Also,
Proverbs 30:15 describes four terrible realities, and
childlessness is one of them: grave, barren womb,
drought, and fire.

23.
According to The Talmud, the central book of Jewish
Law, “He who brings no children into the world is like a
murderer. A childless person is like the dead.”
Historically, childless women were openly suspect-
strangely pathological creatures violating the biblical
command to be fruitful and multiply. In colonial
America, married women without children were
assumed to be suffering God’s punishment (Burkett,
2000, p. 183).

24.
The Objectives of This Research
1. Personal experience-
I have direct connection to individuals who have no
children, because I am one of them.
2. Crucial issues significant affect women- e.g.,
(1) the price, or some might say- joy, of motherhood
(2) the pro/con-natal theme in the critical science
discourse as well as in an array of socio-political
ideological practice of contemporary society.
(3) childless or childfree population are on the rise
evolving from various circumstances- medical,
physical-psychological, economic, socio-cultural,

25.
Objectives of This Research
Note: the alarmingly increasing population of this
category can be shown from the U.S. Census Bureau’s
statistical data - in 1965, 43.5 % of all married couples
were childless. The April 1996 issue of American
Demographics reported in the article Child Free with
an Attitude that there were an estimated 24 million
married couple households with no children living at
home, and say that number could top 30 million in 15
years.

26.
The rationale behind this exploratory research is a
desire to generate new insight or interpretation to
contribute to the understanding of being
childless/childfree as part of human procreative
activities in relation to lifestyles, gender/socio-cultural
ideology, policymaking, eco-environmentally
sustainable issues, and population problems.
The rationale

27.
These understandings can potentially affect the emerging
decision-making legislatively regarding quality of life, for
example, the necessity of redefining or reconstructing the
concept of family in post-modern society; the planned
and unplanned parenthood and population issues in
regard to educational policy; medical technology
regarding infertility and voluntary sterilization; tax &
social welfare reform for the fair treatment of the childless
couples; quality of human resources development to the
work force associated with the increasing and decreasing
demography in regard to the employment, unemployment
as well as under-employment problems; and the
consciousness raising of the eco-balance toward the
environmental sustainability, just to mane a few. For
example, both over-populated and under-populated
issues in different regions and countries.
The rationale

28.
Research Method-
Phenomenological Interviews
Procreation as a social phenomenon involves in complex,
multi-faceted, experiential meanings. For example, the
various socio-cultural as well as bio-heretical factors all
play a role in the reproductive phenomena. Thus, in
searching the notion of theme may best be understood by
examining its methodological and philosophical character.
In this study, hermeneutic phenomenological methodology
could obtain the themes without weakening the authenticity
by applying various reduction procedures to understand
the interviewee’s inner experience. As to reach the
authenticity, the universal or essential quality of a theme,
the free imaginative variation approach is applied to
discover aspects or qualities that make a phenomenon
what it is and without which the phenomenon could not be
what it is.

29.
This study addresses lived experience of being
childlessness through phenomenological interviews. Texts
from interviews were developed into several themes:
(1) being childless gives a mixed feeling of personal freedom
vs. feeling incompleteness of life;
(2) the socio-psychologically constructed of needs and
biological urge is at confluence the desire of being a
mother;
(4) career vs. motherhood is a dilemma that career-oriented
women have to face.;
(5) marital relationship is a factor to the childlessness;
Research Finding

30.
(6) self-image as not a “changing” type of personality
contributed to part of the childless regret.
(7) the liberal/democratic family background fosters
(8) Unhappy childhood contributes to being childfree or
childless
(9) Woman marries divorced man with children affect her
decision of having children.
(10) the consciousness of population and environment trend
affect the decision of having children or not
(11) High educational, professional women are prone to be
childfree of childless.
Research Finding- continued

31.
Result and Implications
This study presents the complex dimensions of human
procreativity. In addition to the biological urge, the hidden
messages of the conventional images of heterosexual
marriage, nuptiality-spouse-children, taken-for-granted
motherhood, institutionalized concepts (e.g., in this case,
family, and religious views) are powerful forces shaping
the ideas and behaviors of human reproductive activity.
There are numerous issues worthy of further studies,
such as what are the differences between man’s
childless/childfree vs. female’s? What are the external
factors (such as social class, occupational locality,
religious/political belief, reproductive technology,
previous exposure to different social conditions and so
on) affect the ideas or reality of being childless/childfree?
What do other cultures render the similar issues? Just to
name a few.

32.
Result and Implications - continued
Procreation is the product of multiple socio-
biological confluences. Hermeneutic
phenomenological studies can help our deeper
understanding of such complexity. The uncovered
massages might one day help us to reconstruct a
humanness way of reproduction under an optimal
living environment for the most of the future
generations to come.

33.
Female, late 50s-”In some sense…without children, I can
have a career I want to fulfill dreams, to be myself… and to do
many things, such as traveling around the world for
professional development, attending conferences, and
recreational purposes and so on, which make some people
jealous due to they have to deal with children ....On the other
hand, it involved with emotional struggle. It makes you feel
something missing in your life.... I have never really thought
about having or not having children consciously…. I grew up
with a focusing on career, but I know that children are part of
life and tradition. You know, if you don’t have children and
affiliation with churches, you know you are…(a dead
man/woman walking- “ being isolated”).
Male, early 50- “I enjoy teaching, and have been involved in
education for 15 years. Students are very important in my life.
I am an excellent uncle to my brother’s children. In early
young age, I decided to keep celibacy. I am a person who
needs personal space to relax, replenish, and get things
done. “
Contents excerpted from the question-
What is it like being a person without children

34.
Female 48 years old, Asian-”I grew up from an environment
plagued with overpopulated, poverty, abuse, disease, and
crimes. From my early age, I had decided I wanted to get out
of any one of those worse conditions that I had been
through. No marriage, of course no children was one of
them. Why do I need marriage if I am independent
financially and emotionally? Why do I need children, if you
underhand the scene behind the screen-, family, raising
children, and capitalism are the `institutionalized trinity’. I
concern about squandering consumption behavior pattern
and our deteriorating environment.”
Contents excerpted from the question-
What is it like being a person without children
Female, mid 40s- My parents have been fighting all the time.
I had enough from their rough marriage. I am the eldest
daughter in my family. After their divorce, taking care of my
younger siblings became port of my job. I was really tired of
doing their job. My first marriage did not work out. Now my
current husband are much older than I, and he has his own
children. It is fine for us not to have any children. I really like
my current teaching job. I spend lots of my time in engaging
with my students, my husband, and my stepfamily.

35.
Female, mid 40s- I have been working as a nurse for 20
years. My parents always told me that having a
responsible and good life is the most important thing. I
dedicate to my career, and never thought about marriage or
children. Currently I live with my boy friend. He has
divorced once. He has children from his previous
marriage. I feel my life is very fulfilled. Furthermore, my 3
dogs, 4 cats, and 8 birds keep me very busy.
Contents excerpted from the question-
What is it like being a person without children
Female, early 40s- I think my family is very liberal. I never
experience pressure to get married or have children. My
sister is single. My first marriage did not succeed,
especially we both did not feel financially secure, so we
never thought about having children. Later we divorced. No
I am single. I love my current job. I don’t feel regret or
something missing caused by not having children.

36.
Female 46 years old Asian- I came to U.S. to pursue higher
education as an adult. My English can never be good as
theirs. Even though I was a very capable career woman in
my native country, and I have an MBA from the U.S., it is
hard for me to feel fulfilled in this country. My husband’s
career in the U.S. can support the whole family. He works
to death! Raising children and taking good care of family
have been my major task in the U.S. have to be my job.
What else can I do?
Female 41 years old Asian-Though I have social science
master degree from an elite college from my native country,
it is difficult to find a job or survive in current community.
My husband is a chemistry engineer, he works very hard to
keep his job. During the first five years of marriage in U.S.,
life was miserable. I felt so isolated until children coming
into my life.
Contents excerpted from the question-
What is it like being a person without children

37.
Female 45 years old, Asian- My husband has a Ph.D
degree from RPI in mechanical engineering, You know
this is a typical Asian Style marriage- Husband pursue
terminal degree in the U.S in the hot fields, then they
marry an woman form their culture to settle down. My
husband work very hard in computer fields. Me, what
else can I do- speak no pretty English, isolate in the
suburbia, not integrate into the mainstream American
culture, life is some boring and linear. It is truly hard
to get a job according my Account background which I
had no problem to have an ideal one in my native
country. Now, even to get pregnant was so difficulty,
due to my husband’s overloaded and high pressure
job. (continued, next slide.)

38.
In the U.S, I am just an ordinary woman doing
ordinary thing. I am not Connie Chung or Elaine
Chao. Why don’t they have their biological children?
They were fully Americanized Asians! Language is
not a problem for them to function for their desirable
careers. My first three years of marriage had no
children. Not until did my husband get a much more
stable job, dare I try to get pregnant. Now I have
two children. It was not easy to raise children in the
contemporary American society. But I am not the
enlightened, independent career woman like you
guys who have no children is a choice or necessity.

39.
An example of constructing themes, themes
statements and possible variations.
Themes Themes statements Variations
1. Mixed feeling
of being
childless-
freedom vs.
missing part of
life.
•In some sense, on the one hand,
without children, I can have a career I
want to fulfill dreams, to be myself…
and to do many things.
•I won’t be like the married with
children women bustling in the kitchen
with apron on.
•On the other hand, it involved with
emotional struggle. It makes you feel
something missing in your life.
•By every measure, the childless
are among elite of American
women: wealthier, more
independent, and better
educated…(Burkett, 2000, p.182)
•My strong desire to impart life to
another human being and share in
the parenting process with my
husband (Love, 1984, p. 57)
I am not crying because I feel sorry
for myself for not having children. I
am weeping because I feel afresh
the pangs of grief (p. 59).
When I was a college
student, I never thought
about marriage or
children at the first place.
Anecdote:
Abby and Tom Bohley of
Colorado Springs who
have married and
committed to childless for
more than three decades
“ I consider myself
blessed” says Abby. “ I
have been able to do so
many things that have
enhanced my life, things
that wouldn’t have been
possible if we’d had kids.
. A lot of our
contemporaries who are
grandparents are always
taking about hoe old they
are, but frankly, we feel
pretty young.”

40.
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