Many years ago, a friend of mine was struggling with infertility. In response to her depression, despair, and disappointment, her mother-in-law took her aside and offered her some surprising advice. “Motherhood isn’t everything,” the older woman told her. “You sacrifice yourself for decades, and if it’s done right, your children will take your efforts for granted for their sake. All the hard work and selflessness Whether it is ultimately worth it is an open question.”
We begin the parenting experience expecting it to be happy and fulfilling, and to bring a lifetime of joy and connection to our offspring. However, as a therapist, I know that these expectations are often not met. Parenting is hard and sometimes heartbreaking. Children can get sick, suffer from disabilities, worry and get lost. When they grow up, we may not like our adult children. They make bad choices and have very different values. They marry the wrong people, develop addictions, or join cults. They may reject us or become estranged from us. There is no guarantee that we will have the enjoyable experience of becoming grandparents, and there is no guarantee that our adult children will be there for us when we grow old and become ill.
With all this in mind, voluntary childlessness can become an attractive option, especially at a time when childcare feels more unaffordable than ever and the stigma against childlessness is fading. It’s not surprising that it’s on the rise. The number of Americans under 50 who say they are unlikely to have children has increased 10% since 2018, according to a recent Pew Research Center report. Currently, 47% do not think they will become parents. Many women choose not to have children in order to invest in other aspects of their lives, such as careers, travel, and relationships, and are increasingly childless. There are books and websites about Childfree, and social media influencer accounts like Childfree Millennial have tens of thousands of followers.
Source: Pandu Aliantro / Unsplash
While it is a positive development that society is becoming more accepting of childless people, glorifying childlessness and presenting forgoing child rearing as a life-optimizing option does not encourage young people. It will bring disadvantage. The increased freedom for women to chart their own paths is cause for celebration. Having children is not good for everyone. There is no doubt that it is better for individuals and society to have children for the right reasons, rather than simply because they are expected to. However, it is an oversimplification to suggest that choosing not to have children is a simple lifestyle choice, like renting or buying. After all, we are animals. The urge to have children is part of our deep, primal nature. Choosing to avoid this experience has serious repercussions that may be difficult to understand. It is arrogant to think that we can consciously evaluate every aspect of such decisions.
The reason we are here is to procreate. That’s what people, and all other life on Earth, have done in one form or another since life began. We all have an unconscious and instinctive urge to be generative. Finding ways to do so is part of growing into psychological wholeness, which Jung called “individuation.” “Individuation,” Jung wrote. It is the unfolding of the embryo into the primitive pattern that the person was born with. ”1 For many of us, having children becomes an important part of fulfilling our innate patterns.
Of course, having children is not the only way to be generative. People can create new ideas, businesses, institutions, and traditions. We can foster community, organization, commitment, and values. But raising children fulfills an ancient urge and fulfills our biological destiny. Jung pointed out that we disconnect ourselves from our instincts at our peril.
As my friend’s mother-in-law pointed out, having children does not guarantee happiness. Still, it is one way we arrange our lives to serve something greater than our personal ego desires. In his autobiography, written towards the end of his life, Jung expressed the importance of having a broader direction. “The decisive question for a man is whether he is related to something infinite or not. That is the decisive question of his life. What really matters is the infinite. Only if we know that we can avoid focusing on useless things and all kinds of goals that are not really important.”2 How to live a life with meaning and purpose. , it is necessary to serve. To something bigger than ourselves. There are infinite ways to do this without having children, but becoming a parent definitely throws our little egos crazy and usurps the throne.
Poet Khalil Gibran said that children are “sons and daughters of a yearning for life itself.” Being able to serve in a process like this is a profound experience. The full impact of missing such an opportunity is difficult to assess and should not be hidden behind reassuring and upbeat rhetoric. As long as humans have existed, people have continued to have children. And giving birth to a child has always felt to have deep meaning for many people. It is about dedicating ourselves to serving the development of those who come after us. If parenting has worked so well for so many before us, it’s probably not wise to abandon that option based on uplifting images from social media.
