(Source: The Hindu 26 Aug 2015) http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/gouri-dange-on-being-childless-by-choice/article7565746.ece
Young, urban Indians are increasingly choosing not to have children. The writer talks about why this does not raise eyebrows anymore.
In the early 90s, a whole bunch of labels cropped up — from yuppies (for
young, upwardly mobile professionals) and dinks (double income, no
kids) to dinkers (dinks with early retirement) and dewks (dually
employed with kids). But the people without children attracted a lot of
judgment — they were accused of being Peter Pans, selfish, anti-family,
career-obsessed, and so on.Those who had children did the judging, the
ones without children did the justifying. On the other side, books like Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids provocatively
talk about “taking the parent-centric, kid-fixated,
baby-bump-patrolling culture to task”. Ironically, both thought of the
other as selfish, shallow and self-absorbed.
The whole issue, particularly in the last decade or so, has emerged as a
much more nuanced and layered social phenomenon rather than just
another us-versus-them debate. Having children is increasingly being
seen and accepted as a personal choice and choosing to not have children
is not necessarily seen as odd or deviant behaviour.
Does this indicate that perhaps becoming a father or mother is not
necessarily hardwired into our DNA and our psyche, as we believe? Or is
it that changing social and family structures have impacted that
hardwiring? Perhaps the dissolution of the joint family, the village,
and the stable neighbourhood has forced some urban women to see how the
complete and total responsibility for child-bearing and rearing now
devolves only on them, in ways that they simply feel unequal to taking
on. “I could not see myself doing it single-handedly, nor can I relate
to a life where having a child means having either an entourage of maids
or have your life taken over by a helpful mother or mother-in-law,”
says Mrunal, a 37-year-old lawyer.
But the reasons for choosing not to have children, it emerges, are many.
Rarely is the ‘I hate children’ blanket statement, ascribed to the
childless-by-choice, a factor. In fact, many say that they love and
respect children too much to simply bash on and have one without
thinking. Anil, an academic in his 40s, says, “Quite early on, when I
was 15 or so, I began to register that lots of adults around me seemed
terribly unhappy with their spouses and their children. I heard so many
complaints about loss of personal freedom and choices… I couldn’t
understand why people put themselves through such hell if they felt this
way.” Anil did marry, but he and his partner chose not to have
children.
As did Pervin, a writer-editor in her early 30s. “I started really
thinking about parenthood in my early 20s. The first step was the
realisation that it was a choice, an option, not a default role or
milestone. After that, the decision to stay childless seemed very
natural and clear to me.”
***
Could this clarity of not wanting a child become a deal breaker if the
spouse or partner wants to have children? For some people, it is
something that they felt they must tell a partner upfront, as soon as
the dating got serious; and it did, in fact, become a deal breaker for
some. In the case of Azhar and Garima, 15 years into their marriage,
Azhar began to get a nagging feeling that not having a baby was not
quite the right decision and that he had been pushed into it by his
partner’s vehemence on the subject. They decided to part ways, and Azhar
went on to re-marry and have a child, late in life, to the criticism of
some of his close family and friends. He, however, seriously asks: “If a
woman wants to have children and her husband refuses, the whole world
feels bad for her and talks about never denying a woman motherhood, etc.
Is this not applicable to a man as well, who may feel a great urge for
fatherhood at some time?”
For Pervin and her husband, the issue was discussed on and off in their
dating years. “Having grown up with the standard assumption about the
education-marriage-children progression, my husband hadn’t considered
that parenthood was something that one might consciously stay away from.
The more we talked about it though, the more he leaned towards a future
without children.” Pervin clarifies, “My decision to not have children
has nothing to do with my equation with children —it is about my
equation with myself. In fact, instead of saying ‘I’ve decided not to
have children’, it would be more appropriate to say ‘I’ve decided not to
become a parent’.” Pervin works closely with children as a textbook
writer and conducts workshops with them.
For software engineer Pallavi, the issue was not discussed with any
seriousness when she was dating or in the early years of her marriage.
She says, however, “When we watch the exhausting and demanding aspects
of parenting our friends are going through, we say we just can’t put
ourselves through that. And that’s how it continues till date (over
eight years of marriage and over 10 since we got into a relationship).
Whether I had a career or not, I would think the same way. I understand
that people who are parents do still feel it is all worth it, and kudos
to them. It’s just that I can’t do it.”
***
Young women who choose not to have children are often asked sharply, “So
you think you want to just have fun forever. When will you grow up,
then?” But this takes away from the fact that surely, having children is
a different kind of fun too. Becoming a parent cannot be seen as a
‘grim reality’ to which we must all turn. But more than that, as Garima
adds, “When you don’t have children, does that mean you are not a person
who is dependable, and who commits to things? In fact, I do not have
the luxury of the ‘children have exams’ or ‘need to take my child for
coaching’ and similar excuses that I see parents putting up when they
are required for other things. I have been there for ageing parents, an
alcoholic brother’s family, and been present and willingly helpful in
many friends’ crises. Does this sound like I have signed up for a life
of fun and frolic by not having children?”
Madhavi, 61, is an architect and town-planner. She describes herself as
being in the vanguard of the childless-by-choice movement. “In those
days, it drew such sharp reactions. I remember being very defensive. If
someone asked me about children, I would snap at them ‘We chose not to
breed, and we are very happy, thank you, you can go ahead and have as
many as you want.’ After some years, it didn't matter to me to make my
position clear. Whether people thought you needed sympathy as you had
not conceived, or people assumed you were just too career-minded and had
‘deprived’ your spouse of progeny, I learnt not to enter into
protracted debate or clarifications.”
The surprising eye-opener for many such women is how their own mothers
and other older women in the family respond in private about their
decision to not have kids: “If I had had such an option, I don’t think I
would have had any children either.” This is said, not with bitterness,
but as a considered sentiment quietly confided.
One pro-parenting argument used to be that children would offer support
in old age. As families become more nuclear and scatter far and wide,
there is a growing realisation that this cannot be a deciding factor.
There are enough examples all around of benign neglect by grown children
of ageing parents, of active harassment, or of the sheer inability to
be there for ageing parents in any active and physically present way
that argues against thinking of children as a post-retirement plan. At
any rate, ageing urban Indians who have children are also now planning
how to live (physically, financially, emotionally) in their later years
with systems that are built without their children being compulsorily
involved.
At the end, though, do people who choose to remain childless have doubts
or regrets sometimes? How do they deal with it? Anil perhaps explains
this best when he says: “Sure, I have had regrets. But if I had
children, you can be sure I would regret why I didn’t try a life without
children. I regret the fact I can’t taste every kind of life there is
to taste. But there is just this one life, and one must follow one’s
instincts.”
The writer is a family counsellor and author of the upcoming book Always a Parent.
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