Provocative and well researched, this book offers compassionate insight into the history and predicaments of women who have embraced the “never.uncommon and increasingly common” childless life.Ī liberatingly perceptive work of sociology and cultural history. Finally, the looming threat of climate change has caused many young people, especially those between 16 and 25, to reconsider bringing babies into a “carbon-choked world” where resources are dwindling.
Many young women have found themselves taking on multiple jobs or working their way into better employment opportunities from “the small, unstable dinghies that are early career jobs.” Even those with professional salaries must contend with high cost-of-living expenses for themselves and the reality that the day care for just one child typically equates to “the pretax income of someone working full-time at the federal minimum wage.” That American families in general have become increasingly isolated from each other over the last 200 years has created a situation in which those with children cannot rely on community networks to help sustain them through crises like the recent pandemic. Challenging economic conditions-brought about first by the Great Recession and then by the Covid-19 pandemic a decade later-have made it extremely difficult for many millennials to create secure home lives for young children. “Women are choosing to have no children, in other words, because they want other things-lattes, degrees, careers, vacations, definitely avocado toast-more than they want kids,” writes the author. The reasons for this trend go far beyond simplistic explanations that modern women are “too selfish, too greedy, too shortsighted,” and too focused on their careers.
Millennial women are now at the peak of their childbearing years, but as O’Donnell Heffington observes, their rate of childlessness is almost as high as that of fertile women who lived during the Great Depression. A history professor explores the many reasons why increasing numbers of women are choosing to be childless.
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