One of the greatest challenges childfree women and couples face is the feeling of isolation. While it’s true that the internet has helped us connect to other like-minded individuals, that support network could use some bolstering. If you’re looking for information or validation regarding the childfree lifestyle, you’re in luck. I’ve compiled a short list of the top five best books on the topic of being childfree.
Below are five books that will:
- show you how older, childfree people feel
- validate your feelings and beliefs about children/childfree life
- assure you that you’re not selfish
- expose common parental regrets
- did deep into the ideology and idolization of motherhood
Ready? The let’s dive in.
5. Kid Me Not: An anthology of childfree women of the 60s now in their 60s.
The self-righteous warning of, “You’ll regret it when you’re older” falls flat next to this collection of childfree women who are still happily childfree. If you’re not sure about having children, this respectful anthology, edited by Aralyn Hughes, will give you a peak at the seldom looked-at lives of older women without children.
Find out what these women have to say when you read Kid Me Not.
4. The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women
The “Mommy Myth” is just as false, oversold, and harmful as the “Angel in the House” was to Victorian women. Yet modern Westerners are still eagerly seduced by it. Douglas and Michaels deconstruct this set of beliefs and present it plainly for what it is: a harmful, unrealistic ideal that harms mothers as much as the childfree.
See for yourself why this myth harms moms and childfree women alike by reading The Mommy Myth.
3. Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids.
As the tongue-in-cheek title suggests, this collection of essays from various writers is a deeply personal, very self-aware exploration of the decision to remain childfree. If you’re looking for an intimate one-on-one meeting with a childfree mentor, this book is for you.
Listen to the audiobook for Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids today!
(Above is an excerpt from the book read by Blair of the Respectfully Childfree YouTube channel.)
2. Confessions of a Childfree Woman
60 Minutes dealt a severe blow to the childfree by choice movement, as well as Marcia Drut-Davis’ personal life after her edited interview aired. Despite being reviled for the audacious decision to not have children (she even received death threats after the broadcast), Drut-Davis refused to be bullied. This is the story of her life and how it has been shaped both by her decision and by her appearance in that fateful interview.
Read about Marcia’s battle against this age-old stigma in Confessions of a Childfree Woman: A Life Spent Swimming Against the Mainstream.
If you’d like to learn more first, check out my my review here.
1. The Baby Matrix
Laura Carroll’s The Baby Matrix presents the idea that women are designed to be mothers as nothing more than human-constructed ideology. Just as Neo learns to see the matrix for what it really is, so the reader learns to see how the ideological wool has been pulled over our eyes for so long.
Order your copy of The Baby Matrix: Why Freeing Our Minds From Outmoded Thinking About Parenthood & Reproduction Will Create a Better World
You can also read my full review of The Baby Matrix here.
Have you read any of these books already? Are there any other books on the childfree lifestyle you wish I’d included on this list? Let me know in the comments below!
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