https://www.huffpost.com/entry/child-free-doctor-workplace-women_n_66bf4618e4b0d9d5eb7db341

I am surprised that intolerance toward childless women is a problem. I should not have been surprised. Our society places great burdens and expectations on women while offering few if any benefits for these demanded sacrifices.

Let me quote the article listed at the top to give you a feel for the problem:

“When a woman can’t have kids she is often portrayed as sad and damaged, but if she simply won’t, she is either deluded, destined to regret it, or written off as a cold hearted, narcissistic, and career obsessed,” Ruby Warrington writes in her book, “Women without Kids.” Though I have an advanced educational degree, a house and a life partner, I have often felt the need to minimize or defend my life choices to mere acquaintances. Even more frustrating, when I am frank about the fact that I don’t want to have kids, I have been made to feel selfish or warned I will regret my choices. I have been given multiple warnings that my career will never be as fulfilling as motherhood — that my life, in general, could never be “full” without children.

I firmly believe that having children is up to the woman. I was present during the delivery of a child and if a woman is willing to do that, she has my admiration and if she doesn’t want to do that, she has my support. And the world has changed. Woman have careers and other choices. In the 19th Century, a strange place that many conservatives admire because they clearly don’t understand history, almost all women were married, spinsters or prostitutes. We don’t live there anymore

There is a truly incredible amount of hand wringing over declining birth rates and emancipated women failing in their responsibilities. This all just nonsense. All these nonsensical people demanding that women should make babies never seem to actually be interested in helping women in their lives. It is contemptible. If this society wants a higher birth rate, it is simple and easy to achieve. We just don’t want to do it.

First, make childbirth cheap and convenient. My understanding is that the average birth runs around $30,000 dollars in total costs. If you don’t see that as a deterrent to having children, you don’t understand the lives of young men and women. Second, subsidized day care. The statistics I’ve seen indicate that each child a woman has results in an 18% drop in lifetime income. One of the main reasons for that is the expense and trouble of getting daycare. We as a nation can do something about that. Third, stop stigmatizing single women having children. Economic pressures have made marriage difficult and many men just drift from one job to another as well as from one relationship to another. Expecting women to act like it is the 1960’s is just ridiculous. I can name some more stuff but that is sufficient for now.

And it is sufficient because we as a nation, as a people, are not going to do any of those things. There will be countless politicians who blather about the traditional family while claiming that subsidized day care and kindness toward single women hurts the cause. Our corrupt and greedy medical system has Congress completely under its thumb. Any attempt at repairing our bizarre and cruel system results in long winded speeches about the “greatest healthcare system in the world,” complete and total nonsense unless you happen to be extremely rich.

If we are going to recognize women as equals with their own decision making power, the we must admit they can choose not to have children. In addition, we can decide to mind our own business and let them live their lives uncriticized. Let’s try that!

James Alan Pilant