Childfree Quotes

“It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place.”
― David Benatar , Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence

“Leaving behind books is even more beautiful — there are far too many children.”
― Marguerite Yourcenar

“Some of us were brought into this troubled world primarily or only to increase our fathers’ chances of not being left by our mothers, or vice versa.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, The Use and Misuse of Children

“The most upsetting thing about Society’s attitude towards disabled people is that many millions of disabled people became disabled while trying to please Society, the very same bitch that secretly regards them as subhuman.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, The Use and Misuse of Children

“The most out-there thing I’m saying is, ‘Don’t have babies. Don’t get married and have kids. Have a larger life than that.”
― Roseanne Barr

“I knew from a young age that motherhood was a cage I never wanted to inhabit.”
― Chelsea G. Summers, A Certain Hunger

“You’re not really mad that I’m not having children.

In fact, I would probably love to one day.

You’re mad that I’m expressing autonomy of choice.

You’re mad that I’m considering other options.

You’re mad that I don’t view that as my ultimate potential.

You’re mad that I dare be selfish enough to make choices based on my best interest, something women are not supposed to do.

You’re mad that I consider it a choice, and that I, a woman, am exercising choice.

You’re not mad that I’m not having babies.

You’re mad because I’m acting like a man.”
― Alice Minium

“Is having a child actually fundamentally bettering the world as a whole in any way? There is no shortage of children. Wouldn’t it be better to let people who want children have them, and leave everyone else alone?”
― Alice Minium

“Overpopulation is by far the worst kind of pollution.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Refusing to have a child is the highest degree of rebellion, after suicide; one of the best uses of the mind; and the best gift to the planet.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“A child is one of the most common results of the lack or loss of self-control.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Many millions of people secretly feel caged by employment, marriage, and/or parenthood.”
― @Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Some people really shouldn’t become parents. There’s no absolute guarantee when it comes to the love between a parent and their child.”
― Hiro Arikawa, The Travelling Cat Chronicles

“Most people celebrate the continuity of their existence so passionately that you would swear they chose to exist.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“What possessed us? We were so happy! Why, then, did we take the stake of all we had and place it all on this outrageous gamble of having a child? Of course you consider the very putting of that question profane. Although the infertile are entitled to sour grapes, it's against the rules, isn't it, to actually have a baby and spend any time at all on that banished parallel life in which you didn't.”
― Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin

“A number of children kept coming over to the tennis courts, rattling on the gate, and trying to get in. The watching middle-class mums did nothing to restrain them. Eventually my friend yelled, “Go AWAY!” Whereupon the watching mums did do something. A mob of them descended on us as though my friend had exposed himself. Suddenly we were in the midst of a maternal zombie film. It was the nearest I’ve ever come to getting lynched—they were after my friend rather than me and though, strictly speaking, I was his opponent, I was a tacit accomplice—and a clear demonstration that the rights of parents and their children to do whatever they please have priority over everyone else’s. “A child is the very devil,” wrote Virginia Woolf in a letter, “calling out, as I believe, all the worst and least explicable passions of the parents.”
― Geoff Dyer, Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids

“Only in my mid-twenties and already married did I realize I had always thought of childlessness as a destination. I knew I wanted to go there, but I had never asked myself what would happen once I arrived. Now that the future of someone I loved would also be shaped by my intent not to have a child, it suddenly felt urgent to understand what it would be like not just to pass through but to live in that childfree place for the rest of my life.”
― Nicole Louie

“Extinction, while sad and scary, doesn't bother me as much as does the suffering of the individuals prior to being wiped out.”
― Henriette Mantel, No Kidding: Women Writers on Bypassing Parenthood

“What Halim had so fervently wanted, the two brothers accomplished: neither of them had children. Some of our desires are only fulfilled by others. Our nightmares belong to us.”
― Fábio Moon, Two Brothers

“I resent having to refer to my career as my baby in order to explain myself to parents. It suggests that as long as a woman has something she feels maternal toward, then she passes as a regular human being.
"She want to swaddle her career! So we'll make an exception and give her a pass."
Women don't have to have maternal urges to be women. My career is not my surrogate baby, just like my car is not my surrogate sex slave just because I turn it on and ride it.
Men don't call their careers their sons or daughters. A fireman without kids doesn't have to pretend his job is his baby replacement. "Oh yeah, when I walk up those forty flights of stairs fighting back the burning and falling asbestos, I just cradle the hose in my arms and think, 'this is my baby'.”
― Jen Kirkman, I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids

“Many of those who society has pushed into pretending to like children do not even like people.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Choisir sereinement de laisser la vie décider.”
― Isabelle TILMANT, Une Vie sans Enfant. Un Bonheur est Possible

“Some children are each loved by their stepparent, but not by their biological parent … or parents.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“The fact is, I don't want children. Ever. And when I'm thirty, I'm gettin' fixed." Zach frowned and leaned back. Could he have heard her correctly? She didn't want children? Ever? She didn't pine to be a mother? To know the joy of childbirth? Blah, blah, blah? He grabbed her tight by the shoulders and stared straight at her. "My God, woman, I've been waiting for you all my life!" Startled by his shout, Sara reared back and fell off the couch. “Shit, are you okay?" Zach looked down at her as she raised herself on her elbows. "What the fuck was that?" "That,” he quickly slipped the condom on and was off the couch and between her legs, “was utter fucking joy. That's what that was.”
― Shelly Laurenston, Pack Challenge

“Not everything is for everybody”
― Dane A. Reid, Forget Having Kids. I'm Having Fun: 1000 Random Reasons I Chose to Be #ChildFree

“Mi chiamo Aurora, ho trentanove anni e non voglio avere figli. Non ho alibi o traumi alle spalle per giustificare la mia decisione, è così e basta.
Quando lo dico mi guardano come se fossi quella strana, anticonformista per copione, egoista per convenienza. Nel migliore dei casi, sono una che reprime il suo istinto materno perchè ha avuto un rapporto conflittuale con la sua, di madre. La verità è che ho avuto due genitori amorevoli e presenti, che mi sono stati accanto nei momenti di gioia e in quelli bui.
(...) come se fossi una povera scema immatura, che aspira una vita a metà. Non madre, dunque incompleta. Non puoi completarti come preferisci, o, magari, desiderare di rimanere come sei. No, l'incompletezza è un diritto maschile. A volte ho l'impressione che la mia scelta susciti una forma di gelosia, come se qualcuno fosse riuscito ad avvisarmi in tempo del pericolo. Childfree, ci chiamano, free come se fossimo del tutto libere, e invece siamo costantemente prigionieredei pregiudizi, delle aspettative sociali, delle speranze mal riposte.”
― Matteo Bussola, Il rosmarino non capisce l'inverno

“It's almost as if - in being childfree yourself - you become everybody else's child: someone who needs taking care of, who needs guiding in the right direction, who doesn't quite understand, but bless her she's trying”
― Elizabeth Day, How to Fail

“One’s life choices are nobody else’s problem, they only become a problem when one tries to force them on others.”
― Shon Mehta

“I had really given it thought, but still, whenever I tried
to envision what it would be like to bring another human
being into this world and become half of the duo meant to
raise, protect, and love it unconditionally until death did
us part, I felt no inkling of interest or excitement to move
in that direction. Not once.
How was that possible? Motherhood as the epicentre of
women’s lives was all I’d ever witnessed, so how was it that
the centre was not there when it came to my own life?
Was I hollow, or was my centre elsewhere?”
― Nicole Louie

“Looking back on my early life helped me understand that not becoming a mother had presented itself as the magic shield that would protect me from the bad experiences my mother and grandmother had gone through. So I held tight to it.”
― Nicole Louie