Hidden/unspoken societal beliefs

[EducatingArti]

Inspired by the "what is the worst thing anyone has said to you" thread and the "bunfight" on Site stuff that got deleted, where I was very patiently trying to explain how having children was a societal norm/expectation and how childfree/less people had to live in this culture when it wasn't the norm for them.

What do you think are the hidden/unspoken societal beliefs about being a parent/being childfree/less that we have to live with?

So I think these:

Being childfree/childless is not "normal".
If you are childfree/childless you must be living a second best life.
Everywhere you go, most things are presented in "family with child" shaped spaces and this can feel alien/ uncomfortable.

What do you think?

Elizabeth I reign marked crucial turning point in the fortunes of the country, and she was child free. There would surely have been pressure on her as monarch

She’s an interesting case, actually. From what I understand, she pretty much had to remain unmarried a) to keep her power and b) to avoid awkward political positions

She probably didn’t have children, but Tudor monarchs having children outside their marriage wasn’t exactly unheard of, so who really knows?

I was only thinking the other day that childless/childfree couples were seen more on TV in the 70s/80s

as well as the good life, ever decreasing circles had 2 lots of middle aged couples without children as the main characters - Ann & Martin and Howard & Hilda. I don’t think the fact they didn’t have children was ever commented on!

@Estermay you're absolutely right about money. People forget that many women choose not to have children because they are unlikely to be able to ever afford them.

This is true actually. George & Mildred Roper, Basil & Sybil Fawlty. Never even referenced in Fawlty Towers.

Single women seemed to be less of an outlier a few years ago as well. I remember half my primary school teachers weren’t married (and wouldn’t have been of the generation to live with a partner)

@UnderwaterSpaceCadet yea, you're right. I don't recall any claims to throne or rumours tho, not that it means anything either way. They might have wanted an easier life

Actually, there are loads of tv characters. Most of the female characters on The Morning Show (I can’t think of any except Jennifer Aniston’s character who DO have kids). Loads of women in detective things. Kate and Taylor on Billions. Robin on Strike. Sansa, Brienne, Arya on GoT. None of them are perfect, but I think describing them just as “cold hearted career bitches” is playing to the stereotype and ignoring the actual characters. And crucially, none of them have a story arc revolving around their childfree status, they’re just getting on with it.

I think it would have been impossible for Elizabeth to have had a child/children and keep it secret. She lived her life in public, was surrounded by courtiers and servants (many of them with their own political interests - she once received a list of courtiers and ministers who'd written to Mary Queen of Scots supporting her claim to the throne and destroyed it without reading it). Foreign ambassadors bribed servants and ladies in waiting to find out how often she menstruated and the state of her sheets to report back to their masters was she sleeping with Leicester or not? (or any of her other admirers).

Saying that the queen had given birth to an illegitimate child was a political slur against a woman in power - see, she's both sexually incontinent and foists her bastards on us to disrupt the rightful line of succession!

I’m wondering if an age thing comes into play? If they’re still young enough to have children and the fact they don’t have any isn’t referenced, I tend to assume the characters will have a story arc about children at some point. I’m crossing everything that JKR doesn’t go there with Robin for example

penny in TBBT has always been portrayed as not wanting children & then in the very last episode they casually threw in she was pregnant. I was so pissed off!

I agree that there re some decent representations of younger women without children in fiction but after the menopause?

Almost none that I’ve found! Certainly not in modern fiction

Yes and former Australian pm Julia Gillard had some really hateful comments from Australian MPs about her “barrenness”.

Anyone seen the film 45 Years? Starring Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay as a wealthy childless couple about to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary with a big party. Not a particularly positive portrayal of a childless couple.

That we don't know what love, or tiredness, or responsibility are. Plenty of people don't love or take anything more than basic responsibility for their children. Plenty of child free people deal with severe lasting fatigue as a result of illness or disability.

This was because of deaths in the second world war. There was a generation where there were far more women than men of a certain age.

In the very last episode, when they were preparing to move to Oswestry, Ann told Martin she was pregnant.

I don’t remember any mentions of them trying to have kids or comments on their lack of them before that, though.

Somewhat related, I was reading a book on embroidery/craft history and femininity, and it talks about women in the middle ages who get involved with the church specifically to avoid marriage and children. There's written evidence of this, women advising women to that. The desire to not have children and/or marriage and actively seek to avoid it starts to look like a timeless tale, given it goes back at least that far

I have never wanted to have children, so did not have any, never regretted it. My mother had three children and it was not the ‘joy’ she envisaged. Husband, a widower, has two, he never sees one and did not enjoy being a parent.

He has a dog, I have a horse, as do my numerous childfree friends. All quite happy

@TodayInahurry I think it's a lottery like anything else, I think with less rose tinted glasses and presentation of not having children in a better light would probably persuade more people to think carefully about their choices or even just realise it's a choice. I expect quite a few parents don't stop to think, and do it almost automatically and convince themselves it was a free choice

@spookehtooth I wonder whether the motivation in medieval times was sometimes different then. Women were seen as the property of men and were married off young. I think there were some cases of older widows being able to run businesses/live independent lives with inheritances from husbands but not for single never married women. Their only choice if they wanted to be out of the control of men was to go into a convent where, some could rise to senior positions in their own right. Then of course remaining unmarried meant being childless unless you were prepared to be condemned by most of society.

@EducatingArti undoubtedly, independence was a motivation cited in the book. It just occurred to me that not having children might also have been part of it for some. I think there was a reference to no children in the evidence, but I didn't have it to hand. I'm guessing evidence is unlikely to mention the subjects separately, given children & marriage are more tightly coupled then compared to the present

1. your life must be sad and lacking without children
2. you are frivolous and selfish if you don't have children

Although a lot of women on MN can be quite vocal about not understanding how any women can want to be childfree, I found the biggest hidden expectation of Motherhood came from men. I ended a few relationships in the past with guys who thought all women really wanted DC, they thought you'd change your mind or you weren't serious about not having DC and one day you'd realise that they'd make good Dads so you'd change your mind.

Being a nun was by far the safest option for women back then. Up until about 1536, anyway.
See the novel “Matrix” for a great portrayal of this.