Name: Do You Have Kids?
ISBN: 9781631525810

Kate Kaufmann

Your mom can't describe what it's like not having kids. Do You Have Kids? Life When the Answer Is No offers insights into what life might have in store for the growing numbers of women who will never become mothers, and for those who love them.

Life When the Answer Is No

Do You Have Kids?

A savvy and validating guide to what might be in store for growing numbers of childfree and childless adults worldwide, Do You Have Kids? Life When the Answer is No takes on topics from the shifting meaning of family to what we leave behind when we die. Weaving together wisdom from women ages twenty-four to ninety-one with both her own story and a growing body of research, Kate brings to light alternate routes to lives of meaning, connection, and joy. Today about one in five American women will never have children, whether by choice or by destiny. Yet few women talk much about what not having kids means to their lives and identities. Not that they don’t want to; there just aren’t obvious catalysts for such open conversations. In fact, social taboos preclude exploration of the topic—and since our family-centric culture doesn’t know quite what to do with non-parents, there’s potential for childless and childfree women to be sidelined, ignored, or drowned out. Yet there’s widespread, pent-up demand for understanding and validating this perfectly normal way of being. In this straight-shooting, exhaustively researched book, women without kids talk candidly about the ways in which their lives differ from societal norms and expectations—the good, the bad, and the unexpected.

Amy Maddess

Curse you Goodreads for not having half stars - I am very torn and think this gets 3.5. 

When first becoming acquainted with this book, I was a little worried. As I electronically turned the pages on my NetGalley ARC, it seemed like the narrative was full of potential, with the progress impeded by old values. What I mean by this is that though Kaufmann was strong in her desire to start a conversation about childlessness, it seemed difficult for her to have this conversation while simultaneously breaking old patterns of talking about it that have been socially ingrained in to her opinions. An example of this is the way that the author seems to consistently balance the lack of desire to have a child with a close bond of some other kind – possibly to insist that said non-mum in question is in fact nurturing and capable of deep bond. Doesn’t this further perpetuate the nurturance myth and state that even when we do not choose to have children we can not help but be warm and nurturing? I am wondering if the perpetuated myth is not that we should borne children, but that we should be inherently nurturing. Another example of this is the general leaning toward the idea that we non-mums for the most part do not actively choose to be childless and that we don’t make the decision until biology makes it for us. I would argue that actively not making a decision is more similar to making one than people would assume. It doesn’t seem natural to declare publicly on your 28th birthday that you have no desire and will never have a desire to reproduce. That’s just not going to happen – but it does not mean that we have not decided for ourselves in a less concrete way. These examples, as well as some other small ones, initially gave me the general vibe that this book was full of progressive ideas steeped in old values. I do say all of this in past tense because as reading time passed, I became less rigid in my perception and more comfortable with the writing style. Some of my presumptions began to dissolve. 

The language in the book played a role in winning me over. Kaufmann speaks her words with such grace, such peace, that I often put the book down feeling like I had just had a deep discussion with one of my girlfriends. As our lives continue to grow and differ, I haven’t been able to talk to my friends on the same level as maybe I was able to in our teen years and early adulthood. Being reminded of this deep feeling of peace and connection reminds me that I need to continue strengthening connections with those around me. Kaufman is so delicate in her choice of words, you can tell she puts active thought into how to not hurt others. The first notable example of this that I wrote down is from page 12, “First, a word or two about words. The words we use when referring to each other matter. So it grieves me to say there’s no good word in the English language for a women who hasn’t had children.” This sets the trajectory of not-being-sure-but-trying-to-be-correct language debacle that most compassionate individuals encounter when addressing a human who lives much differently than they do. I appreciate Kaufmann’s relentless pursuit to sift through this language to find phrases and ways of relating that are humanizing and express the desire to understand. Near the end of the book, we are introduced to the common adjectives that are used to describe intentionally childless women, and these include: “materialistic, immature, emotionally unstable, selfish, less likely to be happy and satisfied.” By the time we reach this part of the book, however, we are armed with how to combat these automatic assumptions, and we non-mums already feel less offended and more willing to work through these perceptions. On the topic of language, perception and discussion, I will conclude by stating that Kauffman also includes an afterword with step-by-step tips about how to interact with others when discussing childlessness, and has unique subsections for different types of interactions and settings. It’s a very hands on way to change the way that we talk about childlessness and I think even just that part is worth the read for anyone seeking advice or clarity on how to navigate such discussions.

The general writing pattern of the book is anecdotal stories and discussions with childless (by nature or by choice) women interspersed with general facts about not being a mother. The testimonials are short and this has both advantages and disadvantages. By being brief, there is less room for boredom, but there is also less room for a sense of connection, and connection is what I want when I am talking to other women about this subject. I realize that this thought is in direct opposition to my earlier statement of feeling like I just spoke with my girlfriends, but I wanted this feeling more thoroughly when reading if that makes sense. The facts in the book, on the flipside, aren’t overly revelatory or hard to find on Google. I think the way that these were inserted pulled me out of the lives of these women a little. While the writing style is this dichotomy, each chapter is discussing a separate sub-issue of childlessness. Examples of these sub-topics include how childlessness affects your career, where you choose to live, your relationships with your friends, etc. Each of these chapters was unique from the others and well laid out so that you knew specifically what sub-topic we were entrenched in. 

One that stood out to me was the discussion of academic and passionate pursuits delaying breeding, P.23 “I am a mother. I’m a mother to my work. I give life to my work and to my relationships”, P. 35 “ I do have some sadness about not having children, but I don’t feel regret. Maybe that will come later on. But if I never wrote a book, now that would be really bad.” I am still pondering whether the author is implying that we mostly need to replace our nurturing with other pursuits. She does place an emphasis on careers, independence and friendships as filler for not having a child and this leaves me to wonder what things are supposed to look like for someone who does not have those things either – are they still allowed to be happy Singletons? Or is that right only dubbed to those who have effectively replaced nurturance with something equally as fruitful?

A subtopic that pulled directly on my heartstrings was the general discussion of the way that this affects our partners and the way that our intimate relationship is. The only times that I had truly pondered having children were times in which I felt so in love with a partner that I felt that it would be worth it to give that to them and sacrifice a life of joy to give one to them (stupid, yes, and I’m glad I didn’t have a baby with any of those guys, but still). Having children together is a way of furthering deep love and I do hope that my loves continue to have that depth even though we do not have children together. On page 36, we are directly connected with an individual after she lost her spouse. “The saddest thing was that there was nothing left of my love”. This statement was interesting and hard-hitting for me because the times that I have considered having a child were purely partner based. I have not yet fully pondered the fact that I am actively not deciding until that in itself becomes a decision. This idea gave me some power to confront some of my old ideas about what I want in my life. The discussion of partners also includes the story of a woman who is casually dating her husband of many years and is very happy with this arrangement. This made me ponder that there are many different types of love and being together and that not following the formula doesn’t mean you won’t get the right answer for you. I see a casual relationship with a lot of love as more fitting into my life than a 24/7 partnership and now I am aware and find comfort in the fact that there are other women who feel this way, too. 


 I can’t mention my favourite chapters without touching on one that was unexpected and shocking. There is a subsection in the very middle of the book specifically dedicated to educating readers on the statistically higher chance of being diagnosed with cancer in a life with no children. This strange little chapter of pure fear is centered directly in the middle of all the other chapters and touches very clinically on this ‘cruel irony.’ It’s unsettling that a disproportionate amount of childless women have ovarian and breast cancer and that there is very little research into why this occurs. Kaufmann states, if somewhat dramatically, .P. 151 ”I’m haunted by the fact that those of us who haven’t borne children get proportionately more breast, ovarian, and uterine cancer than mums do. “I can’t shake a disturbing image of a panel of judges, each rendering his verdict that we non-mums are guilty of some crime we never committed, and cancer is a fitting consequence for failing to reproduce ourselves.” I’m not sure what else to say about that one, besides ‘Jesus Christ’. 

There are some hard hitting statistics in here, and even though the author does sometimes repeat statistics, it doesn’t lessen their impact for me. I learned that a third of the women interviewed had witnessed the birth of a child, and that a significant number of new Moms experience a 1.4 unit drop on a happiness scale in the two years after having a child – this happiness drop is higher than those attributed to divorce and the death of a partner. This significant loss of well – being in the first two years makes me think ‘yep, this is the right decision for me. I would be that person who is miserable for the first two years and then depressed for the next five over missing the first two. Can’t do.’. As the language, the structure, and the general reading experience of this book for me fades, I know that these statistics, these lessens, and these ways that I have further understood myself and the women around me are impossible to forget. 
Check it out if you wanna, or don’t! This book was published on April, 2, 2019, and I read it on NetGalley

Do You Have Kids? Life When the Answer Is No

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