Childless. How does that word feel to you? Comfortable or not quite right, like the dress I ordered online and might have to return because it doesn’t allow enough room for my bust?

Do you call yourself childless? I use it in the name of this blog, but there are a lot of people who bristle at the term.

Child-less. It implies we’re missing something. Our life is less than it might otherwise be. But can’t our lives be full of wonderful things without children?

People who have chosen not to have children often call themselves childfree. They emphasize the freedom of a life without children to care for, as if kids were a heavy load they don’t have to carry.

I could claim the childfree term, too. I mean, even if I expected to have children and grieve that I didn’t, I don’t have the obligations of parenting. I am therefore free. Right?

I don’t know. The whole concept makes me squirm.

Here’s another question: if you are still young enough and fertile enough that having a child is possible, albeit unlikely, when do you declare that you are childless or childfree? If you have had a hysterectomy or had your tubes tied, you have a definite answer. No kids. But what if it’s still a possibility? How do you classify yourself when you’re not certain if this is forever?

What if your partner is happily childfree but you feel childless?

Neither of these terms is comfortable for everyone. Other terms have been suggested: not-mom, nonparent, or nomo (not mother). But they’re all “not” something.

In medical terms, a woman who has not given birth is nulliparous. I don’t know what doctors call a man who has not fathered a child. Just a man, I suppose. This article in Psychology Today calls them “non-dads.”

For men, sometimes there’s the snide addition “as far as we know,” implying one or more of their sperm might have hit home during their various sexual liaisons.

Wikipedia defines childlessness as the state of not having children. They break down the reasons for childlessness: infertility, ob-gyn problems, mental health difficulties, chronic illness/disability, lack of a partner or same-sex partner, social or legal barriers, economic or social pressure to pursue career before children, lack of resources, insufficient money, lack of access to medical care, jobs commitments, unwillingness of one’s partner to conceive or raise children, and death of one’s conceived children before birth or after.

Childfree, says Wikipedia, refers to people who choose not to have children.

Rachel Chrastil, author of the book How to Be Childless: A History and Philosophy of Life Without Children, wrote in another Psychology Today article, “I define someone as childless if they never had a biological child and have never been deeply involved in raising a child, whether through legal adoption or otherwise.”

She says she calls herself childless “with the caveat that I don’t view the absence of children as a deficit to be overcome.”

In an article at She Defined.com, Donna Carlton defines childfree as making a conscious decision not to have children and childless as a situation where the person wanted to have children but was not able to and thus “the decision is out of their hands.”

That sounds pretty black and white, but it’s not. Judy Graham, counselor and founder of WomenHood, a support service for childless Australian women, says that sometimes women move from defining themselves as childless to childfree as they get older and realize they prefer life without children.

I call myself childless in my writing, but when people in real life broach the subject, I don’t say, “I’m childless.” I say, “I never had any children.” Or “I don’t have any kids.” Then, as we have all experienced, the conversation stalls out, or the other person says something dumb, like, “I wish I never did” or “You can have mine” or “You’re lucky.” If you’re younger, you probably hear, “There’s still time” or “Don’t wait too long.”

I don’t know about you, but I often feel driven to explain how I really did want children but was not able to have them. Sometimes I say, “God had other plans.” Although the real reason is that both my husbands were unwilling, I never put the blame on them. Usually, I just change the subject.

To be one hundred percent honest, sometimes it hurts like hell that I don’t have children and grandchildren, and other times, it’s okay. Where’s the term for that?

I started thinking about this during the recent World Childless Week, where, of course, “childness” is part of the name. Many of those involved are childless due to infertility, which was not my situation. But I attend because however you got to not having children, the bottom line is you don’t have them.

Childless. How does that word feel to you? Comfortable or not right, like the dress that didn’t allow enough room for my bust?

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