Monthly Archives: March 2017

Increasing numbers of peoplein the United States, and in many other countries around the globe, are living child-free, either because they are delaying having children or forgoing parenthood altogether. Census data from 2015, the latest numbers available, shows that nearly half of women ages15 to 44 dont have kids, which is the highest its been since the Census Bureau started recording these statistics.

And while the percentage of women who make it into their 40s without having childrenhas fallen some since a high in 2006, a Pew Research review of government datashows that15 percent of American women in their 40s have never had a baby.

But while being childless is more common than ever, the social stigma attached to childlessness is still going strong, according to research done by LeslieAshburn-Nardo, an associate professor of psychology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Ashburn-Nardo recently published a study in the journal Sex Rolesthat shows that the shifts in social norms have not significantly reduced negative attitudes toward the deliberately child-free.

Sheargued in an interview byphone that when we encounter people who violate, in some way, these strongly prescribed roles or norms, like interest in having children, then theres great potential for social backlash. She added, We feel like people are morally defective in their decision or behavior, and were motivated to punish them in some way, usually social sanction.

Ashburn-Nardo was curious to see if the increasingly high rates of childlessness in our culture werereducing the amount of social judgment against the deliberately child-free. To test this, she brought in a group of 204 undergraduate psychology students, under the pretense of testing their ability to predict the future, and had them read a short vignette about a former student who had married his or her college sweetheart.Half the students read about someone who had chosen to have two children, and half read about a personwho had electedto have none. They were then asked to fill out a survey to measure their attitudes about the former student.

Despite living in the 21st century and being, as college students, mostly childless themselves the survey takers were just as disapproving and disgusted with those who had decided against having children as similar survey takers were in the 1970s and 80s.

Those who were voluntarily child-free elicited greater moral outrage and were also seen as being less psychologically fulfilled, Ashburn-Nardo explained.To me, that really is indicative not just of a descriptive norm of whats happening in the world, but more of a prescriptive, like this is an expectation that people should want to have children.

What was particularly interesting, Ashburn-Nardo pointed out, wasthat survey takerspredicted that this choice to be childless would make the hypothetical couple unhappy.She pointed out that other studies have repeatedly shown the opposite to be true. Research shows that child-free people are just as satisfied with their lives as parentsare. In fact, childfree people tend to be happier on a day-to-day basis, and significantly more satisfied with their marriages.

Backlash theory, however, might explain whats going on here. As Ashburn-Nardo pointed out, when we feel moral outrage toward someone, as the surveytakers did toward the deliberately childless, we want to see them punished. Perhaps the prediction that the childless couple would be unhappy wasa kind of wishful thinking. People want to believe that those who dont have children will suffer because they believe, on some level, that the child-freeshould suffer.

Anti-choice activistscan safely be seen as the most ardent believers inthe notion that parenthood is a duty, not a choice, and therefore the most invested in the idea that those who defy social expectations byrejecting the opportunity to have a baby should suffer for their choices. Sure enough, the anti-choice movement is permeated with the myth of abortion regret, the idea that women who choose to have abortions will suffer from depression and even suicidal thoughts afterward.

There is no evidence whatsoever that women who have abortionshave regret, never mindserious mental health problems. On the contrary, repeated research has shown that womenwho have abortions do just fine compared withwomen who dont.But anti-choice activists so desperately want women who have abortions to suffer that they have convinced themselves that abortion regret is a real thing.The surveytakers who believed it was wrong to be child-free and who thought that those who choose it will suffer may be expressing a more muted variation of the same impulse.

One interesting finding from Ashburn-Nardos study was that the surveytakers didnot differentiate between men and women when passing judgment on those who are voluntarily childless. The students had beendivided into four groups: One group read about a childless man, the second set read about a childless woman, the third cluster about a woman with two children and the final group read about a man with two children.

Ashburn-Nardo had expected, she said, that the childless woman would elicit more moral outrage than the childless man. That wasnt the case. Both men and women were negatively judged for choosing not to have children. Women may be expected to invest more heavily in parenthood, butpeople still think theres something wrong with a man who doesnt want to have kids.

These findings are particularly interesting in light of polling data, collected by Gallup, that shows thatAmericans increasingly rate premarital sex, birth control and abortion as morally acceptable. But Ashburn-Nardos research suggests that while Americans might be more comfortable with separating sex fromchildbearing, there is still a lot of discomfort aboutpeople who refuse to become parents at all.

The rest is here:

Child-free and OK with it but still dealing with moral scolding and ... - Salon

When 26-year-old tech reporter Holly Brockwell went public with her quest to be sterilised, she sparked a nationwide controversy and added a fresh dimension to Britains gender debate.

But the massive backlash from her media appearances was far from the biggest hurdle the now 31-year-old faced in her journey to ensure her childlessness.

ITV/ This Morning

The journalist says that for four years she was patronised, challenged and dismissed by doctors who told her she was too young to make a permanent decision about her fertility.

But Brockwell says sterilisation was the only option for her.

I dont want babies, she says simply. Society tends to see the pill as a magic solution, but theres not nearly enough discussion of the enormous effect it can have on womens bodies, moods and lives.

I dont react well to hormonal contraception, which means the pill, implant [and] injection make me ill and give me side effects no man would be willing to live with.

When a woman is sterilised, her fallopian tubes are blocked or sealed to prevent eggs from travelling away from the ovary to be fertilised.

Even on the day of her sterilisation, after her numerous appeals were finally granted, Brockwell says she was talked down to by her surgeon.

He was clearly, vocally against the procedure and spent what felt like forever trying to bully me into changing my mind, she says.

He even brought in a doctor from the IVF department to guilt me about how difficult it is to have a baby by IVF.

A year on from the procedure, Brockwell says she has absolutely no regrets about her decision to permanently end her fertility.

I just wish Id been able to have the procedure sooner. It would have saved me a lot of stress, illness and money for panic-bought pregnancy tests.

Holly Brockwell appearing on ITVs This Morning in March 2016 after winning her bid to be sterilised

Brockwell may have become the covergirl for this controversial issue, but there is plenty of evidence that women across the country in their twenties and thirties are also fighting to be sterilised.

A quick internet search reveals numerous discussion threads and thousands of articles around the subject.When The Huffington Post UK reached out to a support group for people who have decided to remain childfree, dozens of women rushed to share their stories.

Many of these young women say they have been ridiculed and denied by doctors who insist they will change their minds about becoming a mother as they get older.

Since the start of the millennium, there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of women sterilised in England.

While 35,300 women underwent the procedure in 2000/01, this figure fell by 72.5% in just ten years, with only 9,700 women being sterilised between 2010 and 2011.

Research has shown that this is partly down to the development of long-acting, reversible forms of contraception over the last 20 years.

Hero Images via Getty Images

Thanks to inventions such as hormonal implants and devices like the coil, women can now overcome some of the disadvantages of user-dependent birth control without making a permanent decision about their fertility.

But medical ethicist Dr Anna Smajdor from the University of Oslo believes other factors are also at work.

I am sure that doctors assume young women may want children and that it is regarded as pathological if they do not, she says.

In my experience, this is not the case for men in the same way.

Our society treats women as the primary, and sometimes the sole person involved in reproduction, and of course this finds its way into consultation practices.

Steph, a 31-year-old pet carer, certainly found this to be the case.

First rejected for sterilisation at the age of 26, her plea for the operation was denied again three years later.

Instead, they offered her boyfriend a vasectomy.

Although her partner Mark, seven years her senior, already had a son by a previous relationship, Steph told HuffPost UK the decision was a clear example of sexism.

She explained: It seems that as a man, you have more right to say that you dont want children - everyone is quite respectful of that.

For women, its as if we are all born to churn out children.If you dont feel like that, they give you more time until you make the right decision.

I have been with Mark for six years, but imagine if I was single or had only been with him six months.

You never know what is going to happen in life, Steph added. I still have no choice over whether my body reproduces or not.

Thanasis Zovoilis via Getty Images

For model and blogger Faith Roswell, a lack of control over her own body was one of the most frustrating elements of her fight to be sterilised.

Finally accepted for the procedure in her late twenties, she spent a decade pleading with GPs over the operation.

I told my doctor: Im 28. If I told you that I had been trying to get pregnant for 10 years, you would be helping me.

Im now telling you that Ive been trying not to get pregnant since I was 18. I want you to help me.

If Im trusted to make one decision about my contraceptive health, I should be trusted to make another one as well.

Between 2000 and 2010, the number of vasectomies performed in England dropped by more than half (56%), down to 18,000 a year.

But vasectomies - described as simpler, safer and more reliable by the NHS - still outnumber female sterilisation procedures by 8,300 operations a year.

For doctors, a young woman asking to be sterilised can present a moral dilemma.

Professor Phillip Hannaford, an expert in female reproductive health and contraception, says: Its about trying to give people a sense that they have control over their fertility, but doing it in a way that doesnt have permanence at that age.

People get married older and have children at an older age now I think the average age of the first pregnancy is in the late twenties, early thirties.

People change partners and often want to cement that new relationship with children, he continued.

I can very clearly remember a patient when I was in practice who had heavy periods and wanted to have a hysterectomy. I said: I really do think you are young, lets try a bit longer.

She came back three years later showing me her new baby that she was really proud of and thanking me for not supporting her in that decision.

But Dr Smajdor disagrees.I think if doctors did not emphasise the downsides of sterilisation they would not be doing their jobs properly,she says.

It is difficult because so many of the emotional risks are contingent and speculative, but still, they need to be considered.

However, giving the information is one thing; having given it, the woman should make her own decision in the light of these facts.

HuffPost UK is running a month-long project in March called All Women Everywhere, providing a platform to reflect the diverse mix of female experience and voices in Britain today.

Through blogs, features and video, well be exploring the issues facing women specific to their age, ethnicity, social status, sexuality and gender identity.

If youd like to blog on our platform around these topics, email ukblogteam@huffingtonpost.com

See the article here:

Meet The Twenty-Something Childfree Women Fighting To Be Sterilised - Huffington Post UK