Insulting the Childfree Is Dehumanizing and Mean

We were boarding a plane on our first trip together, me, my girlfriend and her daughter, who was around four or five years old at the time. I was behind them and could see the faces of passengers as the three of us walked by, all smiles and joyful.

The kid was adorable and her mom was good looking too and I felt pride and joy at being seen as a family unit.

My girlfriend and I broke up and I no longer have a relationship with her daughter. I wonder sometimes if she remembers me and thinking about that brings tears to my eyes.

Because of that, people like J.D. Vance and others who castigate people without children view me as a less worthy member of society, to the point, of deserving less of a vote and generally being adrift and wasting my life.

To suggest not having kids makes someone sociopathic, as Vance did, or having less of a stake in our country’s future (also Vance) is dangerous and insulting. It conveys the message that the value of one human being is less than another’s.

Recent comments and insults of people without children caused me intense emotional pain — and I wanted to explore why they hurt so much and what was in them that was so bothersome.

A disregard for the human body

Reproducing is not as simple as going to the corner store for ice cream. It’s hard to believe one has to explain this, but not every person or couple who wants to get pregnant can.

According to the National Institute of Health, up to 15% of couples who try to conceive aren’t successful after a year. Of those who experience difficulty conceiving, a third are because of fertility issues with the woman, a third with the man, and for the last third, it’s impossible to say.

Nothing can humble us more than the frailties, realities, and unexpected — and unwanted — machinations of our physical selves.

The last thing that people who struggle to conceive need is people insulting them. There is enough shame and stigma around difficulties conceiving as it is, enough to negatively impact someone’s quality of life.

Anyone who has experienced issues with their reproductive health understands how fraught this is. There is a sense that as living creatures, we are biologically hard-wired to reproduce. We have natural urges for sex, and a large percentage of our bodies are easily capable of having children.

But not all bodies.

When I was married, my wife and I chose not to have children. But even if we’d wanted to, we likely would have faced challenges conceiving. It might not have been possible.

And for that, we are worthless? For that, we are sociopathic and immoral?

While almost all of us are hard-wired with sexual desire, not all of us are hard-wired with sexual desire that would lead to reproduction.

Fundamentalists may want to pretend that homosexuality doesn’t exist. But wishing it away won’t work. A Gallup poll found that approximately 7% of Americans identify as LGBTQ, and that number could increase as it becomes easier and more comfortable to do so.

Bigots and homophobes want to make it harder and less comfortable for non-heterosexual people to exist in the world. That won’t make the LGBTQ population disappear, of course. It will just make their life worse.

To insist that those who don’t reproduce have less value as a human being or citizen isn’t only narrow-minded. It is controlling, dictatorial and, if taken further, such as bestowing special voting rights to parents, is fascist.

Lack of empathy for the messiness of life

Relationships don’t last forever. Sometimes they end even when we don’t want them to. As reported in Forbes, in the United States, 43% of first marriages end in divorce. Second marriages end at a rate of 60%, third marriages even higher, at 73%.

And according to the U.S. Census, 46% of Americans are single.

More than 16% of Americans adults don’t have biological children on their own. And more and more Americans are opting to remain childfree.

Relationships are complicated. Many relationships and marriages dissolve before a couple has children. Even more end shortly after having kids.

But being a parent doesn’t make you a better person. It doesn’t even make you a better parent.

In a study published by Sutton Trust, many parents aren’t cut out for the job. Researchers say being a less than stellar parent gets passed down through generations. Besides, says the Guttmacher Institute, almost half of parents ever intended to have kids to begin with.

How we choose to act and be in this world is a life-long decision-making process for all of us, parents and non-parents alike.

No one has a monopoly on how to live a meaningful life.

To say that parents have a higher moral standing, or that people without children have less of a stake in the world, is to measure yourself against another in ways that benefit you and punishes others.

If that’s what you’re teaching or modeling for your kids, we’re all in trouble.

A narrow-minded perception of family

We can’t choose our parents or siblings. Neither can we entirely control the relationship dynamics within our families. Family life is messy, complicated and oftentimes disappointing and heartbreaking.

Through the ups and downs of relationships, I have been a part of one family — one that now includes many children that weren’t around when I was part of it— that I am no longer a presence in.

There was the one mentioned in the beginning, and there are other “what ifs,” regrets, and missed opportunities to be part of a family unit.

We can become estranged from anyone, including family. And we can adopt friends who become a form of family, tending to our needs for companionship, advice, a hand to hold, someone to drive us home from the doctor, someone with whom to share a pizza.

At some point, whether we have kids or not, we all need to be cared for. We all need connection and community.

Those needs exist for all of us. We now have the ability — though it seems it’s getting harder and harder to accomplish, doesn’t it? — to form our own kind of family. Those connections, the relationships that help us get through, are the ones that matter most, regardless of blood ties.

Families take all shapes and forms. To not recognize that is also to willfully not see people as they really, truly are. As they really, truly live. And that, ultimately, is the biggest problem with castigating and demeaning childless and childfree people.

It not only others us. It makes us unseen.

One would like to think that taking on the responsibility of raising another human would open hearts and minds. You can see in a baby or young child all the possibilities in the world, all the paths life can take.

Being a parent is an exercise, especially as a child grows and gains independence, in coming to terms with how little control over life we have.

That recognition, ideally, would create a sense of empathy for others. What parents want for their children is for them to be safe and healthy and with an opportunity to grow, flourish, and find happiness and contentment.

Why would anyone not want that for other people, too? Why wouldn’t parents, as they see their child experience unplanned for and unpredictable things, not see that this unpredictability exists for all of us?

To see someone as “less than,” as inferior, as undeserving of equal treatment, is misanthropic on its own. It’s compounded when holding that bias against others for things beyond their control or intentions.

It surprised me that comments made by a politician about the childless and childfree stung so much. It’s not like I haven’t heard it before.

Maybe it’s because there was an entire news cycle around them and it was just more present. But maybe, also, it’s because I carry shame and insecurity about it.

I avoid social media on Father’s Day because it’s too painful to be reminded about something that I’d wanted to be and to have, but am not and don’t.

It’s already a source of sadness and frustration and regret.

To be judged by it, and worse, to be criticized for it, to be deemed of lesser value because of it, feels like an attack.

To all those like me who were offended at those comments — and have been similarly put off by comments like these for years — know that you are not alone.

Please know your offense and anguish at insults to the childless and childfree are heard and understood by others. It can be tempting to shrug them off, because that is a natural coping mechanism. But every moment is a teaching moment.

Here’s hoping our society gets a lesson in how hurtful it is to belittle people without children.

Have any thoughts? I can be reached at scottmgilman @ gmail.com.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

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