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The Not Mom.com
Celebrating women who are childless by choice or by chance.
The Chicago Tribune recently ran an editorial titled The ‘Brat Ban’ that tracked the spread of childfree activities nationwide: “Adult swim. Theaters that have separate kids and no-kids screenings of the same movie. Quiet cars on the train. And yes, kid-free restaurants.”
The writer’s conclusion leaned toward being glad that people who prefer childfree settings now have options, but stressed that it ain’t all a day at the beach for the parents, either. From a quick surf of the web, several newspapers also ran the editorial, which was syndicated by McClatchy-Tribune.
Here’s my problem. The Trib uses the Pew Research Center “1 in 5” stat from 2010 to back up its claim that the Brat Ban is “gaining momentum.” Here’s the offending paragraph:
“The no-kids-allowed movement, aka the Brat Ban, is gaining momentum, driven by quiet-seeking adults who want to prohibit children from everything from concerts to public transportation to Facebook. Demographics tell the story: The U.S. has more empty-nesters and more childless couples than ever before. One in five women choose not to have children.”
The Pew study declares that 1 in 5 American women will “end her childbearing years without having borne a child.” That’s the way statisticians are, you know. Clear facts and honest numbers. It’s not Pew that claims to know WHY 1 in 5 women are childfree.
As the childfree-by-choice crowd gets louder, lazy journalists will repeat the Tribune’s error, also assuming that if 1 in 5 women don’t have kids, they must be part of this freaky new movement that chooses a childfree life. Oooh, let’s send a camera crew over there!
It’s an important distinction. Women who couldn’t afford in vitro fertilization, or weren’t healthy enough to carry a baby to term are just 2 of many exceptions to the you-must-have-chosen-it assumption.
Damn. Can it really be that women without children by circumstance or happenstance are shifting from being the odd one out in a world of Moms to being lumped into a group of NotMoms that doesn’t reflect us either?
