History is full of women without children: some who chose childless lives, others who wanted children but never had them, and still others--the vast majority, then and now--who fell somewhere in between. Modern women considering how and if children fit into their lives are products of their political, ecological, and cultural moment. But history also tells them that they are not alone. Drawing on deep research and her own experience as a woman without children, historian Peggy O'Donnell Heffington shows that many of the reasons women are not having children today are ones they share with women in the past.
A feat of diligent research and, better yet, blazing argument ... Each chapter of Without Children is vivid and informative enough to fascinate in its own right, but by the end its strands have braided into a broader thesis ... For an apologia for women without children, Heffington’s book is surprisingly silent when it comes to the question of agency ... Then again, her point is that the vast majority of women do not feel they have any choice.
Impeccably researched ... Without Children isn’t exactly the full-on celebration of the child-free lifestyle that some readers might be looking for. But it does thankfully shift the focus away from all the blame, shame and name-calling to advocate for a deeper look into the reasons why so many women bow out of motherhood in the first place.
From the outset, she exposes the entangled forces of circumstance and decision that have led some women not to have children. In doing so, she offers a way of moving beyond motherhood as an overdetermined function of personal choice, and of an identity politics so profound and pervasive that it positions mothers and childless women at opposite ends of a spectrum.
