Childfree

Silencing the Childfree

Be careful what you say in public — not having kids can get you in trouble

Photo by Khadim Fall on Unsplash

I wasn’t going to write this article. I thought about it, back in the summer when I read a think piece by a parent here criticising the descriptor ‘childfree’ because “it makes children sound undesirable”.

I didn’t respond to it then because the argument was so stupid as to be without merit. Firstly, if you’re not one of us, you don’t get a say on how we define ourselves; secondly, it’s very clearly dependent on context.

Children obviously are undesirable to those who don’t want them. The same wouldn’t be true in other contexts. Otherwise, I’d get bent out of shape every time a seller on Depop lists their item as coming from a “pet-free home”.

After all, how could anyone think my precious fuzzy angel is undesirable? Except that cat hair all over your clothes is undesirable. I just accept that everything I own is covered in a layer of white fur by this point, but then I’m not trying to sell it as “nearly new”.

So I really wasn’t going to weigh in on that one. But then the incident on the train happened.

I was on the train from St Ives to London with a friend. For those not in the know, that is a long-ass journey…