The anti-child revolt

You people make me sick.

By Cathy Young

Jul 31, 2000 | Meet the latest addition to our national roster of victim groups: People without children.

The revolt of the "child-free" has been getting quite a bit of attention, due mainly to the publication of "The Baby Boon: How Family-Friendly America Cheats the Childless" by journalist Elinor Burkett, a manifesto of sorts for this fledgling movement. The premier organization of the "child-free," called No Kidding!, has grown from two chapters to 47 in five years. Most recently, the anti-child/anti-parent backlash is the subject of a long cover story by Lisa Belkin in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine.

The angry nonparents believe they are being treated as second-class citizens in a "procreation-obsessed" America. They feel shafted by the tax code, with all the dependent deductions and child-care credits, and by working-parent benefits such as family leave and on-site day care. They gripe about a lot of things: having to pick up the slack for "child-burdened" co-workers; enduring the noise of squalling kids in restaurants; the unfair privilege of parking spaces reserved for pregnant women and parents with babies or toddlers; inappropriate questioning of their choice not to have children.

Belkin, a mother of two, does her best to be understanding and concludes that parenthood is a great divide: The world looks very different through the eyes of people who have children than it does through the eyes of those who do not. In other words, it's all a matter of which side of the white picket fence you're on. But I'm not so sure.

I have no children; at 37, I don't know if I ever will. While I never made a conscious choice to forgo motherhood, it has never been a top priority for me. However, to the champions of the "child-free," I have this to say:

You people make me sick.

Not that these rebels don't make a few valid points. I share their irritation at the tendency in recent years to frame nearly all political issues, from gun control to foreign policy, in terms of "the children" -- not because it makes me feel left out of the national dialogue, but because it's shamelessly manipulative and an insult to our intelligence.

And I agree that it's ridiculous to demand that women, or men, should have the "right" to devote a lot of time to their children without making any career sacrifices.

But it's equally ridiculous to demand that people who choose not to have kids should have the "right" never to be inconvenienced by the presence of parents and children in this world.

To some extent, this squabbling reflects the peril of looking to the state to distribute wealth: Every group starts clamoring for a cut of the pork. But it's far from clear that parents hog a disproportionate share of subsidies. Conservatives argue that the tax code is actually stacked against families with children, especially "traditional" sole-earner ones; pro-family liberals such as Sylvia Ann Hewlett point out that over the past 30 years, the standard dependent deduction has decreased as a percentage of total income.

What's more, many grievances of the "child-free" are directed at benefits that private companies voluntarily provide to employees or customers. (The unpaid leave employers are required to grant under the Family and Medical Leave Act is actually more inclusive toward nonparents than many private programs: It is available for any family need, child-related or not.)

If a company wants to offer flextime to non-parents as well as parents, or allow personal leave for non-family as well as family reasons, fine. If it gives time off to new parents but not to single folks who want to train for a marathon or take a class in watercolor painting -- well, frankly, that doesn't strike me as a monstrous injustice.

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