Childfree Reading List

Note: I didn't write the reviews below -- I borrowed them from Amazon.com. My notes (if any) on the book are in italics under the review.

Will You Be Mother?
by Jane Bartlett

Setting out to dispel the myths that women without children are either infertile or "hard-driven career women," freelance journalist Bartlett draws on interviews with 50 British women who have chosen, for a variety of reasons, to remain childfree. She uses the women's own words to describe their reasons for choosing to be different in a world where childbearing is seen as a part of the "normal" lifecycle.

Human Slices
by Gloria Bowman

This is the story of a woman who pronounces her name Sam, even though she spells it with an l. S-A-L-M. "But the l is silent," she says. It's her way of combining her given name, Samantha, and her father's childhood nickname for her, "Little Salmon." She is a happy woman not bothered by the fact that her little finger is slightly deformed. She's also not bothered by her natural desire to be child free. For Salm, the easy part is accepting the fate that springs from somewhere inside her own "Human Slices." The hard part is in the consequences. After all, it's not easy choosing childlessness and finding love.

The Baby Boon : How Family-Friendly America Cheats the Childless
by Elinor Burkett

Tax credits, childcare benefits, school vouchers, flextime for parents, parental leaves--all have spawned what journalist Elinor Burkett calls a "culture of parental privilege." The Baby Boon charts the backlash against this movement and asks for a reevaluation of social policy.

The Childless Revolution
by Madelyn Cain

Due in part to birth control, later marriages, and the emergence of two-career couples, 42 percent of the American female population is childless, representing the fastest-growing demographic group to emerge in decades. These women are reshaping the definition of womanhood in a fundamental way, yet they are largely misunderstood. Whether childless by choice or by chance, they are alternately pitied and scorned, and are rarely asked directly about their childlessness; like the elephant in the living room, childlessness is a taboo subject.

Childfree and Sterilized: Women's Decisions and Medical Responses
by Annily Campbell

Campbell, a feminist researcher and counselor, examines the relatively new social and medical phenomenon of women in the developed countries of the world choosing to remain childfree and electing for sterilization. She allows 23 voluntarily childfree, sterilized women to tell their stories and to reveal the struggles they faced in being women without children in a society which expects women to be mothers. She employs feminist and sociological perspectives to highlight the fact that voluntarily childfree women are perceived as abnormal and are often the target of negative and critical comment.

Families of Two
by Laura Carroll

Families of Two: Interviews with Happily Married Couples Without Children by Choice, takes us into the lives of the growing number of couples who are choosing not to have children, and dispels the myths commonly associated with this choice. Families of Two provides insight for couples who are deciding whether to have children, and to friends and family of couples who have chosen or may choose not to have children. It celebrates the many people who are living lives that do not include parenthood, and the many ways to live happily ever after.

Pride and Joy : The Lives and Passions of Women Without Children
by Terri Casey

This is an enlightening collection of first-person interviews with twenty-five women who have decided not to have children. This book shatters the stereotypes that surround voluntarily childless women--that they are self-centered, immature, workaholic, unfeminine, materialistic, child-hating, cold, or neurotic.

Childfree and Loving It!
by Nicki Defago

Recording the opinions of childless women from all over the world and letting this growing band answer their detractors, this investigation looks into the world of those who choose not to have children. Interviewees speak freely and honestly about their experiences, providing readers with both the many reasons people choose to live child-free and insight into what seems to them an unhealthy amount of societal pressure to become mothers and fathers. This book also presents interviews with parents who wish they had not had children while offering their reasons for feeling regret. Concluding with a look into the workplace, this title evaluates the fairness of allowing parents shorter days and time off to accommodate children, compared to the working environment of those who have chosen to live without children.

I read this book and LOVED it! I highly recommend it! It's my favorite Childfree book!

The Parenthood Decision
by Beverly Engel

In The Parenthood Decision: Discovering Whether You Are Ready and Willing to Become a Parent, Beverly Engel, a licensed marriage, family, and child counselor and bestselling author, takes a look at all the issues potential parents face, posits important questions, and leads readers who are struggling with a variety of dilemmas through compassionate and thoughtful decision-making exercises.

I Hate Other People's Kids
by Adrianne Frost

From the dawn of time, other people's kids have found ways to spoil things for the rest of us. Movie theaters, parks, restaurants -- every venue that should be a place of refuge and relaxation has instead become a freewheeling playground complete with shrieks, wails, and ill-timed excretions.
Now, I Hate Other People's Kids delivers a complete handbook for navigating a world filled with tiny terrors -- and their parents. It boldly explores how children's less- endearing traits have disrupted life throughout history ("And they say Jesus loved the little children, all the children of the world, but he never had to dine with one. He chose the lepers") and classifies important subspecies of tyke, from "Little Monsters" (Dennis the Menace, Bamm-Bamm Rubble) to the "So Good It Hurts" variety (Dakota Fanning, Ricky Schroeder in The Champ). Dotted with illuminating sidebars such as "Parents Think It's Cute, but It Isn't" and featuring tips on ingeniously turning the tables without seeming childish yourself, I Hate Other People's Kids is clever, unforgiving, and sidesplittingly funny.

Reconceiving Women: Separating Motherhood from Female Identity
by Mardy S. Ireland

Although surveys suggest that some 40 percent of American women between the ages of 18 and 44 do not have children, most scholarly and popular literature continues to assume that motherhood is the defining role in women's lives. Here a Berkeley psychologist shares data from her survey of 100 such women, revealing significant differences, depending on whether they are childless by choice, by chance, or because of infertility. Rejecting conventional interpretations, which emphasize the childless woman's infertility, Ireland offers new, more positive interpretations, drawn from Lacanian and object-relations theory, for all three categories and ends by summoning the legendary first woman Lilith to represent the nonmaternal creative energies that exist in every woman and by which childless women can define themselves and their experience. Recommended for specialized collections.

Why Don't You Have Kids?: Living a Full Life Without Parenthood
by Leslie Lafayette

From the founder of the Childfree Network, a national support group for childless adults, comes this insightful exploration of the pros and cons of parenting and not-parenting, filled with anecdotes, interviews, and statistics. To have or not to have children-it is one of the most important decisions any of us will ever make. The fact that many American households today do not include children has dramatically changed the way we all live….but not necessarily the way we all think. Drawing on the experiences of both parenting and non-parenting adults, she explores this subject from a social, spiritual, and psychological perspective. Defining the term she calls "pronatalism," Ms. Lafayette shows how people can be pressured into having kids---and even end up having them for the wrong reasons. In Why Don't You Have Kids? author Leslie Lafayette strips away the many myths surrounding childfree living and discusses what is truly involved in choosing to parent or not to parent. With rare insight and unflinching honesty, she helps you face this crucial turning point so that you can reach your ultimate decision with confidence and joy.

I have read this and it's very good. I recommend this book.

Women Without Children: The Reasons, the Rewards, the Regrets
by Susan Schneider Lang

According to various studies Lang cites, over 15% of women now in their childbearing years will remain childless for various reasons: infertility; belated, unstable, or failed marriages; lack of maternal or paternal interest (50% of 1100 women interviewed in one study considered their husbands "lousy" fathers); financial strain (30% of an annual income can be required to support a child); demanding careers (60% of top female executives are childless but only 10% of the comparable males); demanding stepchildren; or lesbian orientation (only 15-30% of lesbians have children). The disadvantages, Lang says, include occasional "feelings of sadness and loneliness," "regret" over missing a major life experience, social and parental pressure, and an assortment of health problems. Women with children also have health problems, many associated with obesity, and suffer "pain and disappointment" over children who fail and stress from their "incessant demands," reduced financial resources, and loss of time--three months a year are spent on child-rearing. The child- free, on the other hand, use their time and money for "nurturing and networking," traveling, raising pets; they enjoy "an exceptionally intimate relationship" with their mates, and continue their "self-growth."

Without Child: Challenging the Stigma of Childlessness
by Laurie Lisle

Heavily weighted to history, a defense of women who, by choice or by chance, are not mothers. Author Lisle, now in her 50s, chose not to have children--she is, to use one of her favorite terms, a nullipara (the medical term for a woman without a child)--and found the decision subject to attack from within and without. "To this day, women without children . . . share a common stigma," she quotes one expert as saying, and Lisle goes on to note that such women are often portrayed as "damaged or deviant" or "just not nice enough." Lisle rallies the nulliparous troops by foraging through history for childless, though not always virgin, role models. Among them are the Hellenic goddesses Artemis and Athena, Queen Elizabeth I, Florence Nightingale, and Louisa May Alcott. Closer to home are what used to be called maiden aunts, energetic examples of "social mothers" who worked in orphanages and poorhouses or served as caretakers (and inspirations) for their nieces and nephews.

The Chosen Lives of Childfree Men
by Patricia W. Lunneborg, Marilyn Mei-Ying Chi, Clara C. Park

More and more couples are choosing not to have children. While much attention has been paid to this trend from a woman's point of view, men are often seen as having a secondary role in this choice, as ready to accept whatever their partners decide. In an age when men are expected to be caregivers as well as breadwinners and encouraged to take on more parental responsibilities, this volume argues that they need to be active participants in this crucial, life-altering decision. Based on in-depth interviews with 30 American and British childless men, this is the first book to explore the motives and consequences of voluntary childlessness from a man's perspective.

Mask of Motherhood: How Becoming a Mother Changes Everything and Why We Pretend It Doesn't
by Susan Maushart

Everything changes when a woman becomes a mother, but society--particularly women themselves--often colludes to deny this simple truism. In The Mask of Motherhood, author Susan Maushart (a nationally syndicated columnist in Australia and the mother of three children) explores the effect childbearing has upon women. In the process, she removes the veils of serenity and satisfaction to reveal what she holds to be the truth: the early years of motherhood are physically difficult and can be emotionally devastating.

Cheerfully Childless: The Humor Book for Those Who Hesitate to Procreate
by Ellen Metter, Loretta Gomez

This cartoon-filled humor book brings cheer to those who are leaning against parenthood but don't get much support from a society that teaches the four R's: Reading, 'Riting, 'Rithmetic, and Reproduction! Serious books on the subject of choosing to be childless abound, but nothing light-hearted -- until now. Emotions run high on this topic, and that's precisely the sort of issue where humor thrives. Erma Bombeck looked at family life, Scott Adams took on work life, and Ellen Metter and illustrator Loretta Gomez tackle the question with a life-altering answer: Is it my fate to procreate?

Unwomanly Conduct: The Challenges of Intentional Childlessness
by Carolyn M. Morell

Provocative study of women who chose to be childless based on extensive interviews with women aged between 40 and 78. A significant contribution to debates about choice, the private and the public, gender and diversity.

The Baby Trap
by Ellen Peck

The best book for the childfree woman. A must read for all. It should be a requirement for all teenage girls. Rather than lots of statistics from poorly funded studies, this is a true life example and entertaining look at the reproductive choice.

Beyond Motherhood: Choosing a Life Without Children
by Jeanne Safer

This book is about making a conscious decision not to have a baby -- how to do it, how it feels, what it means, and the impact it has on your life.

Baby Not on Board: A Celebration of Life Without Kids
by Jennifer L. Shawne

For anyone who's wondered, "Why have kids when I could have fun instead?" here's a warm and hilarious welcome to the wonderful world of unparenting! The childfree life is growing in popularity, and finally here is a book that celebrates the wisdom and wonder of that choice. For those who cherish their white shag carpet and glass coffee table, this highly interactive book—with quizzes, sidebars, and handy checklists—offers a range of helpful, unparenting information including ways to throw oneself an unbaby shower and strategies for coping with dreaded OPCs (other people's children). Baby Not on Board reminds us all that having a baby is great, but NOT having a baby is really, really great.

I've read this and found it to be amusing, but it's not to be taken too seriously. You might enjoy it!

The Case Against Having Children
by Anna and Arnold Silverman

There is nothing spiritual, biological, or genetically inherited about the desire to be a mother. For many women, this book sets out to show, motherhood is a substitute, a second choice for the things they wanted to do but weren't able to. For others, it is a way to gain social acceptance and approval, keep their husbands, prove their femininity. And fathers, too, may exploit their children as a way of proving their manhood or their wives' faithfulness. This book explodes the myth of the maternal instinct, disproves the idea that marriages with children are happier, explains why large families can limit the personal freedom of all Americans, and show that children from small families are brighter, more creative, and better adjusted. Most important, The Case Against Having Children shows women that motherhood isn't their only option.

This book was published in the 70s, so some of the information is dated, but otherwise it's a very good book!

All books by Sue Grafton
(Fiction)

Sue Grafton has a whole series of chick-lit mystery novels, starting with "A is for Alibi" through "T is for Trespass". The protagonist in all these novels is a single, childfree woman who has no interest in marriage (again) or children. There are few children in the novels, so I highly recommend the series for childfree mystery lovers!

Baby Proof
by Emily Giffin
(Fiction)

As a successful editor at a Manhattan publishing house, Claudia Parr counts herself fortunate to meet and marry Ben, a man who claims to be a nonbreeding career-firster like she is. The couple's early married years go smoothly, but then Ben's biological clock starts to tick. A baby's a deal breaker for Claudia, so she moves out and bunks with her college roommate Jess (a 35-year-old blonde goddess stuck in a series of dead-end relationships) while the wheels of divorce crank into action. Even after the divorce is finalized and Claudia embarks on a steamy love affair with her colleague Richard, she begins to doubt her decision when she suspects Ben has found a smart, young and beautiful woman willing to bear his children.

I read the book and I'm not sure most of you would like it.  The beginning is excellent and seems to really relate to childfree people, but the rest of it seems way too breederiffic and even a little insulting to childfree people. So... check it out at your own risk.

The Unwelcome Child
by Terese Pampellonne
(Fiction)

Bundle Of Evil… The old Victorian home stands at the top of a hill overlooking Martha’s Vineyard, nestled in a forest of green pines and a rainbow of wildflowers, just a stone’s throw away from the beach. It was Jan Hostetter’s dream to convert the three-story house into a bed and breakfast, but she gladly surrenders that dream when a miracle occurs: she becomes pregnant. For years, doctors told Jan she was incapable of conceiving, but now she and her husband have been doubly blessed with a child on the way and the perfect place to raise a family.

Annie Wojtoko is in Martha’s Vineyard to help out and share in Jan’s happiness, but as the due date draws nearer, Annie’s concern for her best friend grows. The pregnancy has left Jan frail and without an appetite. She has become superstitious, covering every mirror in her home, and refusing to leave under any circumstances, fearing her baby will die if she does. And as Annie learns the violent history of the house, she comes to realize that what is growing in Jan’s body isn’t a miracle at all—but a mother’s most terrifying nightmare…

The protagonist in this novel is adamantly childfree, and I believe the author is as well.

No Kidding
by Wendy Tokunaga
(Fiction)

A novel about a modern Silicon Valley woman attempts to get what she really wants, but a life lived with passion can bring up difficult choices. What happens when everyone around you is blissfully popping babies like so many rabbits, your mother wants a grandchild more than anything else in the world, but you're just not interested?