I don't plan to have children. That doesn't mean I want them banished from my life

The Guardian

2 days ago

It struck me recently that, as a woman in my 30s, I am almost never asked about my plans to have children. Even in the few instances I have been, the question arose naturally in a related conversation and each time, when I said 'Oh I don't think I want children', the other person responded politely and didn't push any agenda.
We could draw conclusions on what this says about other people's impressions of my lifestyle or my mothering instincts. But let's choose to see this anecdote in a positive light. I imagine that, even as recently as 10 years ago, I would have had to endure endless hectoring and intrusive comments about the so-called 'biological clock'. Or about ending up lonely in my old age or having a life which feels somehow empty or unfulfilled, as if that never happens to people with children.
I think I don't really get asked this because now fewer of us are having children. Last year, the fertility rate in England and Wales (which measures how many children are born per woman during her childbearing years) was the lowest on record, at 1.44 children. The number of babies born was also the lowest it has been since the 1970s. Figures like this are usually bandied about as a source of doom and gloom regarding the state of the world. People are not having children only because they can't afford to, we are told, or because they fear impending environmental collapse.
No doubt this is true for some people. But this focus may eclipse another, more straightforward reason: more of us are realising that if we don't want children we simply don't have to have them. In the space of a few generations many (although not all) of the restrictions placed on women's lives, in particular, have been dropped. It is commonplace for women to go to university and pursue the career of their choosing. The pressure to have a family has lessened. And I think the relief of that pressure is worth celebrating. (After all, in our time of environmental and social collapse we must take our silver linings where we can find them!)
Still, I have wondered recently if one negative corollary to these changing norms is a pervasive and growing anti-child sentiment. I notice it everywhere. There is constant social media discourse about the annoyance of having to interact with children in pubs or cafes or parks. Now we're into school holidays I can detect the grumbling ramping up. There are noticeably more children in my local pub as some of the regular patrons have started families. It often feels as if a war is brewing, with locals of all ages hissing and whispering, their eyes narrowed if families leave 15 minutes later than the child curfew.
Occasionally there is bad behaviour from the parents too. Recently a few dads brought a group of eight or so children of various ages to spend a sunny day inside watching a football match they were clearly not interested in. Naturally they all charged around the pub like horses in a western, barging into people and knocking over glasses. But I think we can accept there will be bad examples of every demographic and that this group would have had a great time at the park.
It isn't just that one pub. There was a story recently about more pub landlords, facing a tough climate in the midst of the cost of living crisis, choosing to ban young children from pubs to manage this tension. I empathise with the difficult position they feel they have been put in. But to me it feels like a choice they shouldn't have to make. Quite often now, too, when I'm in restaurants or cafes, if a parent enters with a child or a pram, people start tutting and muttering, or rolling their eyes. God forbid if the baby starts to cry, as babies do. It strikes me as very rude and also counterproductive. If you greet an adult in a hostile way you won't get the best out of them. Why would it be different for a child?
Even as someone not primarily affected by all this tutting and muttering I find it tiresome. It feels melodramatic, joyless and, dare I say, also quite childish. Consider too that, in general, women still do the bulk of childcare. What do we expect them to do? Sit in the house all day wearing black, pushing their babies back and forth in one of those metal Victorian prams with the big spokes, so the rest of us needn't be troubled by their existence? Is it really such a big deal to hear a baby briefly cry in the afternoon in a pub? If that is the price to pay for their mum being out and about in the world I think it's a more than fair one.
It feels strange, to me, to draw us all into two camps of 'has children' or 'doesn't have children'. Those labels cover such a vast array of different lifestyles and choices, as well as circumstances which are sadly forced, rather than chosen. But whether or not we end up having children, it serves us well to consider how we welcome families of young children into our public spaces. After all, few of us end up living a life completely 'free' of children. My own isn't. As I come into my 30s the women around me are having children. I already have two godchildren. I have a feeling I might end up with 10 or so. And if I'm ever rich, maybe I will hire them all a holiday villa when they turn 18 and they can bond over the honour of having me for a godparent. I imagine I'll end up with nieces and nephews too. Or stepchildren. Who knows? Time brings all kinds of different, unexpected relationships into our lives.
The children I see about in the cafes or pubs in my neighbourhood are a part of the community like anyone else. The idea of public spaces cleanly absent of children seems to speak to a fantasy of a world where the lives we live are totally detached from the lives of the people around us. But of course they aren't. And if this fantasy were reality, our lives would be very small and boring.
Rachel Connolly is the author of the novel Lazy City