What happens when mum's not the word
The reaction to Margaret O’Connor’s decision not have kids was so extreme, she decided to write a thesis about it, she tells .
Margaret O’Connor doesn’t want to have kids. “I don’t like roller coasters, I don’t want to watch a horror film, I don’t plan to have children,” she says. “It’s just not something that appeals to me.” The 35-year-old counsellor and psychotherapist isn’t alone. A recent OECD study found that 19% of Irish women in the 40 to 44 age bracket are childless, placing us third in the developed world. Not all these women choose to be childless; some experience fertility issues while others don’t find a suitable partner, but the research and anecdotal evidence suggests that the number making an active choice is on the rise. The latest figures from the US suggest almost 20% of childless women in the 40 to 44 age bracket have decided not to have kids.
This isn’t an easy choice to make - polite society has always been quick to judge childless women. According to the book, Six Women of Salem, which examines the Salem Witch Trials in the 1690s, women with few or no children were highly vulnerable to accusations, arrest and in some cases, the gallows. They mightn’t hang women for this any more, but there is still a lingering taboo around women who don’t have kids. Andrea Leadsom even brought it into the latest Tory leadership race in the UK., implying that as her rival Theresa May didn’t have kids, she didn’t really have a stake in the future.
In a sign that attitudes are changing, the backlash to this claim forced her to withdraw from the race. But you can be sure the message chimed with a section of her audience. (If you doubt this, just count page after page of results when you put “childless women Daily Mail” into Google.) The various emotions surrounding this are in plain view on a Facebook page called, I Regret Having Children. Initially a site for people struggling with kids in their lives, it is now a forum for people to share stories and views on the decision to become a parent. Judging by one or two of the posts, it also shows the dangers of going on Facebook after cracking open a bottle of red. But it’s a good window into how people approach the idea of having kids.
Margaret O’Connor knows this is a sensitive area, particularly for women who decide to go public with their choice not to have kids. “It’s not an easy decision to make. It can cost relationships and it can cause difficulty with family relationships if there is an expectation of grandparents.” This is more than a personal issue for Margaret. Since she was a teenager, she has struggled to understand how people could be so sure they wanted to have kids. So, she decided to study it as part of her thesis, asking 15 women from all walks of Irish life how they made the decision to become a mother.
“Nobody found it a positive experience”, she says of her research. "Everybody, regardless of their decision, found it a really isolating, negative thing to think about. It wasn’t something they felt they were able to talk about, the fact you would even be questioning it was seen as a strange thing to do"
In addition, she points out there is no support for people going through the process here in Ireland.
The assumption here is that you will have children, you want to have children, and if you don’t there is something wrong
She has decided to address the lack of support with a range of counselling services, detailed on her website Arekidsforme.ie. Along with one-to-one and online services, she will also offer a service to couples, to help them deal with the decision-making process. Margaret says she has no agenda either way and will just act as a guide, exploring whether the client really wants kids and examining why they think they might not make good parents. (For example, if they had a negative family experience themselves.) It’s interesting that she is offering the service to couples. Most of the focus has been on women, but it’s obviously an issue for men as well. You only have to look at the attention Ricky Gervais got when he announced that kids weren’t for him to appreciate that men are supposed to want kids as well.
This is despite the fact that most men over 40 in Ireland don’t really know what it’s like to have kids. Most of us grew up watching our Dads mastering the art of hands-off parenting and expected it to be a few sleepless nights followed by a trip to Old Trafford for their fourth birthday. We don’t have the information network that women have, from relations, sisters, friends, that tells them what a child does to your life (good or bad.) As a result, the first time most Irish men really think about fatherhood is when they are forced to spend a whole Saturday looking at baby-buggys in Smyths, and by then it’s too late. This isn’t to put men off having kids – I’d recommend it to anyone. But that doesn’t make it right for everyone. So it isn’t just good for women that people like Margaret O’Connor are there to help them through such an important decision. It’s a conversation that men should be having as well.
