Forgive the lapse in professionalism but I rather want to hug the @#& out of Lisa for this.

I am reminded of Anthony and Stanton's friendship/partnership. It will take those of us who are tired in cahoots with those of us with the energy and blessed time to fight the good fight to move the ball forward. Yet, articles like Slaughters (to be fair, hers is just one in a long line of such things) serves mostly to obscure the possibilities of such alliances.

I do the work I do knowing that many of my dear friends simply cannot. 

That's cool, there'll be less competition for my kids. Genetic imperative and all that.

Personally I would consider it a bit of an insult to my ancestors (going all the way back to great grandpa & grandma lobefish who first immigrated up onto dry land) to not keep my particular genetic and cultural line going. But that's a personal belief.

i don't like the last sentence because it's kinda snotty and dismissive but overall this is a great piece. i'm childfree, 40 and never ONCE regretted my decision not to procreate. i have never thought, ooh i shoulda had kids. i'm glad, so glad i didn't pop out any kids. i didn't miss out on a single thing- i have a lot of awesome loving kids in my life to hug, squish and spoil. and be a bad influence on!

In many parts of the US, childlessness isn't an easy choice. Like, say, Mississippi. Or really any state where Medicaid doesn't cover abortions (all but 15). But maybe this article is only for a certain class of families who have the economic means to adequately control their fertility.

Umm...so for those of us who WANT to have children (or already have them), it's not really an "invisible solution".  I agree having children is a compulsory decision for many men AND women.  It's also a conscious decision by many men and women. 

The "invisible solution" I expected to see (and was disappointed not to) is to have MEN take on more childcare responsibilities.  Let's ask the question "can men have it all?" -- because it sure looks like it to me.

I have NEVER. ONCE.  heard my male friends who have children lamenting the fact that "Being a working parent in our society is structurally impossible. It
can’t be done right… You’ll always be failing at something — as a
spouse, as a parent, as a worker." And I suspect that's because behind them is a woman who either stays at home or just absorbs more of the childcare responsibilities. 

I'm not saying men don't face pressures in the workplace or as parents.  I'm not saying there's no stigma attached to being a stay-at-home dad.  I'm just saying that it seems to me that the real question is about structural contradictions between work and parenting FOR WOMEN much more than in general.

I'm 43, and the only thing I regret about not having kids is not having met someone I would have wanted to reproduce *with*. 

Thank you for this new way to look at the childfree option.  Approaching the issue as a way to fix the core problem -- the system doesn't help childrearing parents -- is a much better and more interesting conversation than Overpopulation or Selfish or Replacement Failure or Endocrine Problems. 
 
Fascinating.  Thanks for the support.

I understand our society has a long way to go in accepting the choice to remain childless as a valid one, and I am glad that that decision is becoming less taboo. I also understand many of the reasons why someone would choose to remain childless, since it's a decision that I've been contemplating objectively for a long time.

But as someone who has very consciously examined the motives behind my feelings, and who still wants to be a mother (either to a biological child or an adopted one) and a professional, what solution is there for me?

I totally agree that "no kids" is a viable, healthy, perfectly acceptable option. But you also point out that the system is f$%#ed up for workers who have kids. That system should be fixed.

"having one child decreases your happiness"

Correlation and causation, please! Perhaps the data really shows that unhappy people are more likely to decide to have children?

There are a lot of good reasons to not have children, but I'm not sure the data you presented support this. Are the y-axes on the two graphs simply correlation coefficients? If so, you're committing the fallacy of equating correlation with causation! There's also the possibility of covariance. A lot of other things may affect a person's happiness as he or she ages -- a bad marriage, health problems, etc.

I'm on board with destigmatizing the decision not to be bear/raise children, but I also worry about the potential workplace consequences of a cultural shift towards childlessness as an equally valid choice of individuals. So much of what little workplace discrimination protections we do have are predicated on the expectation that women will bear children and should not be punished for it in the workplace or in hiring. In a scenario (under our current structural conditions) where women are truly able to "make a more informed measurement of the costs and benefits" of childrearing/raising, might not employers read parenthood as a clear sign of an informed decision to prioritize family over work? Without stronger anti-discrimination protections already in place, it seems to me that you risk turning parenthood into another category of legitimate and legal discrimination in hiring (like education, experience, and personal strengths).

I think the most depressing part - and probably the core of the problem - of this is that American discourse frames it as a choice in the first place. Look, all over the world we're seeing more and more laws accomodating to queer people. Especially equal marriage is something that didn't even exist 20 years ago, and now it's spreading. Nothing is ever going to change unless an opinion against it starts forming, and women deserve a whole lot more than having to choose between a major life goal and any form of financial support (and take it from someone of a demographic that gets a lot of this - you can't just turn off a lifetime's worth of indoctrination)

There needs to be a change here, and the first step is to frame the problem as the sadistic and untenable choice that it is - not to keep calling it "having it all", as if managing both children and a job was some kind of extraordinary luxury. Don't give up!

I was going to say exactly what Lauren said. A couple of years ago I made the decision to not have children, but as someone who has always loved kids and working with them, I eventually had to come to terms with the fact that I personally do want to have a child. So what about those of us who have thought critically about our socialization as women and considered our different options, yet still want to have children? What happens to us? Do I have to choose between a successful career and children? Because I certainly am not willing to give up my career...

I'm kind of offended at the tone of this article as it presents the career as the thing you should most prize and go after. I would simply offer the counter solution as a possible alternative. Don't prioritize your career. There's nothing wrong with being a homemaker or having a non-glamorous, but bill-paying job, if it lets you spend time with your family. Assuming that you want to have one of course.
Also, quit framing it as JUST a women's issue. 
My wife is the breadwinner and our family and I essentially gave up on any hope of a career of my own so I could support her while she got he degree and now to raise our children.
I laughed out loud when I first read "Why Women Can't Have It All." It just seemed like a no-brainer to me, there's simply not enough hours in the day to do everything. That should be common sense.
But it's okay to have kids. If you WANT a "successful" career then go for it. If you also want to have children, then either pick which one you want to focus on or make sure your partner can pick up the slack.

I agree completely with Saba about the actual invisible option being the expectation that men should take responsibility for child care and make career sacrifices to benefit their family, too, and to remove the shaming of women who have opted out of parenthood, but I am spinning this article around in my head and extrapolating to this (amusing to me) idea of women boycotting this whole reproduction thing until society starts accommodating them as workers and as parents. You know, along the lines of Lysistrata, the Greek play about women refusing sex until a war was ended. Just how low would the birth rate have to fall before workplaces and governments address these real problems? Or do we then fall into Handmaid's Tale territory? I tend to think that outcome is unlikely (but maybe I'm naive; your mileage may vary), and I look to various government attempts around the world to encourage women into having more children by increasing the amount of social support available to them for childcare to support my (maybe) naivete/optimism.

I mean, [SPOILERS!] if it worked for Lysistrata...

This is...amazing.  Thank you Lisa.  I am a long time SocImages reader and this is probably the most wonderful thing I've ever read here.

There have always been women not interested in having children.  In the past, job opportunities for these women were basically "nun" or "prostitute."  As a women with no biological children of my own, I am very, very happy that my job opportunities have expanded.

What I think is more "invisible" in the public imagination however is the real cost and labor involved in raising and family and running a household.  Suggesting that women who *do* want children must then be confined to the home is obviously a sexist and morally indefensible way to divide labor.  But the labor is very real and required by society to care for its next generation. 

So, who pays for this labor??  It used to be the standard that a family could be supported on one full-time income, so a single salary effectively paid for the employee and, by pass-through, the labor of his stay-at-home spouse.  This labor is now essentially considered "volunteer work" performed by both parents in their "free time"...a framing that seems tacitly supported by this post.

The more interesting question to me is how we, as a society, properly compensate parents for their labor as parents so they are supported to do the job well.

Yes, it is certainly true that motherhood is still a cultural mandate for women and shouldn't be. Yes, there is still a wrongful stigma attached to the choice to be child-free, particularly for women. And yes, the literature shows fairly decisively that parenting is associated with diminished happiness/mental health. However, in my mind these ideas--while certainly worthy of discussion and debate--are wholly unrelated to the questions raised by Slaughter's article, or to the majority of responses to it. This essay begins by articulating the main issue brought up by this debate--namely that workplace structure is still based on an "unencumbered worker" model whose demands are fundamentally at odds with cultural ideals regarding "successful" parenting. So my question is, if we all agree that structural-level constraints and contradictions emanating from the workplace (among other institutions) are the problem, why is it fitting to suggest an individual-level solution? Certainly people who do not desire to have children should not do so only because of a cultural imperative, but by the same token, people who do genuinely desire to have children should not feel compelled avoid it because our social institutions have been slow to adapt to the needs of dual-earner or single-parent families.

"Long before Slaughter wrote her article for The Atlantic, when
she floated the idea of writing it to a female colleague, she was told
that it would be a “terrible signal to younger generations of women.”
 Presumably, this is because having children is compulsory, so it’s best
not to demoralize them."

No, I think Slaughter's colleague thought younger women would be demoralized because having a career is thought to be compulsory. Many more women want children than want all-consuming careers.

I didn't read all the comments so I may be the only one disagreeing here. Your comment here:

"I wish that men and women could choose children and know that the conditions under which they parent will be conducive to happiness. "

is the crux of my disagreement. What conditions are we talking about here? (that is a rhetorical question). Have conditions ever been perfect? Life is hard. Life is full of choices. Relatively speaking, this is probably the easiest time to raise children than any other time in human history. Are there some challenges? Ya. There will always be. One thing I don't do, is blame others (ie. government) for the conditions I am in and how it bares on my happiness. I have three children. I live in a small apartment. Both my wife and I work. It gets difficult and things are sacrificed. But we never sit around and pout that we are somehow victims of things beyond our forces and that the only way true happiness will be achieved is if government swoops in and provides me something. That's not happiness because inevitably, something else will cause unhappiness in which you will find something else to blame. Happiness is a condition of choice, even in times of some hardships or when it seems you haven't fully achieved what you wanted to on all fronts. 

In my opinion, in the end, it's a mentality issue, not a government one. 

Child care should cost more than college - at least because the ratios of providers to recipients is much much lower.  College education is not inherently more valuable than child care for pre-school aged children.  It can surely be argued that the quality of care in infant and toddlerhood has far more lifelong impact than any 4 years spent in higher education.  This is what women are up against, in their role as providers of child care, it is so devalued that even in a argument acknowledging that struggle, it is devalued again.

This isn't an invisible solution for "having it all" so much as it is a validation of "having the other thing."

And while I believe that childlessness should absolutely be a stigma-free
choice for women, it's not a solution for those of us who don't want to
be childless! It was a bit disappointing to read this post and find that
it only reinforced the idea that women can't have both a family and a career.

Thanks for this little-discussed perspective! I'm 23, unmarried and childless, and while my parents are supportive of things like my interracial romantic relationship, I can't help feeling that they would be disappointed if I don't have children. Not to mention my extended family, friends and boyfriend. I'm bad with kids and I really don't want any for myself, but there is a lot of pressure out there for me to do it. I hope when the time comes I'll be able to make my own decision without judgement. And I have to say, I have taken a flamenco class and it's really fun!

Well I already have kids, so that doesn't exactly work out for me, but even if it did that's kind of ridiculous.  I'm a gay woman.  If I were just to stop doing all the things that cause society to be stacked against me, I guess I'd have to start dating men again, or turn into one.

I don't make decisions based on what society will endorse or make easy for me, and even though I have two lovely children, I'm not too tired to work to make a difference in the world in favor of equalizing my choices and making things better for the current and next generations.

My husband and I do not have children and I appreciate your post for no other reason than that I enjoy seeing people write about this choice as a valid one. It is still fairly uncommon and there is much social pressure to conform to this norm. 

I feel sorry for children whose parents had them just because they thought they had to meed some cultural/social expectation. A parent should subordinate their desires to the welfare of their children OR they should NOT have children.

I fully support the individual's choice not to have children, and feel that this should be a legitimate and accepted life choice for women. I have friends who declare they hate children and would never have them. I haven't been raised this way, and I do want children, but I support their decision.

What concerns me is that whilst individuals have a right to choose - pursuing career, or family - collectively, as a society, we *need* children and the next generation to continue filling jobs in the workplace, particularly well-raised, well-educated children. We need them to keep the economy going; to support the aging previous generation, whether personally, through looking after their parents, to subsidising the elder generation's social security through their tax dollars. So it annoys me when single people complain about benefits that families get in society - families need the support to bring up the taxpayers of twenty-years time, to pay for your welfare state.

A decision of individual benefit can have collective negative consequences. Declining birth rates can be remedied with more liberal immigration, but this is generally unpopular. Otherwise, we need greater support and encouragement for the women who do choose to have children, and to recognise parenting as a social role just as important as having a profession.

Spoken as a twenty-three year old with no children. Don't throw stones.

I find the tone of this post pretty snotty and, sociologically speaking, both narrow and disappointing. Your advice is that we can't fix the problem so we should withdraw from it? Or, worse, that those who exit the system should then be the ones take over changing the system for those poor, poor parents who will be too tired to do so? That is pretty...offensive.

I am a very successful parent and I have a successful career. I work hard every day doing well at both and, at the same time, I work hard at changing the ideal worker norm so that it can ALSO include parents, women, and others who may not conform to its narrow description. And, by the way, I'm happy. Extremely. It's therefore comes off as pretty snotty to say, Alas, "I wish it were different" but, "I" --as someone who is child-free--just KNOW that you just can't be happy and have children. Cuz that's what the numbers (don't really) say. Wha?

In addition, while I understand that there is certainly a stigma against women (and maybe men?) who choose not to have children--which clearly needs to be changed--what you also need to understand is that parents--mothers specifically--come under attack ALL THE TIME for screwing up somehow: They are said to be over-indulgent and screwing up the next generation;  they are said to be too negligent so they're screwing up the next generation; they don't breastfeed enough; they breastfeed too long; they don't work hard enough and therefore help reproduce discriminatory stereotypes; they work too hard and neglect the children; and on and on and on and on. If you know the literature--the historical literature in particular, but also the sociological literature--then you would know this to be the case. It's disappointing to hear an academic reproducing this type of cultural mother-bashing.

Actually, the point that's missing from the entire debate is "why don't we have more men staying at home with their kids/doing the major parenting role?"  

I'm a SAHM by choice; never thought I would be, but I got to a certain age and point in my career where this was the next challenge I wanted to undertake. And maybe it's just my country (New Zealand) but the feeling is very much that women like myself are somehow 'lacking' because we're not working outside the home. I think this perception is because we don't value parenting/parenthood enough. And I think if changing attitudes to various professions have shown us anything it's that the more men there are in that profession the higher it's 'esteem' in the mind of the general population. Therefore, if more men chose to be SAHD's the view of parenting would change and we would see more 'answers' to the dilema of trying to have it all. Don't get me wrong, I think deciding not to have kids is a perfectly valid choice and one everyone should be free to exercise without comment from others. But I think it is seen as a much more valid choice these days than having Dad raise the kids while Mum works... and I think that's sad. 

Laura Sjoberg posted an interesting response to the piece over at the Duck of Minerva blog (http://duckofminerva.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/having-it-all-and-non-essentialist.html) about how "having it all" for women is often seen as career plus parenthood:  'the idea that motherhood is a key feminist issue and the idea that motherhood is a key part of femininity are different, but conflated often, and not only in Slaughter's article. Certainly, restructuring  society such that women can make the choice to be mothers and not both be expected to bear a disproportionate part of the personal and professional costs and suffer discrimination is crucially important to ending gender subordination. But so is restructuring society to deconstruct the assumed relationship between women and motherhood, where it isn't assumed women have to have (and succeed at) motherhood to "have it all" ...'

I've said it on this blog before, and will say it again.  Passing your genes on to future generations is the only meaningful accomplishment that there is.

Most people don't have trouble combing their career and parenthood, but combining the SHITTY JOB they have to do so that there's food on the table and parenthood. It's then incredibly insensitive to talk about the benefits of not choosing children. That's just not fair. If you identify a structural problem, you've got to work out a structural solution. Most young people simply can't afford having one partner staying at home and need those structural changes. There is discrimination against women who prioritize their career but that's a completely different issue.

I was really sailing along with you until this paragraph:  "Think about it.  The idea that women will feel unfulfilled without children and die from regret is one of the most widely-endorsed beliefs in American.  It’s downright offensive to some that a woman would choose not to have children.  Accusations of “selfishness” abound.  It’s a given that women will have children, and many women will accept it as a given."

Really? This is your solution? Because, while it works excellently for women who absolutely don't want children (and I support their desire not to procreate 100%) how the heck is this an answer for women who do want a fulfilling career and want children. Because I'm pretty sure there are plenty of women out their who genuinely want both. 

a-f&#$ing-men, Lisa - thank you!

"we’re crammed into nuclear family households"

wow, way to frame a discussion with newspeak. 

also, who is going to populate the world with progressive liberal children of tomorrow? You're ceding the future to the patriarchy!

In the 1980's and 1990's, when I was in my early 20's, I COULD NOT FIND A DOCTOR WHO WOULD STERILIZE ME!  Maybe such a doctor existed, but I couldn't find her/him.  There was also the problem of cost, as the procedure usually wasn't covered by insurance and I certainly could not have afforded it on my own.

I'm lucky.  I've had broken condoms and other birth control mishaps that could have led to pregnancy, but didn't.  At the age of 43 I finally got a tubal ligation. But I would have preferred to have done it at 23.

Being childless is certainly a valid choice.  But it's not supported by our society or our healthcare system.

Wait, I don't understand. I'm sure this is because I'm a Central Americanwho has lived all her life in a pretty traditional Central American family set-up (aside from being a snot-nosed 18 year old brat).

I completely agree that women should have their choice as to wether have kids or not or and to not have this as a given; but what I don't understand is why a nucelar family household isn't conducive to proper child care.

Although I didn't live in a nuclear family household (mother, grandparents, brother and uncles), they were all extremely busy people and as such, they didn't had time to care for me and my little brother so I might as well have been living in a nuclar family household with two working parents (or jut one, at any rate).

Surely they could send the kids off to a relative's house? I spent Sundays with my father and other gradmother, and Fridays my maternal grandparens looked after me and my brother. On occasions I would stay the afternoon over an aunt's or uncle's.

I can see how the above arrangement might not be suitable for people whose family don't live at an easy distance to drop off and pick up the kids (I got picked up by public transport, my mother would stand on the door on the proper bus stop coming from work and we would hop on when we saw her and she'd pay our fees), specially in the States since families tend to move over long distances to different states and such... But:

Couldn't the parents of a child's friend take care of them? Like, after school and such? I took accounting classes in my final years at school, and since it was too late to take the school transport I'd stay over my best friend's house until my uncle came to pick me up. In return I woudl help with the housework over there and help out with my friend's homework (i was best in the class!). And if her mother ever needed to go to a trip around my area she knew she could drop her at my place until she finished, same arrangement.

If nobody of my mother's preferred choies was available, my brother and me would stay over one of her friend's (night shift, so available in afternoons for us),  until she came and picked us up. This is pretty common in y birth country, althoguh most people would prefer their children staying over neighbours or family.

I'm not saying this is perfect  and that my country is full of wonderful and perfect parents (I bet they're feeling the same anxieties as American parents, after all), I'm just pointing out there *are* other options available to parents in nuclear family households that can give their kids proper chilcare.

(Of course, it can be just a cultural thing. I'm attending uni on a government scholarhip now over the UK, and although people love their kids as much as any other parent in the world and may mollycoddle them too much, they don't seem to value kids as a blessing but as a burden. Common complaints: they're not able to go on trips as nice as they used to, they have less expendable income, they take too much time... This is utterly baffling to me. Never heard that kind of thing before [sure, parents in my country complain about lack of money, but in the sense that they're not able to give their kids nice things, not about getting nice things for themselves]. They choose to have kids so... Yeah, still confusing. There also seems to be an emphasis more on giving kids "their space", even if they're 9 or 10, than on promoting close family bonds. I'm aware that this is purely anecdotical and based on stuff I've seen. Also, I'm not a professional.)

I find this response shortsighted and as incorrect as saying 'why not just have kids and not work!?'.  While it could have been framed as a simple pointing out of an option that is not presented, it instead comes off as passive aggressive against women who have or want to have children.  I am in neither of these categories, which is why I am commenting.
Saying 'don't have kids' is as much a 'solution' to the problem of the modern woman as saying 'don't have a job, just have kids'.  It's a reversal of mores, which is equally inflexible as the original idea of the presupposed 50s notion of the stay at home non-working mom.

I consider myself lucky that I have no feelings towards having children, nor was I raised in a family where there was pressure towards having them.  Yet, just because I and other child-free women feel free to focus on my child-free future, does not mean a 'solution' is at hand for the larger population.  I'm used to a higher quality of ideas being presented on this blog.

I am beyond annoyed by this overly simplistic solution. Frankly, my knee-jerk response was much ruder than what others have said. The author appears to position the decision to be childless as almost an activist response to societal constraints, which makes sense on first reading.

However, as others have said, the 'solution' gives those who are already parents no recourse. Following the logic, those who do have children have only themselves to blame. Finally, the overall message and logic is no different from self-protective stances which position threadbare claims to truth by defending against open debate, suggesting that life choices are an opt in/opt out dichotomy: "USA: like it or leave it"... "if you don't like racism, you can stop reading the forum." No thinking person accepts this as rational debate. Similarly, saying 'don't shoot the messenger' is a puerile defense that does not offer or invite informed debate; it invites slings and arrows.

Shouldn't we, as a society, work to value all of our members, regardless of their age and work to support all of them (elderly, baby, middle age, teenager)?  By saying that the silent solution is just to be childfree and therefore not take on the trouble of never doing any particular job good enough, doesn't that refocus our attention back to part of the pressures that cause women to never be good enough to begin with?  "You chose to have these children; you deal with the societal pressures."  - Alone.  Not my problem.  I didn't choose to have them. 

Umm...no the "ism" is societal and can be combatted at that level. 

Thank you for posting this. As an electively child-free woman, I am often confronted by the double-standard that my choice is somehow a less valid choice. It is implied that I am necessarily "against" parents or that I must dislike children. I made the decision long ago not to have children because I knew it wasn't what was right for me or the potential children, and, by extension, for society as a whole. I finally had myself sterilized shortly before my 30th birthday and it's still one of the best decisions I've ever made. Thank you for giving people like me a voice, and for humanizing us.

Before I go and read any of the other comments ... I just wanted to provide my anecdata. I grew up in a home where my parents were really glad to have children, and where family life was not always easy, but always ultimately a pleasure. And I was confident from a young age that if I wanted to have children, I would be up to the challenge. But I also remember from fairly early on in my teens observing that I could not picture being able to establish the kind of family and parenting life I would want (and thrive in) in modern America. And that if I couldn't picture doing that, I didn't feel like it was worth becoming a parent (and living stressed out, resentful, etc.). 

I'm lucky (?) enough that my desire for children is fairly neutral, and my fiancee's is actually actively not interested. So for us, the decision to forgo parenting is not a very fraught one. It means I can focus my "parenting" energy on supporting those of our friends who have children do the parenting they want to do, without the stress of trying to fit my own round-peg parenting into the square hole of American life. 

So this is my long way of saying thanks for this piece, and I concur with you that one fully legitimate option in response to the shit environment for parents and children is to say: Not interested, given the circumstances. (And then hopefully roll up your sleeves and try to make the world healthier place for everyone, children and parents included.) And I don't think this is a lazy, self-centered, or petulant decision, nor is it borne of denial. Instead, I'd argue it's a practical exercise in making realistic decisions about resources, family well-being, and priorities. 

"there are lots of great things to do in life… having children is only one of them." I really liked that line, but this article really aggravated me. This is not 'An Invisible Option in the Aftermath of Slaughter's "Why Women Can't Have It All."' This is a different subject trying to ride the coat tails of Slaughter's piece. It should be called "You Don't Have To Want It All". Slaughter was clear about the demographic to which she was referring: women who wanted children and high end careers, and had the finances and education to make it a realistic option.

Obviously there's nothing wrong with not wanting to have kids, but in that case you don't suffer from the issues Slaughter is trying to address. The presumption that the reason Slaughter was told that writing her piece would be a “terrible signal to younger generations of women” is because having children is compulsory is wrong. It was because it would be demotivating.

If you want to have children, then not having any doesn't seem like a good way to 'reject a lifetime of feeling like they’re “always… failing at something.”' I think the idea of not being able to have it all means the conditions under which they parent will not be conducive to happiness is another false presumption. That's like saying if you don't get your dream job then you can't be happy.

FWIW, I think a lot less people should have children, for reasons ranging from parental (in)competence to global population, so I totally support that idea.

While reasonable accommodations for flexibility for EVERYONE is ideal in the workplace, ultimately, managing the "work-life balance" that I keep hearing so much about is the responsibility of the employee and no one else. There comes a time when people have to stop asking for "support" from literally everyone else and actually take some responsibility for their own life choices, their compatibility to each other, and the consequences of those choices. If a person's lifestyle and goals do not fit their jobs, then they must either change their jobs or accept that they must change their lifestyle and reevaluate their goals. There are ALWAYS trade-offs in life. Adults should be able to accept this inconvenient fact and manage their lives accordingly. No one should expect a life totally devoid of difficult choices and sacrifices. That's not realistic.
As someone who is childfree and has had to fight for my right to be such, I can say first-hand that choosing to be forever without children is denied by many as being a valid choice at all. You can't be childfree. You must have children. You're a bad person if you don't have children. You will be forever miserable if you don't have children. The sad thing is just how many people believe this and don't realize that not having children really is an option, and a satisfying one. I wish more people could see not having children as an option, that it should be visible.
Today it seems that people treat parenthood as something that they just are, as if it were something one is born with like race or inevitable like age, and that it's somehow cosmically unfair and someone else’s fault if that if it conflicts with their other choices and goals. If people were aware that parenthood is a choice, maybe they'd be less surprised when that choice causes conflicts in their lives and would be more likely to take responsibility for the effects.
Having children is a major lifestyle decision with far-reaching consequences that effect nearly every single aspect of a person's life. People should be prepared to accept and deal with this or realize that having children might not be a good idea for them.
 
I really hope this all makes sense to someone besides me. I have a terrible headache right now.

I wholeheartedly agree (I am a mother of 2, so I've already made my choice!). I also would second the last comment you made about working to change the system. One of the things I find most frustrating about the whole situation is that because childbearing is quasi-compulsory, it often becomes us-vs-them between parents and childless, I would say in the workplace but really about everywhere. I think it is particularly counterproductive in the workplace because some of the gripes the childless have about parenting coworkers could be mitigated by more family-friendly labor laws and workplace policies. 

Ultimately, I don't think anyone would suffer from having work be more life-compatible, parents could parent better and the childless could do more flamenco dancing... 

Yes, the choice NOT to have children should be more visible in the discussion as many people, both male and female, are making that choice.  I have never wanted children and am happily childfree.  My career is important, but that not "tradeoff", for me.  I wanted to be able to pursue other interests/passions in addition to working to support myself and prioritize my relationship with my partner.  That's what we decided to do and are happy because it works for us.  I am vocal about my choices, especially when it is implied or asked or judged against me that I am selfish for not having kids or missing out on some womanhood thing.  I fully support efforts towards overall structural changes that would allow ALL workers of any gender, parents and nonparents, to have a more sane work/life balance.  We all need time and space in our lives for other things.   I'm glad to see the structural barriers being acknowledged and the conversation moving beyond the tiresome "mommy wars."

Well shit. Too late for me. Wonder if I can return him>

This is wonderful! I'll have conversations with parents that have nothing to do with children and somehow they will turn it into everything to do with their children. Then when I polietly let them know I can't relate they reply with some stupid remark like, "one day when you have children" or "just wait when you have children". And then I respond, "I won't". But they continue to pursue the idea that it is just a matter of time before my mind and my life changes. I wish I could rip out my uterus right there just to spite them. The ending paragraph in this article are the reasons I'm not interested in reproducing. I want to live in a tiny apartment with just me and my cat and maybe a boyfriend or a girlfriend. I want to take impromptu trips, I want to write, and I want to change people's minds about the expectations of women in this country.

If you want to change the system, you need to have children and raise them to create the system you want. I know there are other ways to make a difference, but raising little humans may be the best way to make a difference. I'm a feminist ( and a homeschooling stay-at-home mom) and I'm raising 3 little feminist. And quite frankly, I'm proud of that!

I don't think remaining childless is the solution. Sure, lots of women don't want kids - including me - but the women who do shouldn't have to suffer for it. It's not just feeling like a failure, it's that mothers are less likely to be hired, get a raise, or achieve a promotion just because she's a mom. Mothers are seen as risks to corporations, even when studies have shown many mothers can do more work in less time than any other worker - I guess they're used to multitasking? 

And ALL women are punished because some are mothers. It may be illegal to ask if a job candidate wants kids, but people still ask. And no matter what your answer is, it's not correct. Either you'll leave for motherhood, or you just don't know yet that you'll leave for motherhood. And that's something men aren't asked. Fathers are even rewarded with higher salaries because they are "family men". 

So, maybe staying childless is a short term solution for ambitious women. But it's not the real solution for our society, where all adults should have an equal chance for a great career - children or none. 

Thank you for this piece. I also think it important to discuss the other side of having children, namely, the children themselves. Your piece focuses on the impact on the would-be-parent if they choose to have children or not. But the ethical implications of bringing a child into the world, and of the life that child can be offered, those also need to be discussed. The cultural imperative of having children impacts not only the struggling parents, but also the children themselves - it is their future that is at stake. Here is a thoughtful discussion from this perspective, an opinion piece in the NY Times by Christine Overall, "Think before you breed" - http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/think-before-you-breed/.

Believing that a person's only valuable contribution in life is in passing on his precious DNA seems like a very entitled, particularly male, way of thinking. I hate to break it to you, but unless you clone yourself, your precious DNA is going to be adulterated by the mother of your fantasy children.
Would you tell those who cannot reproduce to just kill themselves now to end their pointless lives?

I wholeheartedly agree with the opinions expressed in this article.  (Thank you for finally speaking this taboo out loud, Ms. Wade.)
The notion of pronatalism—defined as a strong social force meant to encourage childbearing--is so entrenched in our culture that people don’t want to even reconsider the idea that one is SUPPOSED to want and have children.  And so, like lambs being lead to the slaughter, women grow up believing that their plans must include children even when they are driven to succeed at a career.  (For the sake of clarity, let’s note that there’s a difference between a job and a career.)   Conversely,  those of us who have thought it out carefully and chosen not to have children are considered selfish.
It’s idealistic to “have it all”, not realistic.  I highly doubt that any high-ranking male executive has won any father of the year awards, so why do women expect to?  If what you REALLY want is to have children, then prioritize that and focus your efforts there (children don’t deserve half-assed parenting—after all they never asked to be here, their parents made that choice for them).  Likewise, if you REALLY want a career, then prioritize that knowing all it will entail—travel, overtime and lots of stress.  (Hard-working souls may not like these aspects, but they realize that’s the price they have to pay for moving up the ladder—no one makes them do it.)  And so it should be with parenting.  If you see parenting as the very important, serious job that it is, accept it and stop whining about the fact that you can’t balance a demanding career along with it.  Put it this way, if you REALLY wanted to make that trip to Europe happen, you would prioritize your spending and saving, wouldn’t you?  So why do we assume that becoming a parent is just something that should happen and that it should come without effort and sacrifice?  By the way, all of this doesn’t apply to just women—it applies to men, too.
While we’re on the topic of fathers, I also agree with Ms. Slaughter’s take on choosing the right partner.  It’s true that much of the burden of parenting falls unfairly on the mother’s shoulders.  However, if women spent more time finding a mate who truly respected them as an equal, that husband/father would have a hard time sitting back watching his partner carry the full load and would be much more involved.  (Besides, does no one get a sense of what kind of a spouse/parent their partner will be prior to marrying them?!  It really isn’t that hard to take note of how much responsibility they share with you in everyday living BEFORE saying “I do”.  Or is it that women still buy into the notion that “he’ll change” after marriage??)  Regardless, there’s also that old adage of “you teach a person how to treat you”.  I can’t tell you how many female friends I’ve watched in new relationships doting on their man, making sure he knows she’ll be a good little wife and take care of him, as she should.  Then, a year into marriage, they’re complaining about how he never picks up after himself or does anything around the house….that’s when I can’t help but snicker.  I mean, what did you expect when you taught him that you’d take care of domestic stuff from day one?? 
I’m digressing a bit into a discussion on equality, and I don’t mean to be putting the entire burden of this issue on women—I think we can all agree that men need to step up in terms of changing their attitudes and behaviours—but women do need to acknowledge their responsibility in effecting change.   Sure parents are raising their daughters in a way that encourages them to understand their true potential beyond gender stereotypes, but I don’t think much of that is happening with sons.  Be honest, parents, when it comes to household chores, do you expect the same from your sons as you do from your daughters?  I’d be willing to bet that a glimpse into a typical household would see the girls performing traditional domestic duties, while the boys continue to be the mowers-of-lawns and takers-out-of-garbage.  What frustrates me is the ensuing paradox of attitudes:  Why can’t my husband wash the dishes?  Do the laundry? Dust the house?  Hmmm…..well, if it was never an expectation, we can’t expect miracles, can we?  Women who complain about carrying too much domestic burden, do the next generation of women a favour and raise your boys to be the kind of husband you wish yours was.
Ultimately, the debate about having a career vs. having children really isn’t about gender, it’s about making life choices conscientiously.  In a nod to the men out there who do think progressively, I can see them already working toward this reality.  I had a colleague who halted his (very good) career to stay home with his children while his wife worked.  And I know of many other young men who are acknowledging that being a good father to their children is important to them and they’re scaling back on work hours and career ambitions in recognition of this.  We need to understand that it’s not a shortcoming to recognize that you can’t be everything to everyone.

I don't believe Slaughter ever engages the argument that women are expected to have children. It is completely valid to choose NOT to have children, but that isn't the subject matter her article is dealing with. Her article is dealing with the discrepancies between being a working father and a working mother and, how, even with all of the advancements made on behalf of women, this issue is still glaringly unbalanced. As Saba states below, it isn't very often (and never in my circles) that you hear a man torn between work and child-rearing; it is still predominantly mothers that struggle with this.

It is a bit naive to go from acknowledging this imbalance to the assumption that a good solution would be not to have children at all. I am a parent and am very happy to be one. So is my husband. We very consciously chose to have a child and wouldn't change that decision for anything. I don't think the choice should be between being a parent or being personally fulfilled. These realities can coexist if there is proper support in place; something that (and I believe this is one of Slaughter's main points) does not yet exist. 

Again, Slaughter's article doesn't deal with the option of not having children because the thesis of her article is predicated on the fact of having children. 

I think this article is about 15-20 years behind the times.  Women for two generations have been making the choice to NOT have children and are leading happy, healthy, fulfilled lives without them. 

And, the reality is, that children need someone to raise them and, overall, they do better if that is their own parent (either mom or dad).  Grandparents aren't bad, but even the best, most affordable day care in the world can't replace the influence of Mom or Dad being around MORE than just for an hour before school and a couple hours in the evening before bedtime.

thank you, lisa. i wish more people would talk about this issue.

While it's true that our society is hostile to families and children, the advice to simply not have children is horrible, horrible advice.

As intensely social animals we are biologically hardwired for family life. Family life is the most fulfilling and meaningful form of living. Nothing else compares, even remotely.

Our struggle is to get our society back on track toward cherishing this basic truth about human life, not give up and choose a life of serial hobby-making.

I have been encountering this idea on internet feeds and the Atlantic magazine and I have many objections to the idea.
1. The writer seems to assume that women who have children never considered childlessness, she lists it as an "invisible option" . I find this frankly insulting. After all, those of us who desperately want children or have children tend not to be people who star on "I didn't know I was pregnant". Many of us have considered not having children and we want kids.
2. It's an easy opt out. Oh, the government doesn't support you having children. Don't have kids, blame the evil government. How does that solve the problem of merging childcare and career? It doesn't. While, Wade can argue that childless people ought to lobby the government on behalf of those who have children, inevitably many childless people will use the extra time saved by parenting to buy video games and explore different countries. These are wonderful aims in themselves, but they still don't solve the problem.
3. I am kind of irritated with these studies people keep pointing to, " having children is associated with a decrease in happiness." As we all know from frontiers of science, correlation is not causation. Children don't necessarily make parents unhappy, maybe costs of childcare do. Furthermore, I'm not sure the study proves much. After all, I am almost 20 and have no children and I'm pretty happy, but I plan to have children in the future. I know that not having children in the future at perhaps 40 would make me incredibly unhappy. Researchers need to differentiate people who never had children and don't want them from people who happened not to have children from people who plan to have children in the future. Otherwise, the study is pretty moot and proves nothing.
4. Children are a sacrifice. It's pretty (dare I say sexist) , to frame this entire debate from the female point of view. Your choices only exist because others choose to sacrifice so that those choices can exist. If you are a stay at home mom, your husband is working overtime to ensure that you have a good quality of life. Isn't it a bit sexist to assume that he wouldn't like a little more time with the kids? If you are a career woman, like slaughter, your husband is taking care of your children so you can go out and make that difference in the world. If neither you nor your husband is willing to sacrifice for your kids, they will grow up deprived of parental involvement, affection and economic things they need. They will sacrifice for you and end up doing poorly in school or "acting out" emotionally. Maybe this debate about "having it all" in a family is a moot point. You cannot have it all. Maybe, we as women, have to realize that sometimes, sacrifices must be made. Let's all grow up.

Or Just don't marry. Or just don't pursue a career. I think you are missing the point of the article.

One word: AMEN. 

"Don’t. Have. Kids."

Done!!

Totally disagree with op. You CAN have it all, as long as it's with the right partner, someone who's willing to be egalitarian and take on an equal load of the child-bearing. Hell, my dad did most of my mom's share, and they both were able to have careers while raising two kids. 

So if I have kids I shouldn't have a career? If I have both I can't change the system? I can change the system with or without. By telling us women having children will damper our abilty to fight is like supporting the idea we can't have a career. Thanks for comforting me that I don't have to have kids, but you simply have the wrong back up. Good for you for speaking up, but this sounds more like a journal entry than an arguement.

I'm CF because I'd die before giving the rest of this century to my baby, especially if I'd have a girl.. so then in 30 or so years she could get the sick pressure I've gotten from my in-laws to make a baby for them?  They've told me I should be dead, their friends have fought with me when they caught me out by myself, I'm no longer invited to their Thanksgiving, I stay home alone all day.. which is fine, considering how sick I've gotten over the years of their pressure.  I don't have anything against kids, I just pity them.  True most of the lucky 1st-worlders I'm surrounded by will always be kept fed and warm.  But millions more will go hungry, thousands dying each day, animals going extinct, oceans dying, mountains leveled for coal, forests cleared to grow grain to feed to cattle for fat Americans to eat.  I don't know anyone who thinks realistically of the next 80-90 years when they're looking at a cute little innocent baby.

Perhaps instead of changing our individual preferences (yes, some women do WANT a career AND children!), we need to change the system which only allows us to successfully choose one. Childcare should be centralized, affordable and easily available. As well as domestic services, like housework, cooking and grocery shopping. These privileges should be available to all, not just the rich! All people should be able to tend to their children without their reputation at work suffering. All people in the US should have more than... 0 weeks of mandatory maternal leave. The problem isn't women 'taking on too much', the problem is a system which does not allow us to 'have it all'. 

Being now in my early 60s and having lived a childfree life, I can say I have zero regrets.  My DNA simply isn't all that interesting or unique that it needed propagation and given my own upbringing, I was determined that I was not going to engage in what Matt Groening referred to as an eternal game of "pass it on" in one of his early "Life in Hell" comics.

On the other hand, I've had more time to devote to my profession, which has been involved in various forms of scientific research, from astrophysics to neuroscience (yeah, I'm something of a generalist) and I'm happy to say that I think I've made a contribution or two, small though they may be, toward the understanding of what makes the world and this critter we ostentatiously call Homo sapiens sapiens tick.

Compared to the alternative living hell of sippy cups, juice boxes, and Cheerios in the car seat, I think I came out at least breaking even.

I'm finding rather interesting the overtone of defensiveness from the "I want to have children and the problem is with society's support for that decision, not in my choice to have them!" set.

Having children is and will always be an exercise in difficult trade-offs, and expecting to have your cake and eat it too is like electing to share your house with 10 cats yet not wanting any offensive odors or clawed furniture.  Some would like to paint it as society's problem, but hey, from a purely "societal" perspective it would seem far more logical that the bias should be *against* having children until the world's population tips back to something approaching equilibrium and the already unwanted children in orphanages and temporary foster care are adopted.Ooh, and I can just see the knees jerking in reaction to that assertion already!  I see them jerking because very little in this debate has anything whatsoever to do with the application of logic.  What we see in the comments section are instead the products of some rather deeply embedded emotional programming (both biological and societal) for procreation, and until we are able to look more dispassionately at the subject, and from an over-arching "do we really NEED more children in the population at any given time?" perspective, we're just going to keep having an emotionally charged and ultimately futile debate punctuated by periods of intensely draconian population control similar to what China has been practicing for the last few decades.

Can you imagine any other subset of human population where it would be acceptable to say that you "hate dealing with them", calling them brats, saying that living with them would make life a "living hell".

"Childree" people always seem to frame their choice against parent's choices and completely forget that the children are people as well, and deserve to be treated with the same level of respect, tolerance, and understanding that you would give to any other demographic.

Instead of asking if its right for parents to have flexibility, ask if these people (children) have a right to have someone available to take them to the doctor when they obviously can't drive themselves. Do these people have a right to a decent level of education, and a safe environment?

The CF movement loves to talk about comments that people make about them, and yet they turn around and say some of the most vitriolic horrible hate-filled things to people who live a different lifestyle than them, often framing their choice as the "superior" one. I don't care if someone doesn't have kids. That's their choice. And they should be allowed to have it. But its not a superior or better choice - its just a choice.

And no - I'm not going to refrain from ever mentioning my kids to someone who doesn't have them. Just as I'm not going to refrain from mentioning my husband to someone who isn't married, or my house to someone who is renting. I don't really "care" about hearing about coworkers latest golf games, or the time it rained on their bike ride, but I certainly don't mind that they are telling me about a part of their life, and I appreciate that they are conversing with me like a person.

BOY this article and the comments generated are the type of lightning rods that people love to throw out to stir things up.!!! I am 40+ and I grew up in a home with a working mother and father.  My mother had one of those careers that many women with children had.  She was a teacher.  My father was a minister.  He had a lot of control over his time and he was good about picking up many of the responsibilities that my mother would have to take care of such as cooking, transporting, hair styling, shopping, and school activities.  Neither one of them looked on these things as "his or her" duties.  The crap just had to get done.  I admit that I followed this pattern when I got married in that my husband and I just gravitate toward doing the stuff that needs to get done.  My husband is career oriented and so am I.  Now the one thing that I would say is that if you want to set up a two career family, the more children there are the harder it will be.  Having two kids means that my husband and I can divide and conquer.

People, have kids if YOU genuinely want!!  Stop letting people get you all panicked about this stuff.  Understand going in that it will be a bit tougher.  Pick and choose your battles.  Maybe a high-powered career is not optimal when your kid is 3 years old, but may be doable by the time he turns 9.  So keep up professionally and get ready to make your move when the time comes.  Also create a strong community.  Choose friends that understand this game and each of you pitch in to help each other.  I've got good friends who are also career oriented with kids who will fill-in picking up and dropping off for me just as I will for them.  We even feed each others' kids as needed.  Get your extended family to help.  Enough of this individualist, Lone Ranger, suffering saint B*(($#!+.  Not a license to take advantage, just a means of making the system work.  And finally instill impeccable behavior in your kids early on because you might have to take them along with you when you are trying to get stuff done.  People usually don't mind well-behaved kids that can sit and entertain themselves for at least 45 minutes.  My mother trained me early to play with a puzzle or toy or look at a book.   This of course is not to downplay situations with kids who have special needs.

Sometimes your efforts will fall far short but sometimes things will work out surprisingly well.  Learn to laugh at the foibles and work to do better tomorrow.  In the meantime keep fighting to make the workplace better for all.

Peace.

THANK YOU.