What's my stake in the future if I don't have kids?

Why you might be asking this question - and how to answer it

Photo by Kalen Emsley on Unsplash

In recent weeks, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ womb has been the subject of a fierce political and media debate, following the resurfacing of remarks made by Donald Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, in 2021, in which he claimed America was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies” and that people without children have no “direct stake” in the country’s future.

His comments sparked an understandable backlash, along with some insightful responses from the childless and childfree community, which I’ll refer to later in this piece.

But before I do that, I have a confession to make:

As a 53-year-old woman without children, I’ve questioned whether I have an equal stake in the future as people, especially women, with kids.

In fact, as other childless and childfree voices forensically dissected Vance’s words and staunchly defended our worth, I sat here comparing my value to those who have produced offspring.

Now, the last thing I want to do is give ammunition to Vance or to anyone else who wishes to diminish the lives of non-parents.

But my writing has always been about telling my truth, about sharing my experience to help others and about seeking to understand the inner workings of my mind and heart, including the icky stuff, by putting these inner workings into words.

So here I am, showing up as me, hoping it’s safe to do so (since childhood, showing up authentically has felt risky).

My thinking defies logic

I know it isn’t logical to think that parents are more valid or have more rights than non-parents - to think that one human is better than another.

I also know that Vance’s argument doesn’t stack up in the light of history, because not a single U.S. president has given birth and many former U.S. presidents, including “Founding Father” George Washington, didn’t have biological children, as Cassandra Good wrote in The Atlantic.

I know that campaigners, politicians, leaders, teachers, coaches and other individuals the world over work tirelessly to support future generations, to bring peace to conflict zones and to heal our ailing planet, even though they don’t have kids of their own.

I know that childless and childfree women have had an enormous influence and impact on the world, from Rosa Parks to Florence Nightingale to Frida Kahlo (a particular heroine of mine) to Oprah Winfrey.

Those women cared/care.

And I know that I care, about young people and all people, about the future, about the planet, about having a positive impact; about leaving a legacy for those who follow on behind; and about making a difference, in my unique way (which won’t include giving birth and bringing up a child).

I know all this and yet there’s a flicker of a doubt, a nagging question, or a series of them:

Do I have the same value as a mother?

Do I have the same rights as a mother?

Do I feel as deeply as a mother?

Do I care as much as a mother?

Do I have the same stake in the future as a mother?

And I want to understand why I ask these questions and help you to understand why some of you do the same, if indeed you do.

I want to understand where the belief that I’m ‘less than’ comes from, and by doing so, I want to grow in self-awareness and heal some of the wounds that have been around since my early life, and, perhaps, spread some healing too.

Why I sometimes feel less than

I believe there are two main reasons why I question whether I have an equal stake in the future as women with kids.

The first is more surface level and relates to external messages.

The second runs much deeper and is connected to internal messages, which ultimately have their root in the external messages I picked up as a child.

Let’s start with the surface reason.

As a childless woman, and also a woman who was mostly single into her early forties and unmarried up to the age of 48, I have been bombarded with suggestions - some subtle, some less so - that my life doesn’t count as much, that I’m on the periphery and that there’s a club I don’t belong to.

Could she be enjoying the single, childfree life? Photo by Amos Bar-Zeev /Unsplash

Politicians lead the way with this messaging, with their talk of ‘hard-working families’ (so prevalent during the 2024 British election campaign and during Covid) and their reminders of the actions they’re taking in the name of ‘our kids and grandkids’ (why not just say ‘all people’?)

Other leaders follow suit, be they in the public eye or not.

I remember attending a women’s gathering at a church some years ago and, as an unmarried 40-something female without children, feeling instantly excluded when the leader opened the event by asking the attendees who was looking after their kids that Saturday morning.

“Have you left them with your husbands, or with the grandparents? And isn’t it wonderful to have a few hours off family life?” she said.

I almost walked out there and then. If she’d been campaigning for office, she’d have lost my vote in a flash.

Then there’s the phrase as a mother, sometimes used by women to convey their distress at an awful event - a phrase that implies to the childless or childfree that motherhood affords a sensitivity, a depth of emotion, a level of grief, upset or compassion that isn’t available to those who haven’t given birth.

It is true that I don’t have a daughter to draw to my bosom when I hear about the tragic death of a girl or young woman (as in the recent fatal stabbings in Southport, England) and I will never know how that feels, but I am a sensitive soul and I am equally as horrified when bad stuff happens, so much so that my nervous system sometimes shuts down as a way to cope.

On a lighter note, I’ve attended many gatherings of women where the chat centres around their offspring, leaving those of us without kids staring at our shoes or reaching for the canapés.

I value free speech and I’m not saying I wouldn’t go on about my children if I was a parent. After all, I talk about my dog a lot with other dog owners. But I know that if I were in a room of dog owners and there was a person there who didn’t have a dog, I’d be sensitive to this person’s presence and I’d try to steer the conversation in a more inclusive direction, rather than leave them on the sidelines, twiddling their thumbs.

And finally, when I hear that children make their mothers feel ‘complete’ or ‘whole’, I can’t help but assume that I am incomplete - that there’s something missing from my life.

I repeat, I’m a sensitive soul and if I keep hearing hints, from many different quarters, that I don’t belong to a club or that maybe I can’t feel to the same extent or that I’m defective somehow, I’ll take that to heart.

The child who felt wrong

But this point leads me to the deeper reason why I question my stake in the future, because not every childless or childfree person will be impacted in the same way by Vance’s comments or by the hints I mention above.

For some, they’ll be water off a duck’s back.

In my case, they get stuck in my feathers - not as much as they would have done years ago, but still a little bit.

The difference comes down to our inherent self-esteem. It comes down to self-worth. It comes down to the messages we picked up as a child.

For me, it comes down to developmental trauma - growing up around alcoholism and dysfunction, feeling like there’s something wrong with me because I can’t connect to the adults who are supposed to care, feeling like I’m faulty, unlovable, like I’ve done something wrong, feeling like I’m on the fringes, on the outskirts, and will always be.

So the surface reason (the messages I receive from society) compounds the deeper reason (the inherent low self-worth) and I’m left questioning whether I’m equal to others, whether I have the same right to be here, the same stake, whether I deserve to take up the same amount of space.

This feeling then gets projected onto my status as a woman without kids as its an easy target.

The good news is that this awareness of my childhood wounds and my susceptivity to feeling less worthy, while painful to note, changes everything.

This awareness empowers me to see my ‘less than’ thinking for what it is - the legacy of a challenging childhood, a wound that took root early on, a negative core belief that made me vulnerable to society’s messages about those who are single (as I was for many years) and childless (as I am now - although I’ll come back to the childless/childfree label in another post as my story is complicated, as is yours).

And when I see that thinking for what it is and affirm that it wasn’t mine and isn’t mine, I can rise above it and leave it behind.

How to feel enough

When I start to feel like I don’t belong or that there’s something wrong with me or I feel triggered by the words of Vance or his crew, I can remember to challenge the core belief, to process, grieve and heal that early life wound and to champion my worth and value.

I can remind myself that while I don’t have biological children, I have made and continue to make a difference to other people’s lives, contributing to their healing from addiction or codependency or self-harm or attachment disorders through my life and my work.

I know my writing has touched many people - I’m only just getting started here on Substack (watch this space) but I have a book, eleven years of blogs, numerous media articles, a novel that’s almost finished and two other non-fiction books that, once published, will support others on their healing journey around childlessness, self-love and trauma recovery. I have a purpose and a hugely important one, as you do too.

My job now, our job is to champion ourselves, celebrate our worth and keep living courageously - to be all that we were meant to be in this world.

We don’t have to prove ourselves. We don’t have to make a bigger splash than parents to make up for the fact we don’t have kids. There is no recompense we need to make. I don’t feel that at all.

But I do feel a strong desire to step into my power, to heal my wounds, face my fears, use my voice, show up authentically and have a positive impact.

Dissecting Vance & Co.

I’d like to close with one of the most powerful responses to Vance that I’ve come across in recent days - a response I wish I’d been able to deliver myself, rather than be pulled down the road of questioning my stake in the future.

It’s by Katy Seppi, founder of the Childless Collective, and you can view it on Instagram here. If you don’t have Insta, I’ll summarise her points for you:

• The suggestion that people without kids don’t care about future generations is a reflection on the person who said it. What you’re saying is that you don’t care about anyone except for your kids and it’s only your kids that make you care about the future

• The comment that our lives are miserable without kids (the statistics say otherwise, by the way) suggests that you can’t imagine experiencing joy and fulfilment without children, so this is another reflection on you

• Since 1 in 5 people don’t have kids, heading towards 1 in 4, there’s at least a 20 percent chance that your kids won’t have kids, and you are therefore sending a message to your own children that they aren’t as valuable or valid if they don’t procreate; you are undermining their worth; diminishing them

Thank you to Katy and to all the other voices who have scrutinised and dismissed the words of Vance and others and spoken up for the childless and childfree.

With the help of these uplifting and affirming voices, and by continuing to cultivate my own positive inner voice, I can keep healing the wounds of my early life, own my unique journey and take up my rightful space in this complex yet beautiful world.