Having Children: A Moral Imperative?

I recently read Leslie Ashburn-Nardo’s research article, Parenthood as a Moral Imperative? Moral Outrage and the Stigmatization of Voluntarily Childfree Men and Women, and came away disappointed. 

I’m already concerned that I am being judged for my decision not to have children. Why should anyone feel outrage towards such a personal decision that in no way impacts them or society? 

Before I continue, let me point out that this article was written in 2016. Society changes, sometimes in only one generation. It’s entirely possible that people’s views about child-free living have softened over the last eight years, and child-free living is becoming more acceptable.

In the study, 197 psychology undergraduates (147 women, 49 men and one undeclared gender participant) at a large American Midwest university were randomly assigned to evaluate a married male or female persona who had chosen to have zero or two children. The median participant age was about 21 years. Most identified as white, 20 as Black, nine as Hispanic, seven as Middle Eastern, 11 as other ethnicities and four did not report race or ethnicity. Prior research had shown that an interest in having children was highly desirable for both women and men (although somewhat more relaxed for men). It was found that an interest in being a parent was both a typical and obligatory interest.  

Ashburn-Nardo's research showed that parenthood status predicted a person’s perceived psychological fulfillment. Child-free personas were perceived to be significantly less fulfilled than those with two children. Participants also reported significantly greater moral outrage toward those who elected to be child-free. Of note, there was equal stigmatization for male and female child-free personas.  

The researcher concluded that the finding that child-free people were perceived to be less psychologically fulfilled was partially explained by the study participants’ moral outrage in reaction to them. 

Without getting too deep into the psychology research, backlash theory was used to explain the social sanctions applied to the child-free. The author stated: 

Specifically, given cultural stereotypes that prescribe an interest in children for both women and (to a somewhat lesser extent) men (Prentice and Carranza 2002), perceivers feel justified in negatively evaluating those who violate their expected parental roles by choosing not to have children. 

I would love to see this research replicated in a workplace setting. Does the moral outrage at the child-free impact decision-making at work? Can this moral outrage be explained by the imbalanced assignment of travel, task assignments, and less-than-prime shifts to the child-free? At the very least, perhaps it is what employers rely upon to justify the imbalance. 

My takeaway is this: significant work remains to normalize the choice to be child-free. CFW2 is my effort to help with this cause.

After all, why should the very personal decision of whether or not to have children elicit any response in another individual?

Alysia Christiaen

Creator of CFW² and a child-free woman.