Childfree, Childless, or In-Between: The Impact of a Single Question
QUESTIONS THAT CUT
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to move through the world as a woman living without children, and how often that part of your identity gets questioned, dismissed or misunderstood.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting in a nail salon, making small talk with the woman beside me. The kind of casual exchange we’ve all had hundreds of times.
She asked if I lived nearby. I said yes. She noticed the rings on my finger and asked if I was married. I said I was.
Then came the next question, almost predictably: “Do you have kids?”
I answered honestly: “No, no children.”
She paused, looked at me quizzically, and with a raised eyebrow, smiled wide and said, “Well, not yet.”
FROM PAPER CUTS TO WOUNDS
I’ve thought a lot about that moment lately, not just because of the last question, but because of all of them.
These small, seemingly benign comments aren’t neutral. They carry weight and assumptions about what a woman’s life should look like…
From partnership to marriage to motherhood — a linear arch that’s still considered culturally normative.
In the seconds after that brief exchange, I noticed how my body responded. My heart fluttered. My chest tightened. My mind raced with a dozen possible replies.
Should I tell her my age?
Should I reassure her that I’m perfectly happy?
Should I share with her my private personal journey; telling her the long, tangled story of my own maternal ambivalence one that includes grief, shame, self-doubt, and eventual acceptance?
Instead, I said nothing. I smiled politely, changed the subject, and moved on.
And yet, the moment lingered.
For women without children whether that’s by choice, circumstance, biology, or somewhere in the complex middle, the question “Do you have kids?” happens again and again, like holding up a mirror without your consent.
Sometimes it’s in the doctor’s office, framed as reassurance “Maybe you’ll change your mind”, even when your body, or internal clarity says otherwise.
Sometimes it’s a casual comment at a wedding, a family dinner, or a holiday party: “You’re so lucky you don’t have kids. You must get so much sleep, or have so much free time”, or any other assumption about what your life looks like.
Sometimes it’s at work, where parenting becomes the assumed common ground.
Sometimes it’s on Mother’s Day, when you can sense the pity behind the awkward way someone offers you the same greeting on behalf of your pets.
At best, these experiences are papercuts.
At worst, they cut deeper; reinforcing feelings of sorrow, loss, shame or the subtle suggestion that your life is somehow less than, incomplete or even wrong for not having children.
NAMING THE PATTERN
As I reflect on this experience, it feels important to name it doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
All around us, people are navigating identity-based micro-aggressions on the basis of gender, race, queerness, disability, partnership status, body size, and so much more. Many of us hold more than one of these identities. And often, the harm isn’t in a single question, but rather in the slow, erosion of being unseen or feeling the need to explain, defend, and justify.
Or, like I did, shrinking smaller in response to the cumulative pain these papercuts carry.
WHAT WE’RE NEEDING INSTEAD
At a recent Our Sister•Ship sauna gathering in Seattle, one of the women said something while we were sitting between rounds of heat and cold.
“It just feels so nice, and safe to be in a space where I know I won’t be asked if I have kids.”
Everyone nodded, a collective sigh of understanding rose into the warm, steamy air.
Since launching this community, I’ve had the gift of hearing so many women’s stories.
Some who are proudly childfree,
Some who navigate the world well aware of the poignancy of their grief,
Some are still sitting in the uncertainty; wondering whether parenting will be part of their story, or untangling the complicated in-between spaces.
Yet, across the spectrum of experiences, a common thread emerges:
The world doesn’t quite know what to do with you when your life doesn’t follow the expected path.
The dominant script tells us that the arc of womanhood moves from partnership to parenthood. That “family” means children. That if you’re not a mom, your life is missing something essential.
And, it feeds us a set of disparaging messages and insults, like the tired trope of “the childless cat lady” - which suggests women without children must be lonely, sad, or somehow less worthy.
So for so many of us who do not have children, the simple question of “Do you have kids”, isn’t just a question — it’s a reckoning:
It evokes the pain of what was longed for but never arrived.
It presses on a choice that feels constantly misunderstood.
And, it shines a light on lives shaped by identity, systems, and circumstance —many of which never offered the ‘privilege of choice‘ to begin with, whether due to infertility, queerness, gender identity, or economic barriers outside one’s control.
TOWARD A NEW CONVERSATION
So what would it feel like to move through the world to have to explain, justify, or defend your wholeness?
What could it feel like when the full and complex range of a woman’s experience is held and honored, and a path that does not center parenthood is seen as valid (or better yet honored) without an asterisk?
I think so many of us are ready for a new types of questions that don’t center around assumptions. Here’s just a few that I love:
“What’s been lighting you up lately?”
”Tell me something you’ve been enjoying recently?”
”What’s most important to you when you’re not working?”
For those who are looking for a space where their story is honored, your life is seen as whole, a space where you don’t have to shrink or explain the tender places you hold dearly, then welcome.