In the opening minutes of the Netflix movie Private Life, Rachel (played brilliantly by Kathryn Hahn) remonstrates to her husband, Richard (played by Paul Giamatti) about the morality of bringing a new life into this world. “Having a baby is an immoral act,” she says, and proceeds to list some of the reasons: “Overpopulation, climate change, rise of neo-fascism”. This exchange takes place while Rachel is preparing for a procedure at an IVF clinic and her outburst is clearly intended to be rhetorical. If there is one constant in the movie, it is Rachel’s conviction that she wants to be a mother.
I must admit, my wife and I picked Private Life as our weekend watch expecting it to be a light-hearted take on a serious issue. In our defence, the trailer is packed with scenes designed to extract a chuckle and at least one of the reviews referred to it as a ‘comedy’. I do not expect everything labelled as a ‘comedy’ to be rambunctious or slapsticky. I enjoy the understated, ‘slice-of-life’ movies that are not necessarily funny, but are typically classified as comedies. The Fundamentals of Caring and 50/50 are a couple of examples of what I mean. We started watching Private Life expecting something similar but about a quarter of the way in, we realised it was more intense than what we had bargained for. Perhaps a part of this feeling could be ascribed to the subject matter of the movie: a couple’s increasingly desperate attempts to become parents. Of late, the world seems to be moving in the opposite direction.
Over the past decade or so, a conscious decision to be ‘childfree’ has been gradually gaining adherents across the world. Nearly half of the participants responding to a Pew Research Centre survey (2021) in the US, said that “it is not too or not at all likely that they will have children someday.” A similar survey in the UK (2020) found that of the participants who were not already parents, more than one-third did not want to have children. If we turn our gaze eastwards, we see China and Japan grappling with population crises and plummeting birth rates. Of course, there are other, more complex reasons at play in these countries as socio-economic factors often dissuade people from having children1. Such cases, where people may want to have children but are forestalled by externalities, are obviously different from people freely choosing to be childfree.
While I was researching on this issue2, I came across a paper which analysed the decision of a few Indian adults who had voluntarily chosen to be childfree. Some of the observations were predictable: the subjects for this study were professionals from urban, middle or upper-middle-class households. Interestingly, they also exhibited “relatively lesser religiosity”. Although the sample size for this study was quite small (only 18 “heteronormatively married.. couples”), its findings matched the trends I have been observing in my own social circle. Since childhood, the normative life-path of a typical adult was defined as getting a job, getting married and having kids (in that specific order). Each of these steps was considered inevitable in the relentless march towards adulthood. But now, this map for adulting is slowly being eschewed by people who want to chart a different course.
The decision to be childfree may stem from a variety of factors. It could be environmental altruism - a 2017 study found that having one fewer child could drastically reduce a person’s carbon footprint by 58.6 tonnes of CO² annually. It could emanate from concern about the quality of life our progeny may have, as climate change continues to wreak havoc on our planet. Considered from a financial perspective, raising a child is an expensive affair and requires careful planning and realignment of priorities. Also, as my wife often points out, the process of childbirth itself takes a massive toll on the physical and mental health of women, that many may not want to go through. It could be all of these or any number of other reasons that leads someone to this decision. And truthfully, there is also the matter of pure self-interest. Being a parent means making fundamental changes to the way you live. These changes have always been accepted as a natural, in fact, necessary part of life; but I have often wondered: why?
Needless to say, such a predisposition is far from being accepted as a norm. The paper I referred to above as well as my own observations are based in the urban milieu and cannot be treated as representative of Indian society in general. Even within this urban milieu, expressions of our (my wife and my) decision to be childfree is almost invariably met with surprise and a bit of disdain. “You are too young now”. “You will change your mind later”. “You are ugly and stupid”3. And so on. Women, as with everything else, have to deal with a larger share of these unwelcome insights since the entire world is obsessed with their ‘biological clock’. A column in last Sunday’s Indian Express examined how the decision to be childfree can weigh more heavily on women. We live in a society where it is still considered unusual for a person to not be married by a particular age - as if living alone must necessarily equate to being unfulfilled in some way4. So naturally, a married couple being childfree is inconceivable to many. In the face of this overwhelming societal conformity and the biological imperative to procreate, it is difficult, sometimes, not to harbour doubts about choosing to be childfree. Which brings me back to Private Life.
As I watched Rachel and Richard (both in their 40s) wring themselves dry emotionally, physically and economically in their quest to have children, I couldn’t help wondering if a similar fate could befall us, maybe 10 or 15 years from now, if we ever changed our minds. These were discomfiting thoughts but then I remembered another Netflix movie I had watched recently: The Lost Daughter.
Masterful as always, in playing the role of the lead character Leda, Olivia Colman (and Jessie Buckley, as the younger avatar) portrays a side of motherhood rarely seen in movies. She loves her daughters and yet leaves them, when she finds the pressures of parenting stifling her sense of self. She eventually returns and when we meet her in the movie, Leda is in her late 40s and insistent on asserting her individuality, her own identity. She does not regret any of her choices, whether having children or abandoning them; and given a second chance, she would not change a thing. Recalling Leda gave me some solace. Nothing in life is ever certain and it is futile to lose sleep wondering if we will find ourselves in Rachel and Richard’s shoes in the future. All we can do is have conviction in our beliefs and live the way Leda did. Knowing that every decision we take is the one that feels right and necessary at this time, and trust that our future selves would agree.
In China, particularly, the declining population was triggered by the one-child only policy imposed in 1980, in a remarkable attempt by the State to control the population of the country. Recent policy reversals allowing Chinese couples to have up to three children has ironically (and perhaps unsurprisingly) not found many takers, given rising expenses.
Yes, I take this newsletter very seriously. Besides, you don’t survive 11 years in a law firm without learning how to Google stuff.
Okay, maybe this one does not have anything to do with being childfree but I personally get this a lot.
I get incredulous looks when I tell people I like going out for a meal by myself. Presumably, they cannot stand their own company.