Too much is made, in my view, of being unable to control what other people think and say about you. It’s a trifling inconvenience that Caroline Magennis has managed to turn into both a book and an article in The Times today, on her experience of being a woman without children or regrets.
Being childless myself, I’ve never had cause to be grumpy about others’ idle chat or casual queries on the topic. Ever surprised and grateful to be the subject of anyone’s conversation. I have, on the other hand, felt compelled to consider the statistical miracle that brought my wife and I into the world — and together.
A fair estimate of the probability of a pre-named sperm meeting a pre-named egg is somewhere around 1 chance in 40 billion. Then there’s both my parents. That’s the probability of winning the UK lottery 4 consecutive times, with a single ticket each draw. Grandparents? 10 consecutive lottery wins. Great-great-great grandparents? 87 consecutive lottery wins. But that’s just my lot. Then there’s my wife’s. And all that’s without parental meeting contingencies. My wife and I were born 5,000 miles apart and met in a bar in provincial England. That’s not in the model.
Us voluntarily childless can make a fanfare of our right to terminate that chain, but the real question is whether the right outpaces our responsibility not to.
We, and the growing number like us, are busy enough and happy enough without children. This is the reality of middle class life in a developed economy: the chief victim of its success is its prospect for survival.
That I’m entitled to have such a great time without kids should pass without comment. But it’s a vice that both culture and policy should unite against, not celebrate. Others contributing to the species’ survival are right to question it.
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