The secret society of childfree women

"Am I going to get in trouble for saying this?"

I was recently invited to a secret society of childfree women.

Like all good secret societies, the invitation came through a whisper network, sparked by a chance encounter at a bar.

I was there with a group of new friends when the conversation turned to fertility. I started telling the story of how a botched egg-freezing experience helped me finally come to terms with the fact that I didn't want children.

Afterward, a woman pulled me aside. We’d been sitting across from one another, but hadn’t exchanged names. She introduced herself as Sarah Saturday.

"We have a group you should join," she said.

Sarah sent me the information. The invite-only group was hosted on the video messaging app Marco Polo, which I hadn’t used since insisting on it as proof-of-life from my parents during the pandemic. I rushed home, immediately re-downloaded it, and clicked the invite link. I was in.

•••

I’d never wanted children. Not as a little girl, not when I was married, and certainly not now. Still, I always just assumed I would have them. In my family and in the religious South where I grew up, motherhood felt like the default. Childless women were often presented as the object of pity — or even (and all too recently) a target of scorn.

Motherhood felt like such an eventuality, in fact, that I even went through a round of egg freezing post-divorce. A truly remarkable act of cognitive dissonance that I’m still working to untangle.

Even if I had let myself admit that I didn’t want kids, in my close circle, I had almost no examples of what a joyful childfree life looked like. Sure, I had my go-to celebrity examples (Tracee Ellis Ross and Dolly Parton, duh) but where were these women in my day-to-day life?

If they existed then they, like me, had been staying quiet about it. And it’s very difficult to imagine a life you haven't seen modeled.

•••

When I opened up the group, called only Letters, it was already dozens of videos deep.

You know that feeling when your favorite show drops a new season? Or when you find a podcast that is so perfectly suited to your niche interests with a backlog of hundreds of episodes? That’s how I felt about this group.

I spent the entire day catching up. I watched while I ate, while I worked, while I cooked. I took them with me on hikes and walks. I listened to them like a podcast while I drove. I hadn’t realized how desperate I had been for this kind of community.

The women were mostly older than me — in their 40s and 50s to my 30. They were Southern, Canadian, sober, queer, married, single, artists, hairdressers, and CFOs. They all had different, distinct reasons for their choice, but they were all happily, gloriously childfree.

In the privacy of Letters group, strangers revealed the intimate and vulnerable details about their lives, relationships, and decisions. They shared their uncensored thoughts in a way that felt revelatory to me. It’s a gift to hear someone else speak aloud the things you’ve only ever let yourself think.

When I sat down to record my video intro, it was the first time I’d ever said the phrase "I don't want children" out loud. Not "I don't think I want children" or "I don't want children right now" but "I don't want children." No asterisk or caveat.

Rewatching my first video now, I can see how nervous I was. I was so used to hiding and hedging this fact about myself, even (or especially?) with myself.

My voice goes up at the end — “I don’t want children?” — like I was still asking permission.

“Wait, am I allowed to say this?”

I wasn’t the only one who felt nervous. In the beginning, almost everyone said some version of: “I feel like I’m going to get in trouble for saying this.”

Even in the safety of this private group, there was a sense of looking over our shoulders as we confessed things that we’d kept private for so long.

The decision to be childfree, and the process of reaching it, can feel immensely lonely. For some, they discussed with a partner, but it was ultimately up to each of us to decide.

Before now, none of us had a place to talk about it, not in detail, and not with dozens of other women who felt the same way. We were giddy with relief.

“I’d love to be a parent — if I could be a dad.”

For most women in the Letters group, their main reasons for remaining childfree aren't just the free time or financial independence, but a reckoning with the outsized physical, emotional, and domestic burden put on mothers. The lack of a social safety net, the climate crisis, and reproductive rights are regular topics of conversation within the group.

Being childfree by choice isn't a judgment against women who decide to be mothers. It's an act of solidarity with them, a recognition of the pitiful ways that our country cares for them, and an attempt to begin building communities that support mothers by not expecting them to shoulder all the burdens alone.

"Because I don't have kids, I can _____."

In the privacy of the group, we were not only able to finally admit our decisions out loud, we celebrated them. We sent each other videos from artist retreats, from Mexico, from airports, and over coffee in our quiet homes on Saturday mornings.

There were the obvious benefits, already associated with the selfish stereotypes of childfree women: Because I don't have kids, I'm getting a massage on the beach in Bali, I can sleep in until 11 a.m., I can spend all weekend in my art studio, I can travel the world.

But this group also surfaced deeper reasons, ones that make headlines far less often: Because I don't have kids, I can be a companion to my elderly neighbors. I can be a mentor to my sponsees in AA. I can manage my chronic health condition. I can nurture myself and others.

In these conversations, we were able to honor all the parts of ourselves we were unwilling to abandon to give motherhood the energy and attention it necessarily requires.

“People always tell me, ‘You’ll change your mind one day.’”

On Mother's Day 2024, my phone was blowing up. E, a Letters member, was finally getting a hysterectomy after decades of intense pain from endometriosis, which doctors dismissed for years.

Even once she was diagnosed, doctors delayed the option of surgery because she was still of prime child-bearing age.

Multiple women have used the Letters group to find support, get (and give) advice, and talk about their options when their medical professionals were questioning their decisions, saying things like "You'll probably change your mind," and "What if you meet a partner who wants children?"

As women, we are used to having our decisions doubted and dismissed. So much so that we begin to dismiss and doubt them ourselves. I'm a prime example of that, attempting egg freezing rather than trust the thing I’d always known to be true about myself.

But now we have a community to back us up. The day after her surgery, E posted an update to the group, beaming. We all confettied her video with likes and hearts.

•••

This past weekend, the Letters group gathered in person for the first time.

We came together in Nashville for the launch of Sarah and Tarri’s collaborative art project, called ”Letters to Our Unborn Children: An Exploration of a Woman’s Decision to Remain Child-Free by Choice.”

Walking into the gallery, which was hung with pink and blue balloons like a baby shower, it was surreal to see both the artwork and the real-life versions of my Marco Polo friends come to life.

Based on their survey of nearly 100 childfree women, Sarah and Tarri had created paintings for each of the 12 archetypes of childfree women they identified, representing the diverse reasons that women choose this path. Some examples:

The Nurturer directs her caring instincts toward uplifting her community, forming meaningful connections and supporting others in ways that honor the spirit of motherhood without bearing children.

The Realist: Pragmatic and grounded, the Realist acknowledges the practical challenges of motherhood, choosing a path that aligns with her personal well-being and honest understanding of her limitations.

The Seeker: Driven by a quest for self-discovery, the Seeker views her choice to remain childfree as essential to exploring life’s possibilities and fully embracing her own journey.

For each archetype, they composed a letter on canvas using actual lines from nearly 100 survey responses, addressed to the child she chose not to have.

photo by Danielle Shields

At first, I’ll admit that I was conflicted about the idea of writing “Letters to Our Unborn Children.”

I resented the implication that, even as someone who was childfree, I still had to contend with a hypothetical baby. Even the term “childfree” is sticky to me, since it continues to define women without children by their relationship to motherhood.

But when I really thought about it, it was true that I had spent a lot of time over the years thinking about this imaginary child. They had been with me since childhood: from when I was a little girl handed the white-picket-fence dream, when I was married and discussing it with my partner, and when I was going through fertility preservation just to hedge my bets — still not trusting myself to know what I wanted.

In that weird way, I did have a relationship with this child that never existed. Maybe it wasn’t so ridiculous to think of what I might say to them.

It wasn’t until the show, seeing the paintings and letters in person for the first time, that I understood what that message would be. It came from The Voyager, speaking to the child she chose not to have:

You helped me find myself, and I am so grateful for it. 

The process of finally admitting, first to myself and then to this community, that I don’t want children has been a powerful part of finding myself. It has required untangling old beliefs about my identity, claiming my real desires, and imagining a different future for myself.

Through their honesty and candor, the Letters group helped usher me into a more expansive understanding of what lives are possible.

For that, I am so grateful.

Love,

Lane 💋

P.S. For all my talk about this group being a secret, we welcome new members! Reach out if you’re interested.

photos by Danielle Shields

photos by Danielle Shields

photos by Danielle Shields