From consciously child-free influencers to online communities for people who have decided against having children, the no-kids movement is booming – but so is the backlash. Marcela Munoz, a 27-year-old small-business owner from Kansas, is one of a growing number of influencers producing content to validate why they never want to have kids. She runs Childfree Millennial accounts on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, celebrating her child-free lifestyle through carefree posts.
Munoz says the main reason she is child-free is simply a lack of desire to have children. She also believes kids would interfere with her passions for spontaneous travel, football training and regular lie-ins. In one of her recent posts, she jokes, “if you have baby fever take a nap, if you enjoyed that nap don’t have kids”. She contrasts her life with that of parent friends who complain about sleep deprivation and sickness.
While deciding against having children is nothing new, a trend for owning the ‘child-free’ label and discussing that choice more openly is picking up pace. Online communities and support groups for child-free adults have mushroomed in the past couple of years. However, researchers argue that societal acceptance and understanding of the choice to live without kids is shifting at a much slower pace.
The term ‘child-free’ has existed since the early 1900s, but feminists began using it more widely in the 1970s to denote women who were voluntarily childless. The suffix ‘free’ captures the sense of freedom and lack of obligation. Most academic research has typically lumped all people without children together, but Elizabeth Hintz, an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut, says this doesn’t reflect the very different experiences of child-free and childless people.
In the UK, a 2020 YouGov study suggested that more than half of British 35-to-44-year-olds who haven’t had kids never plan on doing so. Reasons for choosing to be child-free are wide-ranging, with some people knowing early in life, others coming to the decision later, and some flip-flopping. Ciara O’Neill, a 31-year-old social media manager from London, puts herself firmly in the first category, having always known she didn’t want children.
