As Mothering Sunday approaches in the United Kingdom, one of its top tabloids is pushing the narrative that there is “resounding” evidence that women who remain childless are the happiest people in society.
Despite facing an ageing population and the supposed spectre of demographic declines, which much of the political and media class insist can only be mitigated with indefinite, record-breaking mass migration year on year, high-profile articles pushing the “child-free” life are commonplace.
The supposedly right-leaning Daily Mail‘s latest offering, published shortly before Mother’s Day, which is celebrated on March 25th in Britain, focuses on several white women in their forties and fifties, as Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures reveal that a fifth of British women are now still childless at 45.
“[A]re childfree women happier?” the article’s writer asks, quickly answering her own question by adding that it “might not be what you want to hear just before Mother’s Day, but research from the UK and U.S. suggests that the answer is a resounding yes.”
“It shows that women who don’t marry or have children are consistently the happiest group in the population,” it claims.
The banal pleasure of travelling abroad was frequently cited as the jewel in the crown of the “child-free” life, with one non-mother, Vicki Prais, emphasising that she had “travelled the world, meeting so many interesting and inspiring people, many of whom are young women. I coach them and feel passionate about helping them — they are like my surrogate children.”
The human rights lawyer, who suggested that attending “a hothouse school which encouraged girls into careers” may have had “an influence” on her childless lifestyle, insisted she “could never have had the life I’ve had while having children. I can work long hours and the world is my workplace” — before once again emphasising that she has “seen so many countries and lived abroad.”
Travel blogger Janes Hawkes was equally keen to emphasise that she and her partner “both have jobs we enjoy and have travelled the world, taking trips to faraway destinations like the Caribbean, South Africa and the USA.”
Another childless couple is described as living in “a beautiful detached house with a large garden [and] enjoy[ing] several foreign holidays a year.”
“Life is good,” the Mail writer chips in.
Inevitably, climate change appeared to figure as a factor in the decision of at least one of the featured women — “as the United Nations predicts the Earth’s population will breach 8.5 billion by 2030, some just can’t face bringing a child into an increasingly crowded and polluted world,” the Mail helpfully explained — with 45-year-old divorcee Helen Campbell telling the newspaper: “One of the major factors in my decision never to have children is environmental issues.”
“I can’t imagine trying to think what the best eco-friendly nappies would be or what food I was going to feed a baby — that’s so daunting. Not to mention adding another person to the population of the planet,” she fretted.
Such concerns are not limited to Britain, either, with climate-related fears cited by some in a poll that found that around a third of French women now do not want to have children at all.