Will You Be Mother?: Women Who Choose to Say No

by Jane Bartlett

Book Overview

Women are taught from the earliest moments of life that motherhood, along with marriage to a man, is a natural state to which they should aspire. From dollplay as a child to nagging questions of when am I going to become a grandparent as one gets older, the societal pressure to procreate is constant and intense. What then, of women who choose not to have children or are unable to have children? How do they respond to a society and to families that...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814712452
• ISBN13: 9780814712450
• Release Date: March 1995
• Publisher: New York University Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

An in depth and fair exploration of the child-free choice.

I highly recommend this book for any woman (or couple) who feels unsure if they want to have children. I think that Ms. Bartlett offers a lot of support for the child-free lifestyle. She interviews women from all walks of life who have chosen to remain child-free. She interviews young and old, professional and working class, lesbians and married heterosexual couples. Her interviews range from women who love children and participate strongly in the lives of friend's and relative's children to women who simply don't like kids. She covers all of the reasons we are told to breed by parents, friends and society and breaks apart the myths. I particularly liked her section that deals with "who will take care of you when you are old?". The issue is a complex one and the interviews in the book unfold to reveal a sensitive and realistic viewpoint. I highly recommend this book.

Honest, refreshing and badly needed

How delightful that someone has finally had the guts to say it. MOTHERHOOD IS NOT COMPULSORY, AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU IF YOU DON'T WANT KIDS. Jane Bartlett invterviews women of all ages and from all walks of life who have decided that parenting is not for them, and explores their reasons, their lives and relationships, and the pressures they face in our heavily pronatalist society. The most important message of this book is that it lets women know they have a choice and that it is a valid choice even if it's not the one most people make. Jane Bartlett points out that having a baby is a huge and lifelong committment which changes your life forever, yet many people put less thought into it than they do into buying a house or a car, because childbearing is accepted as an automatic part of being a woman. Well it doesn't have to be that way. Not every woman wants that committment or would make a good mother, and that's nothing to be ashamed of. The woman in this book are intelligent, thoughtful and have made valuable contributions to the world that don't include putting more people on an already overcrowded planet. Let there be more like them!