The Right to Chose Not to Have Children (and Enjoy It)

Recently, Chelsea Handler, comedian, actress, writer, producer, and current stand-in for The Daily Show released a short comedy video about the joys and perks of being childless. As with most comedy, the laughs were in the exaggerated content but it also touched on truths.

“It’s amazing what you can do when you have this much free time,” Handler concludes in the view, before adding, “And that’s a day in the life of a childless woman.”

Posted to social media on February 10, the video has gone viral with over 6.7 million views, and has created a firestorm of debate, effectively highlighting how entrenched our societies’ views on women/females and parenthood remain. Conservative pundits mocked Handler and degraded her, referring to her as self-serving, hedonistic, narcissistic (and unloveable), while many other commenters on her video seemed to take her choice not to have children as a personal attack, defending the choice to have children as the best choice someone could make.

However, while many people’s attitudes have not changed about having children, many have–people are making the choice not to have children more and more frequently. Although the majority of Americans have or want children, some 44% of non-parents ages 18 to 49 say it is not too likely or not at all likely that they will have children someday, according to a Pew Research Center Study.

The choice to have a child has tremendous ramifications for the parent (and the world) as…