Sophie Gage

Is it selfish to choose not to have kids?

Ask who actually does the elder care in childfree families, because the answer is instructive. It is usually a sibling who did have kids, stretched even thinner, or it is paid care workers, overwhelmingly immigrant women, doing the intimate labor for low wages. The 'independent' childfree old age is very often just outsourced dependence, with the cost pushed onto people with fewer choices. There is nothing inherently wrong with paid care. But the narrative of total self-sufficiency is a fiction, and the fiction is load-bearing for the whole identity.