Women Without Kids

The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood

Ruby Warrington, Sounds True (MAR 28) Hardcover $28.99 (208pp), 978-1-68364-927-4, FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS

Part memoir, part feminist manifesto, Ruby Warrington’s Women Without Kids concerns the reality of being childless today.

After years of fielding the question of when she’d have kids, Warrington started digging into the social norms that dictate the pipeline from girlhood to puberty and motherhood. Her book addresses the crux of the matter from cultural and environmental lenses; it examines each angle of motherhood and childlessness alongside current and historical touchpoints on the subject. It discusses the “Motherhood Spectrum,” the line that childbearing people land on from “affirmative yes” to “affirmative no,” with a list of questions to determine an individual’s own position. It shows how origin stories—and the generational trauma of mothers along one’s family tree—influence the decision of whether to have children. And it dives into evolving ideas of gender, sexual, and reproductive identities, showing how recent revolutions helped people to eschew the common notion of a mother. Its final, most powerful point is that of legacy: children aren’t all that we leave behind.

Each chapter opens with quotes from childless women and nonbinary people around the world who answered Warrington’s survey about their decisions on motherhood. Some never wanted children, while others had the decision made for them by biology or circumstance. Warrington shares her own story, too, discussing her divorced parents, her disabled younger brother, and the realities of climate change. And mixed throughout the chapters are thought-provoking questions, such as “Which choices, big and small, have you made for your life that have influenced your reproductive outcomes?” to guide people in making their own decisions about motherhood.

Women Without Kids is a feminist exploration of being child-free, treating that decision as one of empowerment.