SELFISH, SHALLOW AND SELF-ABSORBED 

MEGHAN DAUM

Book Review

“To be or not to be” is a plight of fix which we all get into, with every single circumstance we deal with during the trajectory of our life.  Ultimately, when it comes to the question of having issues, at least for some of them, children literally mean “issues”. Getting into the churning rhythms of cultural conversation of the twentieth century, “deliberate fertility crisis” has hit the roads of culture to an exorbitant rate with the past two decades. Quite often the couples who decide against having children had been criticised so sharply by the mainstream mechanisms in society that they ultimately are made to fit into the category of being Selfish, Shallow and self-absorbed”. It is in such a scenario that the writer and the essayist Meghan Daum comes up with her most extra ordinary non-fiction. Published in 2015, Daum’s book entitled “Selfish, Shallow and Self absorbed discusses sixteen essays by sixteen writers who had decided not to have kids. 

Daum begins by contemplating a variation of Tolstoy’s famous happy families line from the opening of “Anna Karenina : People who want children are all alike. But people who don't want children don't want them in their own ways. Daum combines sixteen essays by sixteen writers from varied geographical locations which makes them meet at one common point - their decision not to have kids. The main concern begins with whether having children had moved from a requirement to an option. Thirteen female writers who had eschewed motherhood and three male writers who had decided not to have kids, splash out their justifications to argue against having children.

As the society holds the general notion that a childless life is equivalent to unfulfilled life, these essays portray the thought process of the “childless by choice” group. Daum argues that the term “Child-free” itself is derogatory. It looks exactly like the other terms like corruption-free, toxin-free etc. Nevertheless, Daum opines that deciding against children doesn't always mean a hatred of children. On the other hand it is their simple thought that they aren't interested in a concept of having one’s own child. According to a public notion, people are classified into two - parents and non-parents. People belonging to the category of “Parents” had always been termed as matured and responsible where as the “Non-parents” are always seen as jerks or grown up teenagers where they lead a carefree life with lots of immaturity and irresponsibility. The writer raises her strong voice against this misconception where by the general categorisation turns out to be absolutely wrong. However, all these writers depict different reasons behind their choice of being childless. 

Courtney Hodell, the famous essayist strongly believes that she doesn't want a future regret and thus abstains herself from motherhood. She remembers her partner’s words to her “The world has enough people. You and I need not add to them.” Another writer Laura Kipnis begins by quoting Shulamith Firestone. Firestone says “Child-bearing is barbaric and pregnancy should be abolished”. Kipnis remarks that “If men were to deliver, they would have replaced this mechanism long back”. According to Kipnis, the greatest innovation of the modern world is not the electronic gadgets or the networking systems, but the invention of contraceptives. 

Kate Christensen believes the power of her “solitude” and has thus decided against having kids. The glorification of Motherhood alone doesn't seem appropriate for Christensen. As long as the concept of Fatherhood doesn't come into limelight, the concept itself is disappointing, she says. A mother-child relationship, apart from being biological is more or less historicized and fictionalised as per Christensen’s notion. 

Sigred Nunez quotes the great examples of the literary figures like Bronte sisters, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson and many more who were childless. Nunez argues that “motherhood’ should be something which should be a choice given to any woman. As Anais Nin opines ‘Motherhood is a vocation like any other. It should be freely chosen, not imposed upon any woman.”

Another essayist, Dyer sarcastically says that “People raise kids because they want to always emphasise how hard it is”. Anna Holmes on the other hand considers herself and believes in the “Me-Myth” which makes her decide against kids. Thus the varied arguments against having children seems both weird and amusing though it retells another perspective of the thought mechanism in which they are moulded. 

The language of the text is simple and epigrammatic. It deals with reasons and experiences of the sixteen writers which shaped their strong decision in not having children. A child indeed is a link between a man-woman relationship and can definitely nourish and feed to the roots of the relationship. Even then, these essays take you to a world where people exist - people who had discarded parenthood deliberately for reasons of their own. The book ultimately will not influence you in not having kids, but at least to think about curbing the number of kids you plan to have. These essays once again take us back to the Californian motto of “One is crime, two is ideal and three is crime “. 

A. Krishna Sunder