The article under the headline “More women like me are

choosing to be childfree. Is this the age of opting

out?”highlights the issue of becoming childfree nowadays.
The author begins with a story about how difficult it is to be a
parent. She deliberately replaces the word "child" with the
word "ostrich" to avoid immediate condemnation, because
people are used to make a lot of preconceptions about her
when they hear that she does not want children. She often has
to hear words like, "You'll change your mind," "You just don't
understand," and so on.
But the author proves her point of view and presents statistics
according to which the birth rate in the USA has extremely
decreased over the past 35 years. The reasons for this are
different. One of them was the coronavirus pandemic, due to
which most of the author's friends firmly decided not to have
children. On the other hand, statistics show that thanks to
immigrants the birth rate does not decrease so much.
Next, the author focuses our attention on the economic status
of the country, and how strongly it affects the upbringing of
children, because in most developed countries child support is
extremely expensive.
The climate situation strongly influences the decision to have
children. According to a New York Times research in 2018, a
third of Americans consider climate change to be an important
factor in their decision to have a child. The author ask her
friends and students, and they see climate change as a valid
argument, moreover students are generally not sure what will
happen when they graduate.
One of the most important factors when deciding to have
children is the problem of overpopulation of the earth and its
pollution by people. According to the author, no one pollutes
the earth like us.
The article deals with studying the factor of childlessness
through the lens of history. Examples of the fact that women
were divorced from men, as well as beaten and considered
witches, serve for this.
Moreover, women who deliberately do not want children are
called selfish. To dispute this, the author states that, firstly,
each person knows better what he/she wants to do with one’s
body, and secondly, person can take care not only on children,
but also friends and family members.
Therefore, the general opinion about childfree today is
negative among most people. This is based on moral values in
most cases, but the author emphasizes that the absence of
children in life does not feel like a lack of something, but on
the contrary, it allows her to feel alive.