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The Long History of Not Being a Mother
Narrator
Marguerite Gavin
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Length
8 hours 2 minutes
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“This history of 'not being a mother' provides not only powerful historical context behind the decision not to have children - whether that’s because of career goals, lack of financial or familial support, environmental concern, infertility…or just because you want a life without them - as well as a crucial reminder that non-mothers are not a modern invention (and we’re not alone), with added encouragement to make kin, even if you’re not making babies. ”
— Megan • Underground Books
A historian of gender explores the complicated relationship between womanhood and motherhood
In an era of falling births, it’s often said that millennials invented the idea of not having kids. But history is full of women without children: some who chose childless lives, others who wanted children but never had them, and still others—the vast majority, then and now—who fell somewhere in between. Modern women considering how and if children fit into their lives are products of their political, ecological, and cultural moment. But history also tells them that they are not alone.
Drawing on deep research and her own experience as a woman without children, historian Peggy O’Donnell shows that many of the reasons women are not having children today are ones they share with women in the past: a lack of support, their jobs or finances, environmental concerns, infertility, and the desire to live different kinds of lives.
Understanding this history—how normal it has always been to not have children and how hard society has worked to make it seem abnormal—is key, she writes, to rebuilding kinship between mothers and non-mothers and to building a better world for us all.
Peggy O’Donnell Heffington is an instructional professor of history at the University of Chicago and teaches on subjects ranging from feminism to human rights. Her writing can be found in Jezebel, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Boston Globe, and elsewhere. She received her PhD in history from the University of California, Berkeley.
Marguerite Gavin has recorded over three hundred audiobooks in numerous genres. Her work has won AudioFile Earphones and Publishers Weekly Listen-Up awards as well as a nomination for the prestigious Audie award. AudioFile magazine says "Marguerite Gavin is an accomplished storyteller . . . with a sonorous voice, rich and full of emotion, she easily delivers wry humor and moves smoothly from accent to accent, recalling multiple characters perfectly." Gavin divides her time as an actress between the sound studio and classical theater. She lives in the Washington, DC area.
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Reviews
“Desire, doubt, destiny—there are many reasons for the shape of a family. With clarity and compassion, O’Donnell Heffington offers a timely, refreshingly openhearted study of the choices women make and the cards they’re dealt.”
“At once bracing and beautiful, Without Children is a timely meditation on all of the reasons why women increasingly can’t, don’t, or won’t have children—and the feminist solidarity we can all build together, whether we have children or not. I was intrigued and carried along for the book’s length by O’Donnell Heffington’s lyricism, thoughtfulness, humor, and panache.”
“Without Children is the rich, nuanced history of women without children that has been missing from the discourse. O’Donnell Heffington skillfully avoids the trap of pitting women without children against mothers, while showing how the choice to have children has historically been dictated by—you guessed it!—the patriarchy. A necessary book, whatever your parental status is.”
“A woman with children is a mother. A woman without children has no name. Without Children, written with warmth and insight and layered with deeply personal stories, tells us this woman in fact has many names, faces, and identities—all worth knowing.”
“I devoured this book. O’Donnell Heffington is the rare serious historian who writes with verve and humor, bringing to life the big, hard questions of history that illuminate the present. Without Children is a signal contribution to the historical field and a vivid series of stories that are alternately shocking, funny, and inspiring.”
“Historian Heffington’s incisive debut examines how society demonizes women without children while increasingly failing to provide the supports that make it possible to raise kids sustainably…A cogent and well-supported polemic.”
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